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)

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.