Re: proposed changes to the venue reservations at SMSU
On Thu, Jul 24, 2014 at 11:50:46PM -0700, Steve Langasek wrote:
> Hi team,
>
> Kees and I had another meeting at PSU today to dig into the nitty-gritty of
> the conference setup. One of the points that was raised is that, since the
> price of the space we are using for the plenaries went up between our
> original quote and the final contract, it's now the same price as the main
> ballroom; so there's a suggestion to use the main ballroom instead, which
> would accommodate more people (600 people max, instead of 172 max).
>
> Currently, our reservation looks like this:
>
> Aug 21 (setup day 1):
> server room
> talk rooms 1 & 2
> hack lab 1
> Aug 22 (setup day 2 / arrival day):
> server room
> talk rooms 1, 2, 3
> hack lab 1
> Aug 23-31 (DebConf):
> server room
> talk rooms 1, 2, 3
> hack labs 1 & 2
>
> The general idea here was to ramp up the rooms a few at a time during the
> setup, rather than paying the rental for the whole set of rooms from the
> beginning when we wouldn't be completely set up until the 23rd anyway.
> However, if we decide to use the ballroom for the plenaries, then it doesn't
> make as much sense to phase in the setup of the talk rooms at the same time
> - and it definitely increases our overall costs for the rental.
>
> So I propose the following modified room rentals:
>
> Aug 21 (setup day 1):
> server room
> hack lab 1
> Aug 22 (setup day 2 / arrival day):
> server room
> plenary room (4 hours in the afternoon/evening only)
> hack lab 1
> Aug 23 (opening ceremony):
> server room
> plenary room
> talk rooms 1, 2, 3 (4 hours in the afternoon/evening only)
> hack labs 1 & 2
For video team network, the biggest problem is the distance between server
room and plenary room. (We have to run cable for this, or move equipment
from the server room to the plenary room.)
> Aug 24-30:
> server room
> talk rooms 1, 2, 3
> hack labs 1 & 2
> Aug 31 (closing ceremony):
> server room
> plenary room
> hack labs 1 & 2
>
> Is this realistic for getting AV equipment and network drops moved between
> the rooms? I know that we prefer not to have to move equipment between
> rooms at all; in this case, given that the choice is between moving
> equipment between rooms, or moving equipment around when repartitioning a
> single room, I'm not sure this makes a difference. In fact, in some ways
> this seems better since it's then possible to be setting up two of the talk
> rooms while the opening plenaries are happening - whereas otherwise they
> couldn't be set up at all until the end of plenaries.
>
> Carl on IRC seemed to think this was ok, but we would need to be sure we had
> the manpower to make this happen.
>
> And it appears that with this approach our total rental charges would
> actually come down by $220 for the week.
>
> The only disadvantages I see are that it gives us one less day for burn-in
> testing of the talk room setup; and it requires tearing down the talk rooms
> the evening of August 30 and setting back up in the plenary room the morning
> of August 31. On balance, this looks ok to me, but I also have no video
> team experience.
>
> One way or the other, I need to get back to PSU with concrete plans for the
> room setups on Monday, so please send any comments on this proposal by
> Sunday.
-Kees
--
Kees Cook @debian.org
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