Debian Conference 2 in Toronto

[Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net>]

I have finally received information from the University of Toronto and
Ryerson University regarding their accomodation availability and the
availability of presenting rooms, and was reminded of following
information: (echoed in a couple other mails I have received):

"Currently we have availability in August 2002 (until Aug 15/02). 
Unfortunately we are very near sold out in July for the World Youth
Conference that's expected to draw 1.3 million visitors to Toronto."

This World Youth Conference is the one which the Pope is to attend, and
it could severely hamper any flexibility we might have. On the other
hand, if we intended on doing everything in August anyways, that's not
such a bad thing.

Now, to the nitty-gritty. It currently doesn't look hopeful that we can
get prices equivalent to what was paid in Bordeaux. The presenting rooms
and internet connections do not appear to be free in most places; those
universities which have central authorities on housing (The university
of toronto is not one of them) could be (all prices canadian) $39/day,
excluding any food; $52.75/day, with breakfast but no lunch or dinner.

The main concern is conference/presentation rooms and internet access,
the former being the big drain on the budget and the latter being the
more important thing for the conference to be a big success. Most or all
places do not have internet access built into the rooms. Some places
have it available at a pay-per-use ($1/10 minutes); some places we might
have to see what we can arrange. 

The one thing I think we can safely assume is that there will probably
be some form of Computer Science club or LUG that we can call on for
these local areas to get us special consideration or insiders' access to
various things, not the least of which would be getting classrooms for
low/no cost, for the purposes of meetings.

Thoughts?
-- 
Joe Drew <hoserhead@woot.net> <drew@debian.org>

Please encrypt email sent to me.