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| Bid info & links: PyCon2008_ | ========== Background ========== PyCon is an inexpensive, community-oriented conference for users and developers of the Python programming language, organized by the Python Software Foundation and a group of volunteers. PyCon 2007 had almost 600 people, and PyCon 2008 has more than 900 registrations. PyCon is a North American conference; we don't intend to move into territory served by EuroPython or Python UK. So far, all PyCons have been in the US, but we're open to considering locations in Canada and Mexico. The structure of recent PyCons has been three days of presentations, followed by two to four days of sprints. PyCon 2006 added a pre-conference tutorial day that was a great success and it has since become a standard part of the PyCon experience. In the past, the location for PyCon was chosen through a grass-roots bid process. Local groups with a passion for bringing PyCon to their area got together and solicited bids from local hotels and other venues. That process embodied the community spirit that drives not only PyCon but also the whole of the Python language. Year after year, PyCon has seen impressive attendance growth and continued enthusiasm from the community, bringing attendees from far and wide. The growth has been exciting, but it has put PyCon into a class of conferences that not every venue can handle. But PyCon is now a class of conference that many venues will compete for. |
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| Background ============== |
================= A New Bid Process ================= |
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| PyCon is an inexpensive, community-oriented conference for users and developers of the Python programming language, organized by the Python Software Foundation and a group of volunteers. Recent PyCons have had attendances of around 425 people. |
As PyCon has grown, the demands made by the traditional bid process have grown as well -- there are larger requirements with a smaller selection of venues available to suit our needs. Moreover, those extra challenges were faced not just by one group, but by all the local groups who were interested in hosting PyCon. There was a massive duplication of effort across all of the bidding groups. Many of the local groups have little to no experience with selecting venues and negotiating contracts for large venues. It has become clear that the old bid process would quickly limit PyCon, either through escalating costs due to inexperienced negotiation, or worse, through a process of overwhelming our wonderful local volunteers with a complex and demanding process. |
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| PyCon is a North American conference; we don't intend to move into territory served by EuroPython or Python UK. So far all PyCons have been in the US, but we're open to considering locations in Canada and Mexico. |
Beginning with the 2008 bid from the Chicago group, PyCon has begun working with a professional meeting management group in order to help select venues and negotiate contracts. This allows precious volunteer energy to be re-focused on the important things: making PyCon the experience we all want it to be. Therefore, 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. |
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| Traditionally the structure of PyCon has been three days of presentations, and two to four days of sprints. PyCon 2006 added a pre-conference tutorial day that was a great success, so you should also assume a day of tutorials. |
Instead, we're looking for a somewhat less formal proposal telling us why PyCon should be held in your local area. Interested? Here's what you should do: |
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| This is a list of the general and venue requirements, and miscellaneous notes. The critical things you need for PyCon are 1) a place to talk 2) equipment to talk with 3) an Internet connection, 4) optionally, food. Your proposed venue doesn't have to meet every single requirement, but you should be able to explain why the missing requirements won't be a problem. |
- If you're attending PyCon 2008, join us for a kick-off meeting over lunch on Saturday, March 15th. |
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| We are open to multi-year bids, but you're certainly not forced to assume hosting the conference for two or more years. Multi-year contracts with hotels or conference centers can strengthen your negotiating position with the hotel and let you lower costs by extracting concessions. On the other hand, if there are problems with the hotel at the first conference, you're committed to using the location again and you don't have much negotiating leverage at that point. |
- Form a group of people interested in helping with the conference planning. |
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| If you have any questions, suggestions, or would like to propose to host PyCon, write to the organizers' mailing list at <pycon-organizers at python.org>. You may want to assemble a set of web or wiki pages containing the information below. |
