DebConf16/Bids/Montreal/Venues/CollegeDeMaisonneuve

Collège de Maisonneuve

Description

Collège de Maisonneuve is the second largest CEGEP on the island on Montreal, home to about 6 100 students during fall and winter semesters. It's located in the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve district, approximately 4 kilometers for the downtown core. It has three different campus buildings some distance from each other, but this proposal is only concerned with the main building at the address 3800 boulevard Sherbrooke est.

Despite not having dedicated conference hosting facilities, Collège de Maisonneuve regularly hosts big events. Some examples:

Event	Year	Attendees	Comment
UniCon17	2014	1200	Unicycle world championships
World Cyber Games Finale	2013	300	BYOD LAN gaming event
53rd Quebec Mathematical Association Congress	2009	250

All venue rooms and amphitheaters considered for DebConf16 are located within the same building.

Conference facilities

How much does it cost to rent these facilities?

Prices range from $65 a day for regular classrooms to $900 for a large conference hall, and are a bit higher during weekend. See below for a complete breakdown.

A sponsorship proposal seeking to obtain usage of the College's spaces at no cost has been submitted. More to come.

How far away are the locations from each other?

All proposed spaces are in the same building, a short walk from each other. Some rooms are be located on a different floors, and movement between those is possible using staircases, the main escalator or one of four elevators.

What kind of places are available suitable for hacklabs, workshops, BoFs and talks?

These are the regular, non-sponsored rates in $CAN.

Room	Seating	Price	Sound system	Projector	Can be divided	Preview
Cafeteria	1000	900$ per weekday, 950$ on weekends	No	No	No
Vivoir	400	700$ per weekday, 750$ on weekends	No	No	Yes
Student café (stage-equipped)	100	300$ per weekday, 350$ on weekends	Basic	Yes	No
Salon (view on interior garden)	150	400$	Basic	Yes	No
Interior garden	250	425$ (4 hours or less), 575$ (>4 hours)	No	No	No
Salle Sylvain-Lelièvre (amphitheatre)	480	See rate sheet	Advanced	Yes	Yes
Small auditorium	137	400$ per weekday, 450$ on weekends	Advanced	Yes	No
Classroom	~30	65$ per weekday, 85$ on weekends	Basic	Yes	Some yes

(Source)

There are open spaces on all floors near the main escalator with tables and seating for about 20 people, and picnic tables scattered around outside.

There is also an olympic-sized pool in the sports bloc and an outdoor football field next to the main building.

Are tables/chairs fixed, or can we arrange them to fit more people/give more room to the people that we need?

• Tables and chairs are fixed in the open spaces
• Seating in fixed in Salle Sylvain-Lelièvre and the small auditorium

Elsewhere, tables and chairs can be moved around freely, the initial setup of which is done by College employees. If necessary, during the event we can request the unused ones to be stored away.

Is the venue ready for handicapped people?

• The main building has one accessible entrance with powered doors
• Inside, floor ramps and handrails are installed everywhere steps are found
• Multiple elevators reach all floors
• Surfaces are level with seldom cracks or holes
• Most corridoors are 3m+ wide and well lit
• Entrances and doorways into large rooms have double doors, except for classrooms which have a single door
• There is a lot of big, contrasted (orange on blue) signage in corridors, near stairs and bathrooms, albeit in French
• The only loud/constant noises there could be are those generated by occupants

Help would be welcome to make this preliminary evaluation more complete.

Are blueprints with exact distances available to us (to be kept confidential on request)?

Yes, PDF-formatted blueprints are readily available.

What kind of audio equipment is already present at the auditoriums?

Salle Sylvain Lelièvre and the small auditorium have concert-grade equipment, the specifications of which are currently being researched.

Other rooms which have a basic system which consists of stereo speakers hooked up to an amplifier.

For spaces with no built-in sound system, the College can lend self-amplified speakers with supports and mixing equipment.

