Nick, Thanks for summarizing all the various peoples reports in this one mail.
Can I suggest that it is long past time for separating out these issues and tasking appropriate volunteers for driving things forwards. We need a planning time. We need regular calls to make sure things are not being dropped. I guess what I'm saying is we need a plan (it's great that there is now information on which we can build this plan - thank you all) Ross On 31 July 2012 00:31, Nick Burch <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi All > > As people are hopefully aware, several of us visited the ApacheCon Europe > venue at the end of last week, and had a bit of a planning meeting after. > This email is an attempt to combine together the notes which were kindly > typed up by people there. Hopefully it'll largely hang together, despite > multiple authors, and will make sense and be useful. Here goes....! > > > The venue was visited by Nick, Paul Götz (SAP and ASF, ASF id pgoetz), > Elizabeth Garcia (Lucid Imagination) and Rainer Jung. Paul is our main > contact into SAP concerning the sponsorship. He took lots photos, some of > which are already available. The day started at about 9am, and finished > about 7pm. Was more epic than originally planned... But productive! > > > 1) The Arena > ============ > > We got paper floor plans showing some variations of chairs etc. We > (Paul) will receive those plans in electronic form, and has rough versions > of them available in the mean time. Paul will also get some picture material > from them we can use to get a better sense of how the venue looks when setup > for a conference. but which we should not circulate publicly because of > copyright. > > There is a German explanation at > > http://www.achtzehn99.de/wirsol-rhein-neckar-arena/ > > and a German brochure ate > > http://www.achtzehn99.de/assets/downloads/PDF/lowRZPDFBroschreRNA1899.pdf > > > a) Parking > > Since it is a soccer stadium there is lots of (free) parking directly > attached to the venue. > > There are 4 floors: > > b) Ground Floor > > On the ground floor there is a big open space directly behind the doors. > The site has furniture to establish a registration and a wardrobe in > that area. The furniture consists of about 8 cabinets with rolls to move > them around. They have the right height so you can stand behind them and > give out stuff to attendees. > > c) First Floor > > The first floor has the biggest "rooms". It is a symmetric design. > There's a so called "Business Club" (an area with a bar, tables and > chairs for about 50 people) in the middle between two open stairs and > the elevators. To the right and the left are two spaces which can be > used for separate talks. Each of those fits about 200 people without > tables (only chairs, much fewer with tables). The layout would be about > 20 chairs times 10 lines. > > There are no real walls between these spaces and the Business Club. > Partially the spaces are separated from the rest by movable glass walls. > The people there tell us. that there would be no acoustics problem in > having concurrent talks in the two spaces. > > The keynote would happen in one of them with sound and projection being > transmitted to the second one. > > For the conference we would need a bigger projection screen than what is > installed. For this they have a small setup (one big projection screen) > and a big setup (two screens, presentation plus e.g. speaker or video). > The small setup is covered by the quotes we already received (see > below), the bigger setup is more expensive. > > The floor is very bright and there are curtains to dim it slightly for > projections. > > d) Second Floor > > Again it is a symmetric design. The floor is a bit smaller than the > First Floor. In the middle is the so called "Piano Bar" a lounge style > area for about 30 people to sit. To the right and left are areas for > about 186 people each (chairs but no tables, otherwise fewer). > > Again the areas to the right and left can be used for talks. > > e) Third Floor > > That floor is primarily meant for catering. There are chairs and tables > and they can serve meals there. > > There is no ceiling between the talk areas on the second floor and the > third floor (you can directly look down). > > f) Other Rooms > > Press Room: to the right of the ground floor is a separate room called > the press room. The room accommodates about 70 people without tables > (just chairs) and probably about 40 with tables (unconfirmed). See Page > 7 in the PDF. > > Rhein Neckar Lounge: then there is on the second floor the Rhein Neckar > Lounge. It is a completely separated room to the right of the floor, > maybe about 30 meters away. The room has a very slight angle. In the one > part it can fit 30 people very nicely, if you add the other part you > could fit 50 people. See pictures Pages 12-13 in the PDF. > > SAP Lounge: and there is the SAP Lounge, which is usually