BayPiggies has taken the lead in making a bid for PyCon2010 in the San Francisco Bay Area. See PyCon2010BayPiggiesProposal and SanFrancisco for more information.

The following are the questions asked by Python.org of bidders to host PyCon.

Staff and volunteers who have answers are encouraged to put the information here. Give the source of your information as a link.

The requirements for future PyCon bids will be different than years past in that we won't be asking local groups to actually begin negotiations with venues.

Right. We can identify candidates, but we won't be negotiating the contract.

Instead, we're looking for a somewhat less formal proposal telling us why PyCon should be held in your local area:

• Tell us, briefly, what's good and what's great about the city/region/state that would make it a good place to host PyCon.

BayPiggies, Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Guido, The Exploratorium, Google, Stanford, UC Berkeley, Napa, Santa Cruz, Monterey, Carmel, Pebble Beach, Big Sur...

Tell us the pros and cons about the local area:

• + Are major venues (1000+ person capacity) plentiful?

• Moscone}

• Santa Clara Convention Center

• San Jose Convention Center

• Oakland Convention Center

• Hilton Hotels

• Marriott Hotel

• Doubletree Hotel

• Westin

• Holiday Inn

• Fairmont Hotel

We could have a reception at The Exploratorium and offer them a coding sprint.

• + Are they clustered or located in any particular area?

San Francisco, Peninsula, South Bay, East Bay

• + Transportation resources:

  o How close is the nearest major airport to the heart of the city or region?

• San Francisco SFO 15 miles from downtown San Francisco, 40 miles from San Jose
• San Jose SJC 5 miles from downtown San Jose
• Oakland OAK Across the Bridge from San Francisco, 50 miles from San Jose

  o What sort of transportation options are available? Bus, taxi, train, light-rail, subway, etc. How much does a trip on each cost?

One-way prices.

• SF Muni $1.75

• Santa Clara County VTA $1.75 (includes Santa Clara County Light Rail) $1.75

• AC Transit Alameda/Contra Costa counties $1.75

• Caltrain San Jose Diridon (Zone 4) to SF 4th & Townsend (Zone 1) $7.50; SFO-SF $4.00

• Amtrak Oakland-San Jose $13.00

• BART SFO to Montgomery St., SF $5.35; Oakland Coliseum to Montogmery St., SF $3.55

• AirBART shuttle OAK to Oakland Coliseum, $3

• [http://www.bayshuttle.com/ Bay Shuttle, SFO-SF $16.00

• All Bay Area shuttles SFO-San Jose, about $40.00

SF taxi companies:

• Yellow Cab

• Luxor Taxi & Cab Services

• American Taxi Cab
• Desoto Cab Co
• Town Taxi Inc
• City Wide Taxi Dispatch
• Royal Taxi
• ABC Taxi

Taxis cost about $40 between SFO and downtown SF.

Major hotels have free airport shuttles.

o How close are these resources to the large venues you identified above?

Usually within a few blocks.

• + What other major (1000+ attendee) events has your area hosted recently?

  o Any tech-related events?

Only a few hundred in recent years.

A sampling of recent and currently scheduled tech conferences:

• Linux World
• Mac World
• Game Developers Conference
• RSA Security Conference
• Web 2.0

• JavaOne

• Cisco Systems Conference
• Semicon
• Embedded Systems Conference
• Unicode Conference
• Technosium

• DesignCon

• Search Marketing Expo
• Software Development West
• Multicore Expo

  + How's the weather? Remember, the target is for PyCon to be held between mid-February and mid-April.

No snow, anyway. Rain possible but not probable. Fog in parts of SF.

• Tell us about your group:

  + Who are you?

Bay Area Python Interest Group

• + What's your connection to Python?

We're a Python group. Guido is a member.

• + How many volunteers can you expect to provide for PyCon?

Dozens, including volunteers from Google.

• Remember, this is planning for two years in advance.

• + Are there any key players who bring experience or skills that you feel are particularly valuable to PyCon?

Guido. Google, 200+ OLPC XO users and developers...

• + Looking at the PyCon staff roles list, are there any local people who would be committed to filling a particular role?

Yes.

• Ed Cherlin, Chairbeing
• John Menerick, Webmaster
• Aahz, Border Collie
• Andrew Fife, ??

• Tell us about the local Python community: + Users group(s) for Python? Django? Zope? Plone? Any local university Python groups?

Indeed.

• BayPiggies

• unnamed XO Sugar hacking society (SF and Silicon Valley)
• Bay Area Zope Users

• SF Bay Area PloneLounge

• Berkeley Plone Users Group

See also SF Bay Area Scripting Groups

• + Local companies doing exciting things with Python?

  o Would they be interested in sponsoring PyCon?

Google, for a start. They say they want to continue sponsoring PyCon.

The LucasFilm people at PyCon2008 say they want to get us invited for a tour of their headquarters (also LucasArts) in the Letterman Building in the Presidio of San Francisco.

We haven't talked to the other tech companies in the area, but we expect to come up with something.

• Tell us about the local tech community:

  + Who are the big IT and Tech related companies in the area?

Uh, wow. Well, Google, HP, Apple, Intel, AMD, IBM, Oracle, Cisco, and a cast of thousands.

• o Do they use Python?

Google, LucasFilm/ILM, YouTube, VMware, Yahoo!, Cisco, IronPort, eBay, BitTorrent, Slide, Facebook, HP, IBM, Apple, Oracle, LSI Logic... DICE has more than 370 Bay Area job listings for Python today (2008-4-14) at companies including HP, AMD, Conde Nast Publications, Deloitte, Dreamworks Animation, eBay, E*trade, Google, IBM, Macy's, Nokia, NVIDIA, SourceForge, Sun, Walmart, Yahoo Juju lists other Python jobs: Cisco, Acxiom, Macrovision...