- Make sure at least one person from your group is on the `PyCon organizer's list <http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pycon-organizers>`__, and, as soon as possible, announce your interest in submitting a bid on the list. This process should be viewed as cooperative -- we're here to help and encourage any group that wants to take on hosting PyCon. - Next, assemble your official bid, following the guidelines below, and submit it to the `PyCon organizer's list <http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/pycon-organizers>`__ by the deadline listed below. (Publicly viewable wikis are highly encouraged) Bid Requirements: ----------------- - 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. Tell us the pros and cons about the local area: - Are major venues (1500+ person capacity) plentiful or at least available? - Are they clustered or located in any particular area(s)? - Transportation resources: - How close is the nearest major airport to the heart of the city or region? - What sort of transportation options are available? Bus, taxi, train, light-rail, subway, etc. How much does a trip on each cost? - How close are these resources to the large venues you identified above? - What other major (1000+ attendee) events has your area hosted recently? - Any tech-related events? - How's the weather? Remember, the target is for PyCon to be held between mid-February and mid-April. - What (besides PyCon) would be a big attraction for someone visiting the area? - Tell us about your group: - Who are you? - What's your connection to Python and the larger Python Community? - How many volunteers can you expect to provide for PyCon? Remember, this is planning for two years in advance. - Looking at the `PyCon staff roles list <http://us.pycon.org/2008/about/staff/>`__, are there any local people who would be committed to filling a particualr role? - Are there any key players who bring experience or skills that you feel are particularly valuable to PyCon? - Have any of you organized any large events similar to PyCon? If so, tell us about it! |
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| Formal Bid =========== |
- Tell us about the local Python community: |
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| We need a formal bid, including the following: | - Users group(s) for Python? Django? Zope? Plone? Any local university Python groups? |
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| * A description of the venue and conference dates. | - Local companies doing exciting things with Python? |
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| * A budget or summary of major costs (room rates, meeting space rates, food, network, A/V). Don't worry if you don't have every detail; just indicate what's missing. Include rate sheets |
- Would they be interested in sponsoring PyCon? |
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| * A hotel contract (possiblly after the venue decision) or a hotel proposal. |
- Tell us about the local tech community: |
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| For an example, see `the 2006/7 bid from the Dallas Fort Worth Pythoneers <http://dfwpython.org/DfwPyConBid/HomePage>`__. | - Who are the big IT and Tech related companies in the area? |
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| - Do they use Python? | |
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| Decision Process & Timeline =========================== |
- Beyond what's been covered above, is there anything else you feel is important for us to keep in mind as we consider your bid to host PyCon? ====================== A New Decision Process ====================== |
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| Bids should be prepared in time for PyCon 2007. Ideally we'd like to make a decision for 2008 by or at PyCon 2007. If we have one or more bids by PyCon, we can decide there, and we can sign contracts soon thereafter. |
The bid submission is just the beginning! |
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| If we can get bids in **before** PyCon, so much the better. Be sure to keep the conference committee informed (pycon at python dot org). |
We hope to receive proposals from multiple groups/regions. The site-selection committee will work with the groups making bids and the professional meeting planner in order to identify one or two target cities or regions. From there, the site-selection committee along with the professional meeting planner will put out a Request For Proposal (RFP) to the local hotels and convention venues. Once target venues have been identified, the local bid groups will have a chance to give their input and review of the prospective venues. We will make our decision based on the responses we get back from that RFP process and the local groups. |
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| The `Conference Committee`_ will make a recommendation on the bids to the PSF Board of Directors, who will make the final decision. |
Timeline -------- |
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| .. _Conference Committee: PythonSoftwareFoundationCommittees#python-conference-committee-pcc General Requirements ==================== Conference Scheduling --------------------- Ideally PyCon would be held between mid-February and mid-April. The first three PyCons were held in Washington DC in late March; 2006/2007 were held from late February to early March. We have to watch out for Easter though; one PyCon ended up conflicting. PyCon has traditionally been in the late winter / early spring, EuroPython takes place in early July, OSCON is in late July, and SciPy is in August/September. We don't want the main Python events to be too close together. But we are flexible, and anything is possible. In 2006 & 2007, the main conference was held over a weekend (Friday-Sunday), with a tutorial day the Thursday before and 4 sprint days after (Monday-Thursday). Previously, the main conference was on weekdays (Wednesday-Friday), with 2 or 4 days of sprints before. Weekend or weekdays, both patterns worked. Sprints *after* the conference seemed to work out better though, as they start off with the most people and taper off, and it is worth noting that post-conference sprints allow for organization/evangelism during the conference. Tutorials before the conference make sense, but could also be held on the day after the main conference in parallel with sprints. Finances ------------ The PSF doesn't need to make an enormous profit, and can tolerate a small loss, but it's obviously better if the conference can be slightly profitable. The acceptable upper bound on the early-bird registration cost is $250, although we'd like to keep it closer to (or below) $200. As a first approximation you can assume that **everyone** registers at the early-bird rate. The PSF will sign the contracts and pay the bills. This means the PSF is legally liable and no insurance need be provided by the local organizers. Hotel or Conference Hall? ------------------------- Holding PyCon at a hotel with sufficient conference space is convenient: for most attendees, the weather won't be a factor, and there's no commute. A conference hall can work too; the first three PyCons were held at a university's conference center. Hotel Room Rates ---------------- If the conference is held at a hotel, we will be expected to fill a bank of rooms (see `Room-Night Obligation`_ below). The room rate should be as low as possible. In 2006/2007, the conference hotel room rate was $79 (+ tax == $90) for a single/double-occupancy room, which was quite reasonable. If the room rate is much higher, many people will be forced to look for cheaper accommodations elsewhere, and this may hurt the conference itself. It seems that it is standard practice for hotels to give a sales commission (10%) on the room rate to the organizing group. In effect, the hotel sees the organizing group as their sales agents. Be sure to ask for this commission. Look for terms like "non-commissioned rate" or "commissioned rate". If the conference does not take place at a hotel, there should be a range of accommodations nearby or accessible by public transit. Special attention should be paid to the low end: inexpensive hotels, motels, and hostels. Room-Night Obligation --------------------- A hotel with conference space may offer the space for free or at a reduced rate, with the understanding that the conference attendees will stay at that hotel. The conference will be asked to guarantee a certain number of room-nights. For PyCon 2006 & 2007, we contracted for 80% of 870 room-nights (696 room-nights). We totalled 955 room-nights in 2006 and 2007 will be well over our obligation. The distribution was approximately: * 80 room-nights for the night before the tutorial day, * 200 room-nights for each of the nights *before* the three conference days, * 100 room-nights for the night of the last conference day, * 50, 40, 30, and 10 room-nights for the following nights. There were a few rooms booked before and after these days. The 2006/2007 contract applied the conference rate up to 3 days before and after the event. The contract should apply the reduced room rate to all nights. The contract stated that *if* the hotel had *any* available rooms, even after the deadline, they must offer them at the conference rate. If you'd like more contract details, write to <pycon at python dot org>. Negotiate hard on any contract - the 2006/2007 contract with the hotel was highly customized. Venue Requirements ================== The bid must include rough cost information for all items below so that we can estimate the required registration price. Facilities ---------- **Auditorium**: A large lecture-hall style room that can hold all the conference attendees at one time (for keynotes). **Meeting rooms**: Three rooms with a total capacity approximately equal to that of the full assembly. One of these rooms may be the (possibly divided) auditorium. **Common area**: A common area in which groups of attendees can informally meet and where conference registration can take place. Requires a number (4 or so) tables for registration. **Sprint rooms**: two or more rooms for sprints. These rooms are usually re-used during the conference for open space talks. Multiple sprints can run at the same time, so these rooms should contain a number of tables that can seat ~10 people with their laptops. White boards for technical discussions are useful as well. **Quiet room**: A room for people to use their laptops in silence. This room should be able to seat 30-50 people at tables, and have an Internet connection. **Vendor & sponsor space**: Space in a high-visibility area (e.g., a hallway) for vendor & sponsor tables. **Storage**: A secure room in which to store supplies, including materials for all the attendees and all necessary equipment. All facilities should be accessible by disabled persons, and held in controlled temperature environments (air-conditioned or heated as needed). The location should be accessible by public transport. It's a bonus if there are interesting attractions nearby (museums, attractions, etc.). It is important to keep the time required for attendees to move between rooms at a minimum. Therefore it is better if the rooms are located on one floor or that there be many elevators as well as stairs to handle the crowd movement. Networking ---------- Internet access is **extremely** important to PyCon. All areas of the conference (listed in Facilities_ above) need wireless and wired Internet access, for almost **all attendees simultaneously**. The venue may be able to provide the networking, or we may have to contract with a third party. In either case, service level guarantees and on-site support should be part of the agreement. Bandwidth: as much as possible. 