They also have wired and wireless microphones, but the type and number available is currently being researched.

Will the hacklabs be allowed to stay open 24x7? What time schedule do they offer?

Yes. The only currently known condition is that DebConf pays for the security night shift, which starts at 22h00 and costs $28 per hour per guard.

We are currently researching the number of guards that the College would require for the hacklabs, but based on past experience it is probably no more than two.

What kind of security will be there?

Trained security guards which are part of the regular College staff patrol the premises. They are knowledgeable about their environment and generally helpful.

A video surveillance system is monitors most indoor and outdoor public spaces.

Are there any limitations regarding the consumptions of food / alcohol? Where do what limitations apply?

Food is generally allowed everywhere with the exception of Salle Sylvain-Lelièvre, the small auditorium and classrooms. We may be able to negotiate food for classrooms used as hacklabs or BoFs.

Alcool is allowed provided an official permit is obtained from the Régie des alcools des courses et des jeux du Québec. It can take up to several weeks to obtain this permit and involves some small fees.

Convenience stores are forbidden by law to sell alcohol after 23h00.

How far is it to the nearest convenience stores / all-night restaurants?

• An Esso gas station with small convenience store and Tim Horton's food counter is open 24 hours, right across the street.
• There is a second, slightly bigger, 24h Couche-Tard convenience store, 5 minutes away.
• Jimmy's restaurant, also a short 5 minute walk from the main building, is open late-night, until 3AM.

Food

Caterer options

The cafeteria and café at Collège de Maisonneuve are operated by a consumer cooperative under the banner of COOPSCO. They prepare meals on-site in a very large kitchen, and their serving facilities are equipped to handle hundreds of customers on a daily basis. This would be our first choice, as it's likely to be the most convenient and delicious for DebConf attendees.

The cafeteria normally remains open during the summer months, but with limited services. The director has assured us that it could provide full catering services if we were to contract our catering to them. We're currently awaiting a quote,

Other catering options which can be investigated:

• People's Potato
• The Midnight Kitchen
• Cuisine collective Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
• Le Tambour traiteur
• Bernard et fils traiteur

How much are the meals per person per day?

A normal meal, including main dish, beverage, soup and desert, are 7,50$ at time of writing. At regular prices, 3 meals a day would cost from 22,50 CAN$. We could surely get a group price. A quote is forthcoming.

Is the eating place near the talks place / the hacklabs

The cafeteria is on the first floor of Collège de Maisonneuve, right next to most proposed venues.

What kind of food would be served?

Food is cafeteria style food. Special requests could be made if there is enough people eating there. Here is the translation of a typical weekly menu:

Food option	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
Soup	Vegetable and barley	Indian soup	Tomato and noodles soup	Cabbage soup	Chicken and noodles soup
Cream soup	Tomato cream	Florentine soup	Carrots and orange cream	Tomato and red bell pepper soup	Potage parmentier
Main dish #1	Creole chicken	Moroccan chicken couscous	Antilles' beef stew	Citrus chicken	Chili con carne
Main dish #2	Cheese and herbs omelette	Fish stew	Tuna nuggets	Cajun merlu fillet	Salmon pâté
Main dish #3	Garbanzo and spinach bread	Tofu gratin	Vegeterian moussaka	Vegetable and cheese crêpe	Ginger root and tofu sauté

In what fashion? (service to the table, limited buffet, open buffet, etc.)

People would line up, choose their food and be served by cafeteria workers. We would then eat in the cafeteria, which can hold up to 1000 people.

Would food for vegetarian / vegan / lactose-intolerant / gluten-sensitive / religious (of any denomination) people be available?

Normally, there is always a vegetarian meal and a fish meal available at each service. Requests for particular meals could surely be made.

How much meals do we need to order to get those kind of "special" meals?

We need more infos to answer this question.

Will it cost extra to get those special meals?

