From Fedora Project Wiki

This is a page where we can work through the "FUDCon 2.0" track of the Events FAD 2010.

Current resources

Constraints

  1. 1 FUDCon per quarter
  2. $20k of budget from Red Hat per quarter, for FUDcons and FADs
  3. Hard minimum of at least 4 months advance planning for a FUDCon - 6 months recommended
  4. Time investment for planners: 3 months ahead at 10-15 hours per week, 1 month ahead at 25 hours per week.

Open questions

  1. Not Europe for EMEA FUDcon?
  2. India on its own (split out from APAC)
  3. Rest of APAC

Issues

  1. Keep budget spread out.
    1. Do all FUDCons cost the same?
    2. Fill in the gaps with FADs
  2. Climate
  3. Vacation time (contributors who have to take it)
  4. Proximity to other major events
  5. Fix spacing over time

Data from the FUDCon survey

See Marketing_research#FUDCon_Toronto_2009_Survey for data.

Discussion notes below:

Paul:

  • May very well need four days for next FUDCon. Need two days for technical sessions alone, fewer rooms at once.
  • Welcome packet *at hotel*
  • Conference software - ConMan

Mel:

  • Accessibility for remote attendees - workable FUDCon Live directions
  • Find people who know what it means to make the event "family friendly"

Figuring out action items

Process

  1. Look at the problems brainstorm at the start of the day, and...
  2. For each action item/deliverable, see what problems it potentially solves.
  3. If it definitely solves a problem, it's a "must do."
  4. If it might solve a problem, consider it as an experiment, and mark any regional concerns.

Potential things to work on Saturday

  1. General calendar for FUDcons
  2. 2010 instance of said calendar
  3. Bid process
  4. "things we should keep" list
  5. Bug list
  6. "howto run a fudcon" doc
  7. make FUDCon 4 days
  8. Welcome packet at hotel
  9. Conference software (conman)
  10. Improved FUDCon Live
  11. Make event "family friendly"
  12. Have a clear process for attendee sponsorship

The ideal process for Toronto

Roll back the clock: it's summer 2009 and we've just decided that Toronto's going to be the place for the NA FUDCon at the start of December. What, ideally, goes down? (We're constrained to tools and people we had at the time.)

Time Local team
(Chris Tyler)
Planning team
(Paul Frields)
External resources
(Mel Chua)
Bid process end
12 mo
Done with bid process. Execute on FUDPUb, hotel, location paperwork and sign those deals. Reserve specific space (rooms, etc.) at the location. Set up web presence (wiki) for event. Schedule regular meetings. Get all planners on fudcon-planning and start using that list. Announce location to Fedora channels. Ensure roles and responsibilities are clearly assigned for planning team. Get Marketing started on the event. Have a rough budget ("CommArch sets aside $X for this FUDCon") and a contact for that budget (Max). Marketing team begins event marketing, very lightweight.
5 mo Find lunch caterer. Arrange transit-in-city if applicable (if special "conference train passes" are offered, etc.) Place food orders for lunch at FUDCon and for FUDPub. Post local advertising, do local word of mouth. Make list of local attractions and food for hotel handout later on. Arrange for housing and feed of ponies. Open registration. Begin sponsorship process; set cutoff date for sponsorship that is more than 1 month in advance of the event. Check in with Marketing about event marketing plan. Place requests with Design team for shirt, sign, and badge designs. Open hotel pairing signup (on the wiki). Open hackfests, usertrack, and sessions "CFP" discussion. Begin user track planning. Find reliable pony breeder, select pony. Pay sponsorships as they come up. Pay FUDPub deposit, and other deposits as needed. Design team makes shirt, sign, and badge designs. Marketing does a push to local people/events. Ensure budget for pony is sufficient to sustain pony for next fiscal year.
1 mo Order shirts and swag after the people-who-get-swag cutoff number is reached (so you know sizes). Contact Design team to turn map and list of restaurants and local attractions and event details into a nicely laid-out hotel handout. First major review of registration list (the swag-limit should have been hit by this point). Look at the balance of attendees and make sure there aren't any gaping holes in terms of the types of people we want to attend. Sponsorship should have been closed at least a week or two prior to the one-month mark. Get all attendees on a fudcon-attendees mailing list. Kickoff FUDCon live planning (separate team). Revise docs so that walk-in registration is now marked as a clearer option and it's obvious that the swag cutoff has been reached. Close user track planning (even if it's Barcamp-style, have slot times and enough detail to start advertising the user track to users). Locally publicize the user track; contact Marketing team for help. Confirm hotel pairings are worked-out for sponsored attendees, and reminderping non-sponsored hotel attendees to check their own. First detailed budget summary due to the planning mailing list at this point (ideally they will have started earlier, on a weekly basis). Pay for food (lunch). Design team generates nametag pdfs for registrants so far.