used as a back > office. > > Small rooms: Finally there are lots of smaller rooms for about 12 > people. We could book some of those in addition to the basic package. > > g) Photos and Floor Plans > > Photos from Paul have been uploaded to > http://people.apache.org/~pgoetz/aceu2012/ , both as individual files and a > 250mb zip bundle. The floor plans are due soon, in the mean time the > printouts we received in person have been scanned and put online. > > In the lobby, there's the fan shop to the left (no pictures), and the press > room to the right of the entrance hall (see pictures 0xx). > Level 1 and Level 2 are the main event areas (see the areas marked yellow in > the Floorplan.pdf, pictures 1xx and 2xx). > Level 3 is smaller and mostly used for meetings / discussions (see pictures > 3xx). > On Level 2, there is the "SAP Loge" (where usually the IT and Orga Team is > located) and - not shown on the floor plan - the "SAP Lounge", an additional > room for conferences (see pictures 4xx). > > Paul has tried to mark the view points for the various pictures on the last > three pages of the PDF. > Orientation of the floor plan: Top = East, Right = North, Bottom = West, > Left = South. > > On Level 1, there are two large areas (left/right), which can be separated > by movable walls. Each of these sections has a capacity for about 200 to 300 > persons, depending on how the seating will be arranged. Other events had a > setup with about 250 persons/seats on the right area (as key note area), > using the left area for catering. The area in the middle is for chill out, > meet & greet, for smaller groups. > Level 2 has basically the same layout, with about 180 seats capacity per > area. > Level 3 could be used for about 70 persons per area, but as you might see > from the pictures, this level is mainly used for meeting areas and for > catering. For other events, it has been mostly used for the evening events. > The press room has a capacity for about 80 persons, the SAP Lounge for about > 50 persons. > > Nick's assumption was something between 300 and 500 participants per day, > with 4 or 5 concurrent tracks. > So we could have registration in the lobby, one track in the press room, the > largest track + key notes in Level 1 to the right, another track + key note > video in Level 1 to the left, one track on Level 2, and (depending estimated > number of participants) the fifth track either in the SAP Lounge or on Level > 3. > That would leave pretty much space for meeting in the different lounges and > catering areas. > > h) What we do / don't get of the venue > > As the Rhein-Neckar-Arena (RNA) Sinsheim is the football stadium of > "Hoffenheim 1899", parking space is more than we need. > > We will not have access to the entire stadium, only to the main building, > the "Business Club", which is "Entry West" on the plans above. > > 2) Various Aspects > ================== > > a) Capacity > > Catering floor and keynote possibilities limit the site to about 450 > attendees, maybe 500. Between the individual track rooms we have more > capacity, the limits are catering on the 3rd floor and keynotes. > > b) Accessibility > > There are Elevators connecting the central parts of the floors. > Everything we visited had no steps (as far as I remember). > > c) Smokers > > Smoker have access to balconies inside the stadium. > > d) Power > > The common setup of having tables and power supplied during the talks > will not work. Usually there's not enough space for tables, and if it > were, there are not enough floor tanks. > > We think about creating charging areas were we provide a few dozens of > plugs. Details e.g. maximum current they can provide (= number of plugs) > need to be checked with the relevant people. This will affect the number of > charging points we can offer. > > e) Network > > There Wireless everywhere, but details about access points etc. still > need to be checked. Paul remembered they have an outside bandwidth of > about 20 MBit/s. > > Wired connectivity could be provided in some special places, eg for speakers > and for the the chill-out/meetup spaces in the middle of the floors. > > f) Sound > > They provide Microphones, amplification etc. > > g) Audio Recording > > Plugging in our recorders would be possible. Details need to be checked. > > h) Video Recording > > They could provide the service but it is expected to be very expensive. > They seemed not to be to happy about the option of bringing in some > external partner for this. Since they didn't see a problem doing it by > ourselves, there might have been a misunderstanding about external > partners using the Arena's equipment. Need to clarify. > > i) Evening Hours > > For Evening Events we would at least need to pay for a security person > near the entrance. It didn't sound like a big problem nor did it sound > expensive. Having evening events e.g. until 10 p.m. would then be no > problem, so they don't