2010/1/27 Jon Davis wiki@konsoletek.com:
As I've never been to a Wikimania, how much space do they take up? I was reading http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2011/Bids/Montr%C3%A9al#Venue and it seemed like they had a fairly large amount of space. The Bay has plenty of large spaces, that isn't the issue, but getting them, costs and all the other logistics would be.
Wikimania typically attracts circa 500-600 attendees, though with a SF location I'd push that up to possibly as high as 800-1000. The problem with venues is that is too many people for many venues (many hotels, etc) but too few for the big ones (eg. the convention center). Throw in the need for nearby, *cheap* accommodation and public transportation and it's tough to find places.
I researched this question out of curiousity last year, and the most promising venue seemed like UC Berkeley, with their blocks of dorms that they rent out for conferences. USF/SF State similarly have space. Someplace like Mission Bay is gorgeous but pricey.
I'm not sure of the time needed to book these places ahead, but remember because of the Wikimania bidding process we can reserve now, or whenever, but won't know for sure if we're hosting the conf. until the bids get decided, probably late spring 2011. If I were planning a 2012 wikimania (heh) I'd research now, and put in a tentative reservation in late summer 2010, ideally with a no-cost cancellation.
Previously there has been some talk of doing a West Coast Wiki-Conference. Much smaller than Wikimania, but bigger than our meetup (more to the tune of RCC). Maybe we should consider doing something like that for early 2011 and use it a dry run for a Wikimania bid of 2012.
I'd be game for a west coast conference!
I'm willing to help be it 2011 or 2012 bid. I think 2011 could be done, but someone really would need to pick up the torch and run like hell, though I'd think 2012 is probably better.
-Jon
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 15:09, Ariel T. Glenn ariel@wikimedia.org wrote:
How far ahead do we have to talk to convention venues to get space in this area? I would think they need a loooong lead time.
Ariel
Στις 27-01-2010, ημέρα Τετ, και ώρα 14:59 -0800, ο/η phoebe ayers έγραψε:
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 2:50 PM, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I would think that properly planning a proposal for something like this would take a lot more than 2 weeks - I've done conference and convention organization work before, and even the rough plan for a proposal took more than 2 weeks, including finding and getting preliminary agreements with venues etc.
Agreed! To clarify: Feb 8 is just the deadline to put down the city name as a possibility. You then have until March 29 to work up the full bid (with team and venue information, etc). Two *months* is still a tight timeline for the amount of information required, though.
The 2012 proposal would be more reasonable, on the basis of having a year to get a team and proposal ready to go.
However, if someone here wants to go gung-ho for 2011 as a practice run or if you think you could actually pull a credible proposal together that fast, more power to you. It would be a good excuse for some gettogethers at least...
Indeed :)
I have worked on planning Wikimania for several years now -- so if anyone has questions about this feel free to ask me directly. Note, I'm not personally committing :) -- but I thought I'd find out if there was any community interest (or pent-up desire!) to host wikimania.
-- phoebe
-george
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 10:14 AM, phoebe ayers phoebe.ayers@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I was asked if the SF-area Wikimedia group had any interest in putting in a bid for Wikimania 2011: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2011
The deadline to do so is February 8 -- two weeks away (just to list the bidding city's name; the deadline for full bid info is March 29).
If that's too hard, there's an unofficial page for 2012 already as well: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2012
If you don't know what Wikimania is, see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania or http://en.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania.
What do y'all think? -- phoebe
- http://phoebeayers.info | phoebe.ayers@gmail.com
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