Re: GUADEC 2015 intent to bid for Oxford

[Ekaterina Gerasimova <kittykat3756 gmail com>]

On Tue, Jul 23, 2013 at 10:48:32AM -0700, Germán Póo-Caamaño wrote:
> On Tue, 2013-07-23 at 12:48 +0100, Ekaterina Gerasimova wrote:
> > Hi all, I am planning to submit a bid on behalf of a small team of users,
> > contributors and other FOSS people to host GUADEC in Oxford, UK, in 2015.
> >
> > I and a few of the other local team members will be available during the
> > core GUADEC days next week, in case you want to come talk to us about the
> > bid. If you are not planning to be at GUADEC, please feel free to email me
> > with any questions.
> >
> > You can see our draft bid at
> > https://wiki.gnome.org/EkaterinaGerasimova/GUADEC2015Bid as we put it
> > together. Anyone wishing to join the local team is very welcome to add
> > themselves to the list.
>
> Hi Ekaterina,
>
> First at all, thanks for working on a bid for GUADEC.  I have some
> comments and questions.
>
> It might be good to add some reference prices for meals and such in
> Oxford.  "reasonable" could have different meanings depending where
> people come from.

I have added some costs to the draft bid: it is possible to eat well for 
£20-30, but it's also possible to spend less or much more than that. If 
we are able to use the university accommodation, then kitchens may be 
available for use.

> I wonder what are the odds of getting the venue for free.  It seems the
> venue could make the difference between having some profit, no profit or
> a major loss.

The venues are negotiated with each college or department. Whether we 
can negotiate for a free venue will very much depend on the attendee 
numbers and which venue we want. The higher the expected number of 
attendees, the fewer choices we will have as Oxford is a college 
university with few students per year, so there are few large lecture 
halls. On the plus side, with GUADEC attendance falling in recent 
years[1], we are likely to have more options.

Even if we have to pay the maximum for the venue, the spending is on a 
par with recent years. The bigger question is whether we will be able to 
get the same amount of sponsorship as we normally do[2], which still 
remains to be seen. (I am assuming that it will be similar to this year 
for the budget.) I think that we will be better placed to assess whether 
paying for the venue is a viable option after GUADEC this year and if it 
is not, then I expect the bid to be rejected. We will try our best to 
acquire a venue for free or to negotiate a discount.


Kat


[1] https://wiki.gnome.org/GuadecPlanningHowTo/Attendees
[2] https://wiki.gnome.org/GuadecPlanningHowTo/Sponsors