· Wikimania has been in cities other than the capital or largest one more often than not (Frankfurt not Berlin, Cambridge not DC or NY, Alexandria not Cairo).
I believe Frankfurt has better transport links than Berlin. I don't know much about the other two. The reason for London isn't that it's the capital or the biggest city, but that is has the best transport links.
· We have tried London before. Many times. Even with very active bid leaders (Alison, Gary) we had no luck.
True, but I'm not sure anywhere else in the UK will fare better in that respect. Most other suggestions have only one person particularly interested in them.
· London is spread out over a massive area. This either means significant journeys from accommodation to conferences to restaurants, or doing basically everything in one of the university's campuses, making us very dependent on that university for everything and giving a rather claustrophobic feel.
London is very big, sure, but each small section has everything we need. It's built up of lots of smaller self-contained (and formally separate) areas. We can easily find a venue that is near to accommodation and other facilities.
· London is expensive and is globally perceived as being even more expensive than it actually is. Being firmly rooted in a university campus would ameliorate this, but it's always going to be an issue when it comes to evaluating bids.
That's true enough, but if is so much more expensive that it would make up for additional transport costs?
· The transport advantages are illusionary. Getting into the centre of London from Heathrow does not take significantly more time than getting into the centre of Oxford (there are shuttle busses). (Oxford is of course not unique in this: Reading, Guildford, Cambridge etc. all have similar services I'd imagine).
That's not a bad point. It doesn't actually have to be London, it could be somewhere within the London commuter belt. Show me some numbers, and you might be able to convince me.
The strongest arguments for Oxford in particular are:
I'd say the strongest argument for Oxford is the prestige of Oxford University - if the event is strongly associated with the Uni, that would be an excellent selling point.
"That's not a bad point. It doesn't actually have to be London, it could be somewhere within the London commuter belt. Show me some numbers, and you might be able to convince me."
The numbers for Oxford are already up here: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010/Bids/UK/Oxford
Pasted for convenience:
5.1 Coach connections to Oxford
* Central London - Oxford Tube (100 mins) [4], Oxford Espress X90 (100 mins) [5] * London Heathrow Airport - The Airline X70 (80-100 mins) [6] * London Gatwick Airport - The Airline X80 (120-150 mins) [7] * London Luton Airport - National Express JL737 (110-130 mins) [8] * London Stansted Airport - National Express JL737 (190 - 230 mins) [9]
5.2 Train connections to Oxford
* Central London (60 mins) [10] * Birmingham International Airport (57 mins) [11]
So about an hour and a half from Heathrow. That's pretty competitive with getting the tube into the centre which is around 45 mins on a good day if I remember right. It's also certainly competitive with Cambridge US. (Many people would have had to fly into NY, got an internal flight to Boston and then a train/bus to Cambridge I'm guessing.)
Tom
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