Normally, vegetarian meals cost the same price than "regular" meals. We need more infos to answer this question for other types of special meals.

In a two week period, how many more or less equal meals can we expect?

We can get all the meals we can pay for.

Network connectivity

Is the area already wired with regular network infrastructure?

There is both a wired and wireless network on the premises.

The wireless network coverage, based on Ubiquiti Unifi AP-Pro access points, is very good in all conference rooms and other central locations, yet a little more spotty in some classrooms. There is an ongoing project to deploy more access points throughout the building. Getting a DebConf SSID on this network is possible. Otherwise, running a separate wireless network would be authorized.

All conference rooms are equipped with a wired network connection of 100mbit minimum.

The College has an IPv6 address block assigned, however it isn't yet routed on the internal network. This should be resolved by the time DebConf takes place. If it isn't, help would be welcomed.

How much does it cost and how difficult is it to get a big internet connection?

The network uplink is a 160mbit symmetrical link provided by the RISQ. Its fiber network connects major universities and institutions in North America through the Canarie network.

Obtaining a higher throughput (up to 1gbps) from our provider for the duration of DebConf is definately possible. To get a quote we would need to know how much more would be required.

How much work does it imply to cover the area with wireless links?

If DebConf wishes to go with installing their own access points, we could provide access to the network closets scattered around the main building along with blueprints. About a dozen access points should be enough to cover the enitre conference area.

If we use someone else's infrastructure, how easy / flexible can that be handled, regarding routing / firewall / ip-range / public access / other stuff?

Compared to a big university, there is relatively little bureaucracy at College de Maisonneuve. Two members of the IT department are part of the local team.

Getting approval for minor adjustments to network configuration (firewall configs, ip range assignments, etc.) involves speaking directly to the department head who's office is on-site. For bigger changes, it would take the time required to ensure that existing services are not adversely affected.

In terms of ip ranges, we can offer a public /24 ipv4.

Do we have restrictions on allowed ports?

By default, all new inbound connections are forbidden and outgoing connections are limited to HTTP, HTTPS and a few other services.

To accomodate DebConf, a specific NAT'd VLAN could be assigned, which would be unrestricted.

Are we traffic-shaped? Or can we set a traffic shaper if we need so?

There is no traffic shaping on wired links. Traffic is shaped on the wireless network to limit bandwidth, although this can be changed to accomodate DebConf.

A traffic shaper could be deployed by the DebConf team if required.

Would it be possible to set up the network before Debcamp?

Yes.

Special rooms

Server room

The main IT server room is a dedicated, physically secured and cooled space which could be offered to install DebConf servers.

Physical access is restricted to IT staff at all times, other persons can obtain access if accompanied.

All racked servers are powered by overpowered UPSes which in turn are connected to the building's generator.

There is currently 6 U of unoccupied space in one of our racks that could be lended, although that may change in 18 month's time.

Video room

A classroom can be used for the storage of video equipment.

For extra security, alterntate cylinder could be installed in the door lock to ensure only authorized persons are granted access.

Accomodation

These two accomodation options can be provided :

1. Inside the main building, in classrooms fitted with camp beds, about 15 to 20 beds per room.
2. A hotel located within 3 km of the College, accessible by walking, bike and public transit.

There are no accomodation options located right next to the College.

The campus does not have any dedicated lodging facilities which could be rented.

Option 2

• http://www.hoteluniverselmontreal.com/
• http://www.gitedezery.com/
• http://www.manoirvillemarie.com

Other

Power

Outlets are available throughout the rooms and in corridors. Possibility of having more available as needed.

Transit

Collège de Maisonneuve is well served by public transit, both subway and bus.

Proximity

Within walking distance :

• Montreal Botanical Garden
• Montreal Insectarium
• Montreal Biodome
• Olympic stadium
• Parc Maisonneuve (big public park)
• Promenade Ontario (coffee shops, pubs and restaurants)
• Musée Dufresne