openSUSE:Conference location proposals 2012

openSUSE Conference 2012 Call for Location

openSUSE community members have expressed interest in hosting the 2012 openSUSE conference. To provide the community the opportunity to participate in the determination of the location, we are making a call for location for the openSUSE Conference 2012 (osc12). This part of the process is about checking the validity of the proposals based on specific material questions. Those members who are interested in hosting the conference are asked to post a proposal to this wiki page by January 6, 2012.

Proposal Points to Consider

A proposal should consider the following information:

1. Contact
2. Local Team
   1. What the local team can handle
3. Suggested Conference Dates:
   1. Recommend that you not propose dates in September
   2. Watch for conflicts with other area conferences. For example in Nuremberg (- International toy fair

- Biofach - IIWA 03/08-03/12 - Fensterbau/Holz-Handwerk 03/20-03/24 - Interzoo 05/16-05/20 -GaLaBau 09/11-09/15 - Fachpack 09/24-09/27 - Chilventa 10/08-10/11 - BRAU 11/12-11/15 - SPS 11/26-11/29) Conflicts raise hotel and venue fees.

1. Proposed city/country:
2. Conference venue:NOTE: For an initial proposal we simply need recommended venues (hotels,conference centers, abandoned buildings). SUSE has persons who will work with the venues to negotiate the costs.
   1. Description
   2. Number of meeting rooms and sizes: (Minimum recommend: 1 large room for keynote presentations, 3 workshop rooms, 1 room for community gathering, 1 speaker ready room, registration area)
   3. Physical setup: (Network (including wireless) and power, projectors, tables, chairs, whiteboards,...)
   4. Availability for evening events:
   5. Food: (General cost and availability at both at the venue and nearby)
3. Accommodations:
   1. Proximity to the conference venue:
   2. Cost range:
4. Ease of Access from international transports
   1. Air
   2. Rail
5. Support needed from the community

Proposal from the Greek Community

The Greek Community can handle organizing the OSC12.

Contacts

Kostas Koudaras

Local Team

I talked with a few members of the community and I have so far 12 dedicated people that can spent 10 days in a row for the conference and I believe that we will be around 17-20 in the end(we also have 10-20 people that are volunteered for helping on the days of the conference), due to the 6 Release Parties we made around Greece until today we were on the road so we have a community meeting about 'recruiting' more people on Wednesday.

What We Can Handle

Basically we started organizing a proposal for bringing KDE's Akademy or Desktop Summit the following years to the City so we can handle finding a place for the Conference, finding Hotels, maybe even find some sponsors and actually we can handle almost everything, of course in order to be more precise on this we could use any requirements you can send me. We are 3 people in the team that used to organize things around the city(and not only) so we know in person most of the people we need in order to make the conference work the best way possible.

Proposed city/country

The city we are talking about is Thessaloniki, the second biggest City in Greece After Athens, it is where I live and it is famous for the international conferences that are organized in the city(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thessaloniki) so we have some quite good convention centers that we can use. Also we have many good quality but cheap hotels, International airport (http://www.thessalonikiairport.gr/) we have good public transportation, most of the convention centers can be reached by 5-10 minutes of walking from most of the hotels around the city. The city is pretty centered so there are pretty decent and not expensive restaurants and taverns, we have museums and other cultural places that people can visit that are also located inside the city. The city planning is very well made so it is almost impossible for someone to get lost in the city. Due to continuing coming of people around the Globe most of the people speak English and the city is famous for its nightlife and its hospitality.

Conference venue

We have some places in mind that can really host the oSC12 but we are looking for the best solution possible. All of the places that exist require renting but we have some connections in the municipality of Thessaloniki that may give us a place and most of the equipment we might need for Free as sponsorship due to the Candidacy of the city as the European youth capital (http://www.thessaloniki2014.eu/) , so the following days I booked some appointments and settle some more with people in order to see that possibility also in the next days I will have meetings with people that can rent us places in order to have a complete proposition to send you.

Suggested Conference Dates

The dates we propose are 12-16 and 22-26 of July and 20-24 of September, of course we need to know your opinion about those dates. The reason we propose those dates are because we have many community members have exams in their Universities before those dates, August is very high season for Greece(and really hot even for Lizards to survive) and it is the right time to continue vacations in Greece for anyone the wishes to :-) , so we think that they are the most appropriate ones.

We understand that the Conference needs some equipment and we will make everything possible to find them locally so that you won't have to spent a fortune on sending us stuff, I have a warehouse that can keep any stuff you send us for the conference and generally I believe that we have and can create infrastructures so that will minimize the cost of the the Conference, as we understand that this is crucial.

What we need

We need to send us any requirements that exist for the conference so that we can move with better accuracy to that and we need you to decide the date of the conference, meanwhile I will gather information about the availability and any possible charging of the places. The more detailed you can be the better.

We believe that we can handle organizing the openSUSE Conference 2012 and we think we got what it takes to do it successfully.

Comments / Questions / Concerns

- How about October, should still be reasonably warm in Greece and flights are significantly cheaper than in July?

Prague Proposal

Contact

Pavol Rusnak

Local Team

I have talked to several SUSE Employees in Prague. We have a team of around 10 people who have a promise from their managers, they can spend working hours on organizing the conference. Our team has experience with organizing various team-building events and/or conferences like SUSE Labs Conf for example.

Suggested Conference Dates

September - November 2012

Proposed City

Prague

Ease of Access

Prague has an airport of international importance. There is also a very good bus/highway connection between Nuernberg and Prague.

Conference Venues and Accomodation

KC Zahrada

http://www.kczahrada.cz/page/pronajmy

• keynote room (200 people)
• small room (50 people)
• workshop room (30 people)
• classroom (15 people)
• gym (could be used for various purposes)

• + nice and cheerful space
• + metro station nearby
• + residence hall (student's accommodation) is very close
• - relatively far away from airport and SUSE office

KC Vltavska

http://www.vltavska.cz/PRONAJEM

• lots of rooms with various sizes

• + metro station nearby
• + 15 minutes by tram from SUSE offices
• - hotel not part of the center

Hotel Olympik

http://en.olympik.cz/olympik/konferecni_mistnosti/

• lots of rooms with various sizes
• + metro station nearby
• + close to SUSE offices
• + accomodation possible in a hotel that is part of this congress center

Clarion Congress Hotel

http://www.cchp.cz/en/conference/

• 27 conference rooms with various sizes

• + really huge and flexible congress center
• + accomodation possible in a hotel that is part of this congress center
• + metro station nearby
• + very close to SUSE offices
• - might be too expensive for us

Hotel Step

http://www.wellness-hotel-step.cz/firemni-akce.php

• keynote room (up to 400 people)
• 3 smaller rooms (~100 people)

• + accomodation possible in a hotel that is part of this congress center
• + close to SUSE offices

Top Hotel

http://en.tophotel.cz/conferences/

• 16 conference rooms with various sizes

• + accomodation possible in a hotel that is part of this congress center
• - might be too expensive for us
• - relatively bad connection to city center

Comments / Questions / Concerns

• none yet