DebConf15/Germany/Minutes/2014-03-20

• Developments in Munich
  • youth hostel is okay, another contractual partner might steal single and double rooms from us (we would know this for sure in a couple of weeks)

catering not arranged, and no leads

• • venue could be used, for 4.7k EUR/d (not including security). tiny chance that HM might pay that.
  • opening hours are until latest 12pm, no one allowed outside after 10pm (neighbours)
  • lots of burocracy/regulations in general.

• Developments in Heidelberg
  • venue looks good, madduck, marga and hvhaugwitz were on-site to visit it
  • there seems to be a fibre network connection via the zoo close to 15m to the youth hostel, which could be connected to belwue or the university (10gbit).
  • venue is pretty much ready for hosting debconf15
  • Open points to be negotiated
    • min. # beds for exclusivity,
    • 32.90 EUR / bed / night if we take 350 beds for 8 nights, if we need more, we pay more.
    • if we get the house exclusivly, DJH has a problem if (X|X>~100) beds stay empty, which is why maybe daily fixed prices might make more sense (to stop talking about numbers altogether).
    • exclusivity considered important and worthwhile to pursue, especially since with 230 attendees and 350 beds paid, we are still at 50 €/person/day, which is our max.
    • Are the 350 per night, or average over the week?
    • beds incl. food, which means lots of uneaten food and money wasted. Ideally, we separate food from beds, extend breakfast hours and reduce dinners to e.g. 75% participation, but have the venue have emergency rations on site.
    • Timing
      • option one: conf 14 aug to 23 aug
      • option two: conf 5 sep to 13 sep

• • Actions
    • madduck → get counts of different bed rooms
    • madduck → extend breakfast to noon?
    • madduck → what are the other meal times?
    • madduck → lunch bags for day trip
    • madduck → min. # rooms on average or per day?
    • madduck → check if they can host DebCamp with 80 people before, then we can decide

• • Things that we will need to take care at some point:
    • Parking
    • Day Care
    • Food sold by the venue (coffee, cookies, beer): quantities and prices, selection
    • How we organize meals (tickets? badges? free for all?)
    • Conference Dinner?

• Ideas to increase participation
  • Communicate clearly
  • Be early, exact data
  • Simple registration/payment

• Items that we didn't get to cover
  • Should pro/corp attendees be able to pay per-day, or is it just one flat fee for the entirety of the conference
  • Legal entity? gGmbH or e.V. needs to be clarified.
    • madduck → makes table of pros and cons for e.V. and gGmbH

• Timeframe, next steps
  • Final decision
  • Sponsoring
  • Budget
  • Website
  • Announcement
  • Travel sponsorship

• Being able to announce venue, dates, maybe even prices at DC14 would is a good goal to pursue.