2006 had 4 T1 lines, for a total of around 6mbps of bandwidth. We were using around 4mbps, so 4mbps is probably around the minimum we can live with. We are heavily inbound oriented, but probably need at least 2mbps outbound bandwidth. We need the ability to have quite a lot of associations with the wireless network. We're probably going to be one of the venue's heaviest per-attendee penetration of the wireless network. Comparing our 400-attendee usage to the vacuum salespeople's 400 attendee usage is not a fair comparison. Expect at least 200 (over 50%) simultaneous associations. **New:** For PyCon 2007, we are planning to purchase and deploy our own wireless networking equipment. The hotel is supplying jacks and bandwidth only. We expect to handle our own wireless from now on. Free Internet access (wired or wireless) in hotel rooms would be nice, but is not a requirement. Catering (optional) ------------------------ Catering is a major part of the cost of the conference. If catering is not provided, we should be able to arrange for outside catering, and it must be included in the overall cost. Provide: breakfast, snacks, and a light lunch for the three conference days. Some attendees will be vegetarian/vegan; some may require lactose-free or low-carbohydrate meals. While not all meals may be provided, the resources must be available. Snacks are less important than lunch; if no meals are provided at all, the resulting registration cost should reflect this. Breakfast is convenient but not obligatory. If food will not be provided, there should be restaurants or other places for lunch within walking distance. There should be enough of these to handle the conference attendance. If there's only one small restaurant within walking distance, it'll get swamped! Accommodation ---------------- Nearby commercial hotels, restaurants, and social venues must be available. If the facility is a hotel: how many rooms does it have? What would the room rate be? If the facility does not offer accommodation, some nearby inexpensive accommodations, such as hostels, should be identified. A/V Equipment ------------------- **Auditorium and Meeting Rooms**: Public address system, and data video projectors are required; transparency (overhead) projectors may be useful. Preferably wireless microphones as well as podium mics. Transportation ------------------- Nearby access to an airport, preferably a large one. Parking facilities or arrangements, as appropriate. How to arrive by public transport and taxi from the airport, or other major points. Volunteers ================== Some parts of PyCon organization can be done remotely, but having local volunteers is vital to the conference's success. Volunteers can: * Explore locations before the conference. * Receive deliveries in the weeks before the conference. * Run the registration desk. * Help advertise the conference locally at schools, user groups. * Help prepare the conference rooms, wireless networking, badges, conference tote bags, etc. Does your location have a pool of volunteer labour? Lessons Learned ================= The Chicago group helped to determine two things: 1. One year is not enough time to get our choice of venue & dates. We need to start deciding the venue *two* years in advance. I see two choices: take the next venue for two years, or decide the 2009 venue ASAP (deadline 6 months). Either way, we should be deciding the 2010 venue at PyCon 2008. 2. Few if any of us are experienced in selecting & negotiating with venues, and the experience we gain does not transfer to the next venue. Doing the venue selection & negotiation separately is counterproductive and stressful for all. The Chicago group has two recommendations: * A professional meeting planner may be invaluable to the initial venue selection & negotiation process. The Chicago group has had the benefit of a planner's advice and assistance. If it's a financial and organizational net gain for PyCon, we should retain the services of a professional meeting planner. The Chicago bid's budget may contain an entry for a meeting planner. * Rather than ask for bids from independent local groups, we should establish a permanent site selection committee that coordinates the effort. Ideas for sites would still come from local groups, but they wouldn't have to work so hard, and the PyCon organizers would be kept in the loop. This would be most effective if combined with the meeting planner. ----------------------- Alvin Wang's approach in the San Francisco bay area (edited): I talked to the Tourism and Convention Bureaus. There is usually one in each city/county. I ignored San Francisco and San Jose because they would not be interested in a conference that is so small. I contacted the 2 counties between the 2 big cities, Santa Clara and San Mateo. I went to each website and sent them email. Each one replied with a standard conference info form which I filled out. After that, each Bureau sent it to the hotels. Each County has over 100 hotels with meeting facilities. The hotels would then contact me with a preliminary bid. Since I was fairly specific, there were not that many respondents, which was good. I read over the bids and sent back further questions. I have met with one and I will meet with another next week. The Bureaus provide some extra conference planning assistance for free. They are paid by the hotels. Acknowledgements ==================== Portions of this document are derived from the `Perl Foundation's venue requirements <http://www.yapc.org/venue-reqs.txt>`__. Further Info ================== In April 2006 Andrew Kuchling posted `So you want to host PyCon 2008... <http://pyfound.blogspot.com/2006/04/so-you-want-to-host-pycon-2008.html>`__ For examples of what a bid might look like, you can look at the `Dallas/Fort Worth Python User Group's bid for PyCon 2006 and 2007 <http://dfwpython.org/DfwPyConBid/HomePage>`__. Or, see the following three bids in the Perl Foundation's weblog: `Vancouver <http://news.perlfoundation.org/2005/12/vancouver_2006_yapc_bid.html>`__ `Boston <http://news.perlfoundation.org/2005/12/boston_2006_yapc_bid.html>`__ `Chicago <http://news.perlfoundation.org/2005/12/chicago_2006_yapc_bid.html>`__. Please send comments/questions/suggestions to the <pycon-organizers at python.org> mailing list. CategoryPyConPlanning_ |
- Kick-off meeting at PyCon 2008: Lunch meeting, March 15th, 2008 - Bid Submission Deadline: May 1st, 2008 - Top Picks Decided by: May 15th, 2008 - RFPs issued by: June 1st, 2008 - Responses by: June 15th, 2008 - Decision by: August 1st, 2008 |
Background
PyCon is an inexpensive, community-oriented conference for users and developers of the Python programming language, organized by the Python Software Foundation and a group of volunteers. PyCon 2007 had almost 600 people, and PyCon 2008 has more than 900 registrations.
