Re: GNOME and KDE to Co-locate Flagship Conferences on Gran Canaria in 2009

["Alberto Ruiz" <aruiz gnome org>]

2008/7/16 Dave Neary <bolsh gnome org>:
> The local organisers are covering costs up to €250,000, about the same
> as our entire GUADEC budget for the last two years combined, and this
> coverse the site + 40% subsidy of sightseeing + invited journalists,
> VIPs and perhaps organisational staff (to be determined).

What we have told to the local government is that this is going to
work as the olimpic games, we set the rules and the spirit of the
event. If there's something in the proposal that we don't like,
nothing is written into stone yet.

As a side note, the secretary of tourism and innovation was a teacher
of computer science on the university, so we won't have too much
problems to explain him what the culture and the values that we want
to push into the event, we just have to make sure that we tell them
what we want.

We have regular meetings with them since a few months already, so
there's a good communication channel between us.

> In the conference center, lunch is €24.50 per person and coffee breaks
> cost €7 per person per coffee break (that better be some good coffee)

There are plenty of restaurants along the coast and a shopping center
right in front of the venue. Attendees won't have to go too far to get
a much cheaper price (6€-8€ menus). We also have the possibility of
doing beach volley, football or basketball activities, there is
equipment and infrastructure to do this all around the beach besides
the venue, although we don't know what do we need to book them yet,
anyway, it's not like people will be stuck in an expensive venue
without any other options.

> They talk about going through a travel agency and getting group rates in
> hotels. I would *really* like to see GUADEC go back to block-booking
> beds in a hostel or campsite (as we did in Stuttgart & Kristiansand),
> and recommending hotels for those who desire them.

We are one year ahead, so we are on time to do whatever we want, I
wasn't at Sttugart or Kristiansand, so if you could be more specific
on what the experience was and what we need, I can start requesting
the information on which options do we have to repeat the experience.

> All in all, it smells to me like we will need to manage expectations of
> the organising group very aggressively, starting now, to avoid a
> cultural disconnect. And that means being able to clearly communication
> our expectations - I know we have had problems doing this in the past
> (thinking in particular about Barcelona). I think the best way to do
> that is to have someone representing the two communities who understands
> those expectations representing us to the Gran Canaria local government.

There are already two representatives for each community, there's
Agustin de Benito and Richard Dale from the KDE community (who was the
one who presented the idea of doing Akademy to  of the local
government of Gran Canaria) and Luis de Bethencourt (maintainer of
Ubuntu Studio) and myself. We'll push as hard as we can to keep the
spirit of the even, just let us know what we should do.

We have already told to the government that this "kind of" works like
the olimpics, the comitee sets the rules and the spirit of the event,
the host puts the infrastructure. So far the government has been
pretty open to all of our requirements so I don't see any problems on
getting whatever we want as long as we ask for it on time.

-- 
Cheers,
Alberto Ruiz