Archive:FUDCon:Zurich 2010

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Location TBD :: Date TBD, 2010

FUDCon EMEA is in its planning stages.
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FrOSCamp_2010_Zurich

Zurich

Possible in combination with FrOSCamp.

Zurich, Switzerland is located in the midst of central Europe. As of February 2010, 1 CHF (Swiss franc) is approximately 0.93 USD (US dollar).

Owner: Sandro Mathys & Marcus Moeller

Based on Dimitris' Qs and As, Sandro provided some As:

Facilities

• FUDCon: Sandro and Marcus work at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETHZ) and were able to organize rooms within the CHN building on 'Campus Zentrum' together with their superior. High Speed wireless internet connection is available on the complete campus.

Lodging

• There's lot of hotels of different size and in different price ranges all over Zurich. If we decide to go for one big ho(s)tel for everyone, we should be able to get some group discount.
  • 100 Double rooms are available at the Ibis Hotel for 50 $/person/night. Tram station is nearby with direct connection to the event location.
  • The Swiss Youth Hostels' Zurich Youth Hostel looks promising (list prize CHF 50.-/person/night, might get group discounts).
    • Availability 2010-02-15: 27 beds at 17th September / 62 beds at 18th September 2010.
  • The Etap Hotel in Zurich could be an option, too (list price CHF 50.-/person/night, might get group discounts).
    • Availability: to be checked
• There's also a great scout's cottage with >40 beds and some big rooms and outdoor sitting space to work together and have a barbecue, available at a nice price. There's also some great possibilities for fringe events nearby.

• Zurich has excellent public transportation (city trains, trams, busses). This makes it easy to find a well-connected hotel (if those nearby don't fit). Day tickets cost CHF 5.- (EUR 3.-) and I think we could get group rebates there too.

Budget

Zurich is not the cheapest city like most metropoles in western Europe, but it depends on what we want/need.

• We should be able to get everything we need for an appropriate price, at least for FUDCon where our group is big enough to ask for discounts.
  • Sandro has some good contacts to open source companys that might donate some money or resources (as happened for the FAD EMEA 2008 in Basel).

Catering

We will be able to offer low-priced catering (sandwiches and drinks) at the event location.

• On Friday, the university canteens are a good and cheap places to get some lunch and/or evening dinner.

Availability

• FUDCon: There's lots of buildings and rooms at different sites of the ETHZ. It shouldn't be a problem to have the event during a term break but as the ETHZ is normally closed on Sundays, something would have to be arranged - which we were told is possible. I think the most important point here is that we get in touch with the ETHZ prior to defining the exact date (i.e. it would be better if we're a bit flexible with the exact weekend).

NOTE: The scout's hostel is popular, so we'd need to know the date early enough (especially during summers and the holiday periods). Weekends are cheaper then workdays.

Travels

Zurich is well connected by national and international trains and has an international airport (which is very well connected to the city by train and tram). You can also easily get there by car.

The Zurich Airport is home to the Swiss International Air Lines (Swiss belongs to the German Lufthansa and is member of the Star Alliance) and to the Helvetic Airways.

• Berlin: round-trip with Swiss from EUR 140.-
• Paris: round-trip with Air France from EUR 230.-
• London: round-trip with Swiss from EUR 150.-
• Brussels: round-trip with Swiss/Lufthansa from EUR 320.-
• Rome: round-trip with airberlin from EUR 250.-
• Brno: round-trip with Czech Airlines from EUR 380.-

FUDCon Live

• In mind of FUDCon Live, sessions and tracks could be recorded and made available through the ETHZ Multimedia Service.

Other details

• We might get food/beverages cheaper from one of the canteens/caterers of the ETHZ than getting them with any 3rd-party caterer or the like.
• FSF Europe's founder and former president Georg Greve is living in the Zurich area and so is FSFE's vize president Fernanda Weiden who works at Google's Zurich office. Maybe we could invite one of them to give a talk or initiate a cooperation of any kind between FSFE and Fedora.
• FreeBeer (as in freedom - German only) is available in Zurich and would be a great refreshment at the FUDPub. We've drunk it at OpenExpo's social event and it's really tasty - and as the name says, the recipe is available under a copyleft license (CC-BY-SA). It's been developed (and is being sold by) a students organization (of both, the ETHZ and the University of Zurich), by the way.-->