User:Ctyler/fudcon toronto 2009 retrospective
From FedoraProject
Personal notes and reflections (scribbles!) on being the local guy-on-the-ground for FUDcon Toronto 2009. This is a memory-jogger, mostly.
FUDCon Schedule from the Local Perspective
- T-5 months - check on space, hotel, FUDpub possibilities
- T-4 months - negotiate hotel rate, FUDpub arrangements, reserve space, open registration
- T-1 month - find lunch caterer, give approximate vegetarian counts to caterer and FUDpub venue
- T-2 weeks - order shirts
- T-1 week - reconfirm arrangements, give final vegetarian counts
- T-2 days - print badges and signs
- T-1 day - put up signs
Things to Do Differently Next Time
Brain dump...
- Use a non-wiki registration system so additional information can be collected
- Ask who will be present on which days (useful for lunches, capacity planning)
- Collect detailed contact information - cell phone number, IRC nick, e-mail address
- Get tons of power bars
- Get more networking capacity at hotel and venue
- Arrange all lunches in advance
- Larger hack room at hotel
- Agree on a common Flickr tag (not 'fudcon')
- Pitch barcamp talks in advance (video? wiki?) with voting (counts don't need to be accurate, they need to be representative, for planning)
Things I Found Useful in Negotiating
- Play vendors off against each other, e.g., multiple hotels, multiple FUDpubs
