Update on DrupalCon Europe 2012 - Interview with Florian Lorétan, Munich Community Representative

Over the past weekend at DrupalCamp Essen, I had the opportunity to sit down with Florian Lorétan, who has been instrumental in organizing and coordinating all the work which goes into bringing the next European DrupalCon to Munich, Germany. Since the last time we’d spoken, at Drupal City (the Drupal Camp held in Berlin, September 2011, less than a month after the initial announcement in London), there had been a lot of new developments. I asked Florian to catch us up.

Lowell: I’m Lowell Montgomery from Cocomore and I’m here in the BoF room at DrupalCamp Essen, speaking with Florian Lorétan, Munich’s community representative and a co-founder of Wunderkraut, about new developments in the planning of DrupalCon Munich. So what’s the latest news, Florian?

Florian: There are a lot of things going on right now. One of the big things we have on our plates right now is just making all these developments communicable. There’s a lot of work being done on the website, both on content and also on making the content look good — so it’s styling all the content types, different views, new content types, different blogs — and making sure that the sponsors get the attention they deserve on the website and also preparing for the session poll results which will open in a few weeks. One of the things that needs to be communicated are the featured sessions. We have some very exciting speakers coming from the outside — some very exciting topics, too. This is not completely final; but we do have some sessions which are confirmed, so this will probably be going up on the website in the next couple of weeks.

Lowell: So before DrupalCon Denver, then?

Florian: If it’s ready before DrupalCon Denver, we’ll put it on the website then, but at the latest it will be there at Denver.

Lowell: And you mentioned that the sponsor slots are pretty much all filled?

[…] For Munich, we still have Silver (very limited), Bronze, Sponsor Lunch, Sponsor Coffee Break, Sponsor a contest (like Tropo's hackathan or Twilio contest) [ … ]

Florian: All the top ones are sold out; Diamond, Platinum, Gold, and I think Silver, too, is sold out. The day stage sponsors, the beer garden sponsor, the coffee sponsor; are also given away. With Wunderkraut, we’re also happy to get the contribution lounge and contribution sprint sponsorship slots, which is something that fits for us, but it’s also a one-of-a-kind sponsorship of our community. I think that it’s been going very quickly; we weren’t expecting things to go that fast. Megan Sanicki is responsible for all the finances and sponsorships for DrupalCon and she’s has been doing a fantastic job at it. I think it’s really great that the sponsors have shown such incredible enthusiasm. I think it’s an indicator of how much interest there is in the conference and I hope that the attendees show as much interest as the sponsors have.

Lowell: That’s great news. But there are still unlimited Bronze sponsorships available, though, right?

Florian: Indeed there are. And it’s still a great way for Drupal-related companies to help make this an event which everyone in the community can afford to attend, while also getting good value. I’m not sure of the exact pricing and details right now, but on the DrupalCon Munich website the sponsorship packages are fully described. There may also still be some other opportunities for special sponsorships, but the opportunities for getting a booth or table are getting very limited, if not completely sold out.

Lowell: So one thing I really wanted to ask you about is: how can people who aren’t already involved in the planning do something to help make sure this the most awesome DrupalCon Europe to date?

Florian: The best thing to do is really just to spread the word: blog about it, tweet about it, make a presentation about it at the local user group, to get people up to speed, to get people to know what it’s about. There’re still a lot of people who don’t know exactly what DrupalCon is, and what the goals of DrupalCon are. Many people think that it’s a for-profit event, which it’s not, it’s really an event that’s fully targeted at getting the Drupal people of all kinds together, whether they are business people, developers, designers; getting all these people from the Drupal world together and really also growing the Drupal community, so reaching out, outside all those who already do business with Drupal. And this is one of the main goals of this specific conference; our slogan is “Open up: Connecting systems and people” and behind this “open up”, we also want to reach out to related communities, so to people working with new Javascript technologies which can be combined with Drupal, reaching out to people from the Typo3 community, which is particularly strong in Germany; it’s also an open-source project — in some ways it’s a competitor, but we have a lot in common and I think it’s great to have that kind of open discussion, to really be able to have that as some positive and constructive exchange of ideas. So this is one of the things that we are looking for in our featured sessions: to reach out to people who would not normally be participating at DrupalCon, to get people from the outside so that we can have a wider range of topics and also have topics that are interesting for people who are not working exclusively with Drupal.

