From where I sit

So ok I said I would post a few of the things that went into DS2010. Here is a start.

I had only been involved since mid November, that's months after Bevan had laid the ground work, but it really does seem longer than that!

In that 2.5 months, I took over the speakers / schedule, the menu, the name tags, the LCA booth, the Em Space training day, and tried to rustle up some swag.


Speakers

This involved pursuing speakers to see if they wanted to speak. Setting some up with user accounts on DS, and sending links to their sessions if it was prudent to the cause. Eventually setting a cut-off date by which proposals needed to have been submitted to the website. Reviewing and publishing each session. Notifying speakers of their success. Reminding speakers to prepare their sessions.


Schedule

All speakers were accepted that confirmed and submitted proposals. That was 22 speakers, 26 sessions, 18 hours. I took my lead from Bevan and the previous schedule for the timing of breaks, lunches and transitions for this year, realising that DS2008 was more an unconference and due to the over-whelming enthusiasm from speakers, 2010 was going to need to have a stricter format.


Menu

15% of our attendees had dietary requests of one kind or another, with less than a handful requiring strict consideration due to health conditions. The DS registration fee was based on covering the cost of the 2 lunches and 4 am/pm teas, as the rest of the costs were covered by sponsors. The items that were served reflected the requests of the majority of our attendees. There was a bit of liaison with the venue about accommodating those with health concerns but they were really great about it and we reached an arrangement where they took orders and modified menu items to suit on the day.


Name Tags / Printing

Name tags were a hard one in the sense that not all registrations were complete even a week beforehand, and I was unable to 'compete' with Gold's lanyard note name tags from DS2008! I wanted the tags to have Real Name and D.o User Name as I thought this made for easier identification of individuals. Unfortunately both were not mandatory on the DS site and a bit of research went into matching up the two for at least 75% of attendees. In the end the name tags were 'home made' - printed, cut, stamped, laminated, punched and pinned; otherwise you'd have been writing your own names on conference name tags!

The print-ready schedule was the other main thing that had to be prepared 'at the last minute' for DS.


LCA booth

We were late off the mark to secure a booth for LCA, due I guess to the focus on the core needs of DS. Never-the-less LCA accommodated us. This meant in the week before DS, coming up with an idea for the stand. We already had the banner (as it was not allowed to be hung off the balcony at Mac's due to historic building status). For the walls I screen-shot a combination of NZ and international websites using Drupal, prepared them for almost margin-less printing on A4 card stock at optimal size, trimming, laminating, and adding velcro hooks on the back for mounting. The idea for Druplibag also came to me during this time, as the stand was to be un-manned, and I thought it needed a 'point of interest'. I also did my best to come up with a hand-out that visitors could take away with them. (There are still some of these left that if you would like to distribute in your local communities that I am more than happy to send - libraries and universities/techs are great venues!)


Em Space Training

Simon Hobbs, one of the DS sponsors, offered to provide some Drupal training, the length of which fell outside a regular session. This necessitated finding and securing a venue, instituting a selection process for awarding free places to DS attendees only, planning a loose schedule for the day, organising am/pm teas.


Swag

Thinking there was an expectation of swag at IT conferences I set about emailing/faxing over 30 companies, following each up at a later date primarily by phone. Many had supported LCA or didn't know what a fantastic marketing opportunity they were missing out on!! In the end we got 4 donees and one who has already confirmed they would support future events (Packt).


So that's my brain dump for now. I will re-edit this post instead of threading others, if/when I think of other things.
I do have some comments about how things could be different next time which I will add at the end!


[One other somewhat un-related thing is that after the event I discovered that some people did not have email addresses linked to their registration, so when the contact form was used, emails may have gone into the ether.]