Just throwing my two cents in as someone relatively new to Wikimania but not unexperienced in conferences, I would make three points. Forgive me if someone said these before in a better way.
1. Wikimania isn't actually that big. I agree with Harel when he points out that the level of overhead involved in organizing is a barrier to strong bids, but still, my understanding is that Wikimania tends to draw less than a thousand people. That's about the size of a municipal or regional technical conference in my experience.
2. Even if Wikimania is not relatively big when it comes to technology conferences, the problem is growing a strong local team of volunteers in a new place every year. That's very, very hard. We're not unique in having that difficulty as a movement, but I don't think it means we should abandon volunteer-based organization for the event.
3. Making Wikimania biannual will only serve to create more pressure on a new local team to create a huge, unique event, not lessen it. If we think Wikimania is too much to have as a rotating single yearly conference, I would suggest (and this isn't a new idea or mine alone) that we pick one or two semi-permanent locations on different continents and hold them regularly in those places. Say, one in Bangalore, one in Berlin, one in San Francisco, as examples, and hold them on a rotating basis.
However you do it, a greater number of smaller, distributed events is the solution for easing the pressure of a single monolithic conference.
On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 7:02 AM, theo10011
<de10011@gmail.com> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 8:26 PM, Casey Brown
<lists@caseybrown.org> wrote:
On Wed, Jan 19, 2011 at 9:48 AM, theo10011 <
de10011@gmail.com> wrote:
> Also, about what Dalton said above, about hiring a single event
> planner/manager in the chapter, I think it's still far from being able to
> manage a Wikimania style event professionally. Unless they are experienced
> with International event planning, its still going to be a very large task
> for any single chapter.
of a paid event professional? Our Wikimanias have been planned by a
lot less -- usually just a group of hard-working Wikimedians, some
with the help of a chapter, some not. :-)
Allow me to reiterate, I meant its a demanding task for any group, let alone an individual planner. :-)
Our Wikimanias have also been getting larger and more complicated, I think thats one of the central issues. I only suggested, maybe its time to consider outside/professional help?
Theo
_______________________________________________
Wikimania-l mailing list
Wikimania-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimania-l