[Linux-aus] LCA2014 update

[Anthony Towns]

On 29 August 2012 09:42, Steve Dalton <steve at refactor.com.au> wrote:
> I was thinking of bidding for 2013, started looking at the bid documents and
> I already had a little bit of stuff done from a failed OSDC bid. But when I
> heard Canberra were bidding, I didn't bother with it -

That's not the best approach; historically most cities/teams have to
bid more than once to actually get it. If you can get your first
attempt out of the way earlier, that's a win. FWIW, going from memory,
supply your own grains of salt:

First-timers:
  Melbourne (CALU) '99: party at Rusty's place
  Sydney '01: only ones game to try stealing Rusty's shoes
  Brisbane '02: Perth and Adelaide/Canberra (?) ceded to Brisbane
  Sydney '07: uppity folks they were
  Wellington '10: also uppity
  Canberra '13: taking uppity to never before seen heights

Multiple bids:
  Perth '03: also wanted to run it in '02
  Adelaide '04: wanted in for '03 iirc
  Canberra '05: wanted in for '03 and '04 at least iirc
  Dunedin '06: not bids per say but was interested from '04 on iirc
  Melbourne '08: bid for '06 and '07 iirc
  Hobart '09: bid for '07 and '08 iirc
  Brisbane '11: bid for '09, '10 as well
  Ballarat '12: bid for '11 as well

I don't know if there's been any actual teams that have actually put
bids in for LCA and not (eventually) run one. I can't recall any?

I think there was only one team bidding for both LCA 2012 and LCA 2013.

> as there would have
> been a fair bit of work to do the bid properly, and looking at the way that
> OSDC Canberra had gone I realised I had no chance against Canberra.

Even so, it would give you the opportunity to ask "so, hey, why was
Canberra's bid better than mine?" and make notes for next time.
Certainly teams have changed composition and/or leaders between their
first and successful bids.

> As
> potential organisers we could also get an idea for the chances of actual
> success before we spend a lot of time preparing bid documents.

The odds depend a lot on who you end up coming up against; eg,
Brisbane's bid for the 2010 conference had a lot of work put in for
it, but it was reasonably legitimately outclassed by Wellington's bid,
which wasn't something that could really have been predicted until
after the bids were in.

> My OSDC bid for instance was knocked back as I chose the Casino as a venue -

Interesting. AIUI, PyCon that just finished was held at Wrest Point
casino down in Tas. I can understand another bid being preferred (a
uni being cheaper or a more pleasant environment than a casino eg),
but not being outright knocked back.

The main reasons to knock back an LCA bid seem (to me) to be: not
enough evidence you really understand the dollars involved (can't put
together a realistic budget particularly), don't have a good enough
idea for where/when you're going to host the conference or other
logistics (arguably Ballarat got knocked back for LCA 2011 mostly due
to transport concerns I think), or don't have a strong enough team to
convince LA that you'll be able to pull your plans off. Other than
that, it's just a matter of being the best bid out of the ones
received, and if there's only one bid...

>  is there anyway we can do something like an expression of interest from
> bidders before the actual bid?

This was done for 2013:
http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2011-February/018476.html

It was skipped for 2014 because the council was behind schedule:
http://lists.linux.org.au/pipermail/linux-aus/2012-April/019446.html

Cheers,
aj

-- 
Anthony Towns <aj at erisian.com.au>