2009 Drupalcon Proposal

The purpose of this page is to gather thoughts on Philadelphia's proposal to the Drupal Association to hold North America's 2009 Drupalcon in Philadelphia. Please feel free to add any ideas or suggestions.

Questions that need to be answered:

1. What will be the legal entity contracting with vendors, putting down deposits, putting forward their credit history, etc. Presumably the answer is the Drupal Association.

2. What challenges might a local group face in working the Drupal Association?

3. Will Acquia put in $ and some other heavy lifting as they did for Drupalcon Boston?

4. What is the status of piggybacking onto the AIMM conference?

5. If we don't piggyback onto AIMM, is it realistic to think we can find a venue for 1000+ attendees in Philadelphia on such short notice?

(Shai opinion="

• I don't think we should consider it if we are not going to piggyback on AIMM.
• The conference organizing budget needs to be significantly bigger than it was for DrupalCon Boston because of their experience that volunteers didn't end up doing as much of the work as they had planned. This is especially true in Phila where we have a smaller Drupal community anyway.
• I think the paid conference co-ordinator person should be at a higher level with more authority (and thus paid more) than was the case for DrupalCon Boston and that person should report directly to the Drupal Association conference lead - not to the local committee.
• I think the main tasks of the local committee would be to:
  1. Be in charge of planning "fun" non "business" activities for attendees.
  2. Generate volunteers for various "welcoming" capacities at the conference.
  3. Promote the conference in the Philadelphia region in advance of the conference, likely reaching out/prodding the New York Drupal group to engage in significant promotion efforts.
  4. Help the conference professional reach out to local media in order to generate some buzz for the conference.
  5. Generally be in the position to support the paid conference professional, not be the boss of the paid conference professional.

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