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Defining a conference model

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Christmas is almost here!

In our last post you saw our call for venues. Europe answered the call and we received 13 venue submissions from 7 countries, including Australia. We are now working through the submissions and we will send out a more detailed question list to all submitters.

Get involved

So far a lot of work has been done in norming and storming and the team continues to build great momentum and is strengthened almost every day. We believe that “Many hands make light work” and we’d like you to get involved. Even helping with small tasks will help to make this great event happen. So if you want to participate then now is the time to take action and get involved! Sign up on our OpenSocial website and spread the word by tweeting and sharing on Facebook about this great community-driven event.

The proposed event model

The current consensus is to start with a minimum viable conference model:

  • Two days of sessions (Thursday and Friday)
  • General Contribution Day (Saturday)
Schema

If possible, this could be expanded with two days beforehand for trainings and a community day. This also means a contributor can contribute for 5 days.

This is still at the planning stage and any ideas you may have would be greatly received.

To make this event sustainable, we may not be providing food which will significantly cut down the cost for this event. We’ll make the final decision based on what is possible with the budget. Best effort will be made to invite food trucks and find good restaurants in the area if needed.

Wifi is under heavy debate and depends on what the location is charging. We are hoping that we can come up with a cost effective solution. It is the next tier in this growing conference model. Followed by coffee and snacks.

If we get the main community event funding model correct, then we might be able to also facilitate food in the training and community days. In summary we are looking at budget items in priority order and not as a given.

Conference costs for Dublin 2016

This might be confusing to read but is in fact very logical if we look at the thumb figures from Dublin. In a blog post from the Drupal Association, the financial problem of DrupalCon Europe was explained.

Around ⅔ of the income comes from ticket sale and the rest comes from sponsorships and other sources. If we look at the expenses, roughly 50% of the expenses are for the catering and the facility cost. For more detailed information you can look at the Profit & Loss statement from the blogpost.

What do these numbers tell us? It helps us to understand what are the largest expenses of an event of this size. We are using this information to help us to find ways to cut down costs. For example, we can:

  • Cut down on the floor space needed by having a smaller auditorium and streaming the keynote to other rooms at the venue.
  • Use a venue that is close to local food outlets which could make supplying food optional
  • Aim for locations that allow us to cut down on staff costs by means of volunteers

If we do this, then this could become a viable, even profitable event. Any profits generated could be used in supporting camps in the region as well as flow back into the project.

Going out of the comfort zone

In 2017 we had over 50 Drupal camps in Europe. Almost all of them were within the Drupal camp comfort zone of 500 attendees maximum, with a budget between 50k and 80k euros. So in order to be successful we need to experiment and consult or even hire some professionals.

Drawing by Baddy

What is next?

The venue is very important for any conference but we are not losing sight of what is ahead. We have many steps that we still have to cover in order to bring you, your friends and colleagues a great event:

  • Define sponsor benefits and packages
  • Decide how to handle talk/session proposal and selection process
  • Marketing and Promotion — in the community and outside
  • Volunteer coordination — can some tasks be crowdsourced?
  • Create an event website — we are still looking for some design help here!

But before we dive too deep into any of those tasks, the venue needs to be in place — we will be reaching out to those that have submitted proposal with some additional questions (if all goes as planned those will be sent out Monday) and we expect to be able to confirm the venue mid-December.

If you can provide some insights, advice or want to help collaborate getting this event further on its way, please do not hesitate reaching out to us! Either on twitter or [email protected]

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