kick us out early. > > j) Non obvious staff > > They recommend to put some staff at the stairs to guide people. > > k) Signage > > They have electronic displays and could also provide about 10-15 pin > boards (they want to check the numbers). > > l) Insurance > > We will get the so called AGB (Allgemeine Geschäftsbedingungen = basic > contract rules). We hope we can find out from that what kind of > insurance is covered. > > 3) Duration of the Conference > ============================= > > The options depend a bit on the soccer schedule. There is set to be a match > in the stadium either the Sunday before (4th November) or the Friday after > (9th November), it should become clear in a few weeks which it will be. The > local club is set to play against Schalke. Depending on that there could be > an option > of doing the setup on Sunday and starting the conference on Monday. The > more likely option is being able to run a hackathon on Monday starting > not to early (like 11 a.m.), e.g. in the press room, and opening the > registration also on Monday e.g. at 2 p.m. and starting with the > conference on Tuesday. > > We need to decide whether we want to have a 3 day plus Hackathon or 4 > day plus Hackathon conference (or another option) and whether we think > Friday should just be for tear down or a real conference day. Adding a 4th > day of talks is likely to bump the price up a lot. > > 4) Prices > ========= > All costs will be in Euros. Registration and Sponsorship will want to be > collected in Euros too. > > CAUTION: all prizes are given in Euros. During the last 4 months the > Euro was declining from 1.32 USD to 1.21 USD. > > b) Committer Reception > > The venue people recommended to ask in the nearby museum (one can walk > by foot): > > http://www.technik-museum.de/en > > http://pdf.technik-museum.de/events-museum-sinsheim-english.pdf > > We went there, but the responsible person didn't have time > spontaneously. I do have a telephone number and someone is going to give me > a call on Monday, so that I can report the basic options and conditions. > Based on that we can hopefully work out what the option is, and how much > it'll cost, then we can approach potential sponsors. > > We kept this item separate because traditionally we found a sponsor who > finances it. > > 5) Hotels > ========= > > There are only very few options in Sinsheim itself. Only four hotels > have more than 10 rooms: > > The biggest Hotel, which is also not very far from the Arena and the > museum, has about 110 rooms and 218 beds. Of these currently about 90 > rooms are still available for the conference week. Web site: > http://www.hotel-sinsheim.de/ > > Feedback from Elizabeth (who stayed there) was that it was very nice, and > also has some rooms which could be used for trainings / small events > before/after. > > Hotel Bär has about 55 rooms and about 80 beds. It is a walk of about 20 > minutes to the Arena. > http://www.hotel-baer.de/ > > Hotel Prinzen has about 17 rooms and 25 beds. > http://www.sinsheim-hotel-prinzen.de/ > > All other Hotels in Sinsheim are smaller than 10 rooms. There are quite a > number of guesthouses, b&bs etc in Sinsheim. The next village over, Dühren, > has a couple of hotels in the 50-75 bed range, but it's a bit far to walk. > > > b) Options for accommodating everyone > > It's not going to be possible for everyone to stay in Sinsheim, as we're > planning for a conference of up to 450 people, but there are only about > 250-300 beds in Sinsheim across the hotels + guest houses. > > People would have to commute to any of the proposed cities. Public transport > is available. Train e.g. from Heidelberg to Sinsheim is 36 minutes non-stop > every hour. From Karlsruhe is about 1.5 hours 1-2 train changes, 3 times an > hour, Mannheim 1 hour 3 minutes, 1 change, once per hour, Heilbronn about 40 > minutes, 1 change, once per hour. So it seems Heidelberg would be the best > option concerning optimization of commute time. Heidelberg is a touristic > and university town so in principal should have enough capacity. We have to > check for other concurrent conferences though. Evening trains to Heidelberg > are available at 8:51, 9:51 and 11:15, one that takes a bit longer even runs > at 11:59 (p.m.). > > And: some people will have a car and they have more options. Like booking > one of the small places in the surroundings of Sinsheim. > > Finally: if we go for students with reduced tickets, then many of those will > likely come from places in a distance less than an hour driving and will > stay at home for the nights or belong to the car category. > > I'd say the worst thing about the hotel situation is, that there's no easy > gathering for everyone for some local bar time in the evening. > > 6) Sinsheim > =========== > The town seems very nice, with several different restaurants and bars, lots > of cafes etc. There's a pedestrianised bit between the station and > Hauptsrasse. Most of the restaurants / cafes / bars are either on the > pedestrianised part or along Hauptstrasse. We're not going to fit the whole > conference into any of them, but groups of 20-30 people looking to do their > own thing in the evening ought to be just fine. > > Some people seem to think that Sinsheim is just a football stadium and 3 > houses next to a motorway junction. We're going to need to convince them of > what it's really like! > > The town centre is a 20-25 minute walk from the arena. There are footpaths > the whole way. Walk wasn't too bad, but it wasn't the 10-15 minutes > Elizabeth thought...! 