Lowell: For people who do know what a DrupalCon is and live far away, say in North or South America; it’s easier for them to get to Denver. What can you say to encourage them to come to DrupalCon Munich other being able to go to interesting beer gardens and see Germany?

Florian: Well, a lot of people travel to DrupalCons both for professional reasons and as tourists and a lot of people bring their families for the trip to DrupalCon, so we are planning all the special events and parallel activities with DrupalCon.

Lowell: For the “Drupalgängers”?

Florian: Right, Drupalganger outings and also making sure we have some cultural activities.

Florian: Besides that, Germany is probably the largest Drupal market in Europe and the market with the biggest potential. There is a lot of demand and a lot of growth potential. And so I think it’s inevitable that there will be a lot of interest from the outside to get some presence in the German market, so for large companies it’s really a very interesting market to open branches, do more business with Germany, and also for the European market: more and more we are seeing that we’re not dealing with local projects anymore. It’s not a local Drupal shop working for a local company; we’re seeing companies from all over the world doing projects for clients all over the world. Since the German market has a lot of weight in the global economy, I think it’s important to have connections there; it’s important to have a presence there. And also there are a lot of very important contributors to Drupal core and to contrib modules who are from Germany. There’s a very active community in Germany. So for people who are more interested in the community-contribution aspects, there’s a lot of activity in Germany and the rest of Europe, too. So one of the things we are particularly looking at is turning the contribution lounge into a place which really supports and encourages people to contribute, to work with each other, and to have conversations about improvements that can be made to Drupal, to contrib modules, to the way we do business, to the way we do marketing, to the way we do design. We want this conference to be a conference where people participate actively. It’s not a conference where people just go, watch awesome sessions and take notes, and then go home. It’s really a conference where people are active, they discuss things, they meet people, they make new connections, they do business, they write code; it’s really a hands-on conference.

Lowell: Right. So there’s a lot that takes place at a DrupalCon and a lot that goes on in the half-year between the DrupalCons, so if people only attend once-per-year at the conference closer to them, they are missing a lot and missing the opportunities to meet and connect with other members of the community who might not be able to make the longer trips to Europe or to North America.

So are there other ways that people outside of Germany could help support the preparation processes?

Florian: Actually for the teams doing the coordination and organization of the event before the start of the conference, we already have a pretty good team. We have about 30 people involved, split between the design team, the website building team, the track chairs, the people doing the coordination of various events; there are also people working on the marketing. We really actually have a very good team. We have a couple of positions coming up, but what we’re really looking for are people who can make a time commitment, and who can take up responsibility and say I’m going to dedicate myself to do that and we need people who are reliable, because when we are working with such a big team of people, if we have people who are not reliable, then we just spend more time looking after people and we just want people to get the things done. But there are couple of opportunities and if someone wants to get involved, they should just contact us directly through the contact page and say “Hey, I’m available and I have one day a week that I can dedicate to this cause.” And their contact will be forwarded to the correct person. Otherwise there’s going to be the possibility to be involved on-site maybe one or two days before the conference helping with registrations, with distributing T-shirts, with showing the way, helping by being a room monitor during the conference, just making sure that things start on time, and that the speakers have water and so on. But for this kind of volunteering, we’ll post a form on the website one or two months before the event. It’s currently too early to start working on that.

Lowell: Right. How does that work, anyway? If you want to help out at the event, can you do that just for part of the day, so that the rest of the time they can be in sessions and participate in other aspects of the conference?

