[Linux-aus] LCA2014 update

[Russell Stuart]

On Tue, 2012-08-28 at 00:31 -0700, James Turnbull wrote:
> Donna Benjamin wrote:
> > It can easily be done with a distributed team, and a professional production company.
> 
> +100. OSCON is done like this. Sarah and Edd run the program and do the
> high level planning and a professional production crew - in this case
> O'Reilly staff - run the operation on the ground. They managed nearly
> 3000 people this year like that so I think it's a model that not only
> works but scales.

+1 again.

The amount of on the ground effort is not that much.  2 weeks full time
at most, spread over 18 months.  18 months because a fair bit of the
work (eg, venue selection, accommodation) are usually done to submit the
bid.

The rest is leg work visiting the suppliers, pricing and what not.
Nowadays even most of that is done electronically.

So it could easily be done by two people locally.  But they would need
backup in the form of a treasurer, papers & miniconfs, and sysadmin
(zookeepr, ticketing system) - all of which can be remote.

The real effort starts a the week or two before the conference.  You
have to get the rooms prepared, gear in place, answer the 1000 questions
from attendees.  It gets worse as it goes on, and on the weekend it
starts you have to get the gear the rooms, the computer systems up, and
coordinate the helpers that descend on you looking for clear, well
prepared instructions.  So you need a person or two full time a at least
a week before it starts, and it ramps up from there.  By Sunday, you
need a dedicated full time core team of at least 5 people who all know
what is going on, what their role is, and who are all pulling in the
same direction.  And if it is only 5, they are going to have to know
what they are doing.

So it's those final few weeks that take the big effort.  The rest is
more of a weekend project.

Like aj, I would be willing to help with an outsourced bid, including
being full time for that final push.  I personally wouldn't care if it
was Brisbane, as it's too close to LCA 2011.  But the Gold Coast isn't
Brisbane, right?