20-25 seems a good estimate though. > > There are two railway stations in Sinsheim. The main one in town has more > trains stopping, including some fast ones, but is 20-25 mins walk. The other > is nearer the venue, perhaps 10-15 mins walk (we didn't try), but only local > trains. > > Tourist Information have a brochure of local hotels / guest houses / etc, > which we have the printed version of. Same info looks to be available on > their website, need to link to that from the venue details page, along with > info on the town, hotels etc. > > > 7) Some Calculations > ==================== > 3 different calculations were done, two online and one on paper, to check > that the numbers added up and that everything was covered. Amazingly, they > all came out with the same answers! A single version has been uploaded to > Google docs for ConCom review. > > We produced some numbers for the likely breakdown of attendees at different > ticket sale levels, 250 / 350 / 450 people. We worked on the basis that at > 250 people, we'll have a cheaper lunch, and probably only 4 tracks. If we > get 450 attendees, e.g. sell out, we would go for the higher end food and > run 5 tracks. This largely gives the same answers for the profit/loss - > extra people have extra costs, but a little bit left towards more food. The > likely breakdown was ad-hoc, based on experience and gut feel. It was *not* > based on numbers from previous ApacheCons, as they were felt to be too > different. > > > 8) Various Aspects > ================== > > Some aspects have only been shortly discussed. > > a) Track Sponsors > > We talked about Sally's proposed track sponsorship model and it was > integrated in some of the calculation sheets. There was a question of > what value the track sponsor gets apart from logo visibility ans whether > a sponsor should be able to buy all sponsor slots for a track > (exclusivity, first come first serve). > > There was an expectation, that the track sponsor slots for Big data > could be sold out, the ones for Lucene/Solr nearly and in addition maybe > another 4 track day slots. This is not based on known expressions of > interest, just a gut feeling yet. > > b) Marketing > > - in Germany many IT people watch the Heise Newsletter. There are > several contacts to heise and we would expect to be able to have at > least two messages in the Newsletter. An early one and a reminder one > before the conference. What we would need is a text suggestion. > > - there are lots of Java User Group. We don't know yet whether there is > a common newsletter or similar. > > - there are a couple of universities around Sinsheim. Mannheim, > Heidelberg, Karlsruhe and Kaiserslautern. Some of them have lots of > computer science students. > > - current track descriptions and names work fine internally, but need work > before we can start selling tickets against them. Elizabeth is going to work > with the Lucene community to put together something of the required detail / > level. Will circulate that to the other track chairs, and ask them for > something similar for them. Need to do this soon. > > c) Apache Office > > There might be additional funds which can be used around the conference > for Office specific stuff. > > d) Hotel Situation > > We need to provide information on the Wiki. Possible towns are > > - Heidelberg > - Mannheim > - Karlsruhe > - Heilbronn > - Bruchsal > > The differences are public transportation (duration, frequency), size of > town (Bruchsal is the smallest, Heilbronn still pretty small etc.), > Hotel options etc. > > e) Hotel Rooms for TAC > > Nick and me visited the Hotels Klostermühle, Prinzen and Bär. > Klostermühle didn't look very friendly, is the smallest of those and > there was no one there to show rooms or give any information. Didn't > look promising. > > Prinzen looked OK. The guy I'm talked to was a bit complicated. Bär looked > nice, but was a little bit more expensive. > > We have rough quotes for expected TAC numbers and dates. If we want to cover > speakers too, we'll need to up those. All hotels visited were in Sinsheim, > but there are also hotels in the next village (would need a bus), or loads > in Heidelberg (train). Another email thread for this. -- Ross Gardler (@rgardler) Programme Leader (Open Development) OpenDirective http://opendirective.com