Florian: Yes. This is generally done in half-day slots or something like that, so we generally have plenty of people who just want to help. I’ve done it before; it’s a lot of fun. You work with other people who are also really passionate about what they do. So it’s a fun experience. You normally get a T-shirt for it and that’s pretty much it, but it’s a great opportunity to start being involved. So sign up for our newsletter on the website and you’ll be notified when we have the call for volunteers.

Lowell: Okay. So is it time yet to register for the conference and buy a ticket or when does that happen?

Florian: It’s not open yet. There are still some things to do to finalize the budget and determine the ticket price. This will be coming soon; it will probably be open a couple of days before Denver, but the official announcement, when we expect a lot of people to register, will happen on the last day at Denver.So it should be ready in a couple of weeks.

Lowell: What are your expectations about how many people might be in attendance at DrupalCon Europe?

Florian: Well, we have enough space for 2500 people. This is bigger than other European conferences, but at the same time, well… there’s been steady growth in the community. Also Munich has a very central location in Europe. It’s very easily accessible from pretty much anywhere by either plane or train, so I’m expecting a lot of people to come. Also, since we want to reach out more to people outside the community, it’s not going to be an event that’s just for a niche group. We want to make it a great event that we hope will attract people from outside the community. I personally expect the conference to sell out. It might not be possible to buy tickets at the entrance. If we get as much interest from attendees as we got from sponsors, if it goes as quickly, then we will definitely be sold out.

Lowell: That’s great! Unfortunately, I’m not personally going to be able to get to Denver… between the cost of airfare, the cost of staying in a hotel for a week, and other expenses, it’s just not in my personal budget right now, so I’m wondering how the prices of hotel accommodations in Munich compare to the costs in London and in winter-tourist-season Denver?

Florian: In Munich, the conference is taking place at a hotel where they’ve offered conference attendees a special price which includes, among other things, free Wi-Fi in the rooms. There are various advantages. You can already make reservations by phone or by e-mail just by mentioning DrupalCon and there’ll be a special form for booking your hotel accommodations which should be ready soon. Otherwise, Munich is not a cheap city, but there are some budget priced hotels in the area and the local transportation is good, so it should be possible to stay at other hotels and easily get to and from the conference location. Public transportation there is great and I would certainly recommend anyone coming for the week, especially if they are staying at another hotel, to buy a public transportation ticket for the week. I think it’s 13 or 14 Euros.

Lowell: That’s a good deal. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with us.

Florian: Well one of the things that we did in London is that when we announced the conference in Munich we handed out stickers. The logo for the conference is actually a beer coaster. And our design team from Cocomore came up with the idea, “Hey, the logo is a beer coaster, how about printing real beer coasters?” And so we looked into that, and then when we were looking at the quantities, we realized that we could actually use a lot of those. And so a couple of weeks ago they were printed and then just last week we received them in our office. It’s two very big and very heavy boxes full of beer coasters, and now we’re distributing those at various Drupal events. so we’re here at DrupalCamp Essen and people are very excited about them already and they’re taking them back to their respective user groups. We’re taking them to CeBIT, the largest IT conference in Europe, where Drupal has a booth. We are also taking many of them to DrupalCon Denver and to many other events. And so one of the things that were going to do with these is we’re going to have a contest for the most creative use of these coasters. So it’s going to be on Twitter; just post a creative use of your beer coaster. And, of course you first need to get your hands on one of them. So if you’re in Denver, be sure to get one. And if you’re not going to Denver, make sure you ask someone who’s going to Denver to get one for you. I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun, so more details will be coming up soon. Make sure you get your hands on one of those beer coasters. The design team from Cocomore really did a fantastic job! It’s been a pleasure working with them.

Lowell: I agree. I think the DrupalCon site really looks terrific, too.

Well, thank you for taking the time to talk with me today and I’m definitely looking forward to Munich.

Florian: You’re welcome, Lowell. I’m looking forward to it, too.