PyCon is a North American conference; we don't intend to move into territory served by EuroPython or Python UK. So far, all PyCons have been in the US, but we're open to considering locations in Canada and Mexico.
The structure of recent PyCons has been three days of presentations, followed by two to four days of sprints. PyCon 2006 added a pre-conference tutorial day that was a great success and it has since become a standard part of the PyCon experience.
In the past, the location for PyCon was chosen through a grass-roots bid process. Local groups with a passion for bringing PyCon to their area got together and solicited bids from local hotels and other venues. That process embodied the community spirit that drives not only PyCon but also the whole of the Python language.
Year after year, PyCon has seen impressive attendance growth and continued enthusiasm from the community, bringing attendees from far and wide. The growth has been exciting, but it has put PyCon into a class of conferences that not every venue can handle. But PyCon is now a class of conference that many venues will compete for.
A New Bid Process
As PyCon has grown, the demands made by the traditional bid process have grown as well -- there are larger requirements with a smaller selection of venues available to suit our needs. Moreover, those extra challenges were faced not just by one group, but by all the local groups who were interested in hosting PyCon. There was a massive duplication of effort across all of the bidding groups. Many of the local groups have little to no experience with selecting venues and negotiating contracts for large venues. It has become clear that the old bid process would quickly limit PyCon, either through escalating costs due to inexperienced negotiation, or worse, through a process of overwhelming our wonderful local volunteers with a complex and demanding process.
Beginning with the 2008 bid from the Chicago group, PyCon has begun working with a professional meeting management group in order to help select venues and negotiate contracts. This allows precious volunteer energy to be re-focused on the important things: making PyCon the experience we all want it to be. Therefore, 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.
Instead, we're looking for a somewhat less formal proposal telling us why PyCon should be held in your local area. Interested? Here's what you should do:
- If you're attending PyCon 2008, join us for a kick-off meeting over lunch on Saturday, March 15th.
- Form a group of people interested in helping with the conference planning.
- Make sure at least one person from your group is on the PyCon organizer's list, and, as soon as possible, announce your interest in submitting a bid on the list. This process should be viewed as cooperative -- we're here to help and encourage any group that wants to take on hosting PyCon.
- Next, assemble your official bid, following the guidelines below, and submit it to the PyCon organizer's list by the deadline listed below. (Publicly viewable wikis are highly encouraged)
Bid Requirements:
- 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. Tell us the pros and cons about the local area:
- Are major venues (1500+ person capacity) plentiful or at least available?
- Are they clustered or located in any particular area(s)?
- Transportation resources:
- How close is the nearest major airport to the heart of the city or region?
- What sort of transportation options are available? Bus, taxi, train, light-rail, subway, etc. How much does a trip on each cost?
- How close are these resources to the large venues you identified above?
- What other major (1000+ attendee) events has your area hosted recently?
- Any tech-related events?
- How's the weather? Remember, the target is for PyCon to be held between mid-February and mid-April.
- What (besides PyCon) would be a big attraction for someone visiting the area?
- Tell us about your group:
- Who are you?
- What's your connection to Python and the larger Python Community?
- How many volunteers can you expect to provide for PyCon? Remember, this is planning for two years in advance.
- Looking at the PyCon staff roles list, are there any local people who would be committed to filling a particualr role?
- Are there any key players who bring experience or skills that you feel are particularly valuable to PyCon?
- Have any of you organized any large events similar to PyCon? If so, tell us about it!
- Tell us about the local Python community:
- Users group(s) for Python? Django? Zope? Plone? Any local university Python groups?
- Local companies doing exciting things with Python?
- Would they be interested in sponsoring PyCon?
- Tell us about the local tech community:
- Who are the big IT and Tech related companies in the area?
- Do they use Python?
- Who are the big IT and Tech related companies in the area?
- Beyond what's been covered above, is there anything else you feel is important for us to keep in mind as we consider your bid to host PyCon?
A New Decision Process
The bid submission is just the beginning!
We hope to receive proposals from multiple groups/regions. The site-selection committee will work with the groups making bids and the professional meeting planner in order to identify one or two target cities or regions. From there, the site-selection committee along with the professional meeting planner will put out a Request For Proposal (RFP) to the local hotels and convention venues. Once target venues have been identified, the local bid groups will have a chance to give their input and review of the prospective venues. We will make our decision based on the responses we get back from that RFP process and the local groups.
Timeline
- Kick-off meeting at PyCon 2008: Lunch meeting, March 15th, 2008
- Bid Submission Deadline: May 1st, 2008
- Top Picks Decided by: May 15th, 2008
- RFPs issued by: June 1st, 2008
- Responses by: June 15th, 2008
- Decision by: August 1st, 2008