Atlanta Drupalcamp coming soon...planning help

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Mediacurrent's picture
Posted by Mediacurrent on April 22, 2009 at 6:10pm

All,
We are in the early stages of planning an Atlanta Drupalcamp, and wanted to reach out to see if other camp organizers had best practices, tips, ideas, etc. to share. More specifically, I was wondering if anyone has kept any old notes or a checklist of tasks they could share. I've been digesting the BoF notes and organizer's guide, but since this is our first camp any further direction would be welcomed from more experienced camp leaders.

We have tentatively secured a facility from a local university and are targeting a September timeline (2 weeks before or after Drupalcon Europe).

Thanks in advance, Dave
dave dot terry at mediacurrent dot com

Comments

You can do it!

Posted by DevElCuy on April 24, 2009 at 9:21pm
DevElCuy's picture

I have never organized a DrupalCamp, and my first ever was DrupalCamp Brasil 2009. I have only organized 2 middle size conferences. But, I'm in the works of organizing a DrupalCamp in Perú, perhaps this will help you:

DrupalCamps are more like un-conferences, the 2 mosts are:
1. High Important Information: people will attend the event because they will learn "important" stuff and trusty directions for their Drupal adventure.
2. Contacts Network: people will attend the event because they will be able to establish Very Important Connections.

The most tedious part is to get the whole picture. The look and feel of your event depends on what is going "to happen" there. A quick checklist:
A. About the speakers:
1. I have the full name of every speaker
2. All the speakers are trusted to attend the event
3. I have their personal email, phone, and if possible their address
4. Internet is not indispensable :D

B. About the bills:
1. The event does NOT mostly depends on money, but trusted community members.

C. About the event by itself:
1. There is enough room for all the attendees
2. There is enough food and drinks near the event
3. I have B and C plans (in case of disasters like)
4. I have talked with my boss, wife, family and pets about my eventually overwhelmed agenda during the event.

Topics from D to Z are your homework :)

Blessings!

--
more stuff...
(3 John 1:2) Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.

--
[develCuy](http://steemit.com/@develcuy) on steemit

thanks...

Posted by Mediacurrent on April 29, 2009 at 1:46pm
Mediacurrent's picture

Fernandoo, thanks for the feedback - good info...best of luck with your camp planning and I will pass on any takeaways I get back to you.

links at the top of this group

Posted by greggles on April 29, 2009 at 1:22am
greggles's picture

There are a ton of useful links at the top of [this group] that include advice and distilled wisdom from the past 3 years. Rather than start a new thread let's focus on those resources.

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation

resources...

Posted by Mediacurrent on April 29, 2009 at 2:23pm
Mediacurrent's picture

Greg,
I will trust your judgment here, but I did read through most of the listed resources - while useful, most of the items give a high level overview of camp organization v. specifics. For instance, I was looking for background on:

  • Did most do a 1 or 2 day camp?
  • What's the best day to run the camp?
  • How far out in advance did you start planning and marketing the event?
  • What would organizers have done differently - lessons learned?
  • Exampe of actual expense reports (other than New York, which was really helpful)
  • How did you structure sponsorships (i.e. different price points or same for individual/corporate)?
  • Did most do a total "unconference" format or have planned sessions or a mix of both?
  • Did most have two tracks - beginner and advanced? Was time formally blocked off for networking?

I know a lot of this may depend on your actual location, anticipated attendance, etc. Again, the links above are useful and I'm not trying to duplicate efforts, but there is no substitute than heaing from someone directly from the trenches of organizing a recent drupacamp.

Finally, I should have mentioned ealier, but if you are in the SouthEast and interested in getting involved please feel free to reach out to me.

Thanks, Dave

great - let's discuss

Posted by greggles on May 1, 2009 at 6:00pm
greggles's picture

Ok, these are some great additional topics. I'll give my feedback based on my direct knowledge of Colorado and New York and my second hand knowledge of everything else ;)

  • Wiki of DrupalCamps in 2008 has some data about the number of days and attendees.
  • I think the best day depends on your location and target audience. Weekends will probably pull in more people, and a higher percent of people who are new to Drupal. Weekdays will pull in hardcore folks who use it for work. Saturday or Sunday - depends on local customs.
  • Start planning as soon as possible, but the most important thing is usually the venue, so plan ahead as far as you need that. DrupalCampNYC this past spring was planned in about a month. DrupalCampColorado takes a more planning-intensive approach and planning started the day after the last camp ended.
  • In Colorado, we are planning further in advance. We are also charging more money. Last year we charged $10 and had free space and provided shirts, and food for 3/4 meals on a two day event. The feedback was that it was too cheap and that perhaps we put too much pressure on sponsors without enough value for them. This year the bigger event will have more expensive space and we may have to cut back some of the benefits to make the budget balance...but we'll see. Our goal is to cover costs about 50% on sponsors and 50% on attendees. Other than that...nothing much to change.
  • The Colorado budget for this year and last year is at http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pct21Yt43Edsd3IDsQdvZNQ Not the tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet to get to different years.
  • After the concern last summer that sponsors didn't have enough value for their money we created Giving Sponsors Value wiki post to brainstorm ideas.
  • Colorado structures the event a lot like Drupalcons are organized. Submit session in advance, vote, and select sessions based on a mix of votes and the organizers best guess about the quality of the session. I think that organizing the sessions the day of the event wastes a lot of valuable time (See this DrupalCampNYC video remix for more on how that works).
  • Colorado asks for sessions and then tries to organize them into tracks based on that. DrupalCamp NYC had a clear beginner track and then several more advanced tracks that were organized ad hoc.

About attendance - In 2007 we had ~20 people, in 2008 we had ~90, in 2009 I expect over 200. The wisdom here is that people will sign up as soon as they see proposed sessions that interest them. So, regardless of how you gather sessions (decide morning of or in advance) be sure that you have at least a few great proposals well in advance of the camp. Also, human nature is that you'll get a rush of people who want to sign up the last week of the event...not much you can do to guess how that will go if it's your first camp in your area.

If you haven't already you may want to watch http://dc2009.drupalcon.org/session/drupalcamp-how-and-q

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation

question about how to handle finances...

Posted by Mediacurrent on May 28, 2009 at 3:25pm
Mediacurrent's picture

@Greg (or anyone else),

How have you handled financial transactions associated Drupalcamps in the past - for example, did you set-up a non-profit or have sponsors make checks payable to your company and you oversaw? I've heard setting up a 501 (non-profit entity) can be cumbersome.

I saw where someone said its best to have sponsors pay vendors directly, but this may not be feasible for us.

Any thoughts?

Thanks, Dave

three major strategies

Posted by greggles on May 31, 2009 at 1:51pm
greggles's picture

I know of three major strategies on this front:

  1. Have the sponsors make direct payments to vendors. This requires some coordination, but can be made easier if you frame it as "Company X is sponsoring lunch."
  2. Form an LLC or nonprofit to - requires lots of work, you have to determine who will be your board for the group and who will be members of it able to vote, etc. This organization should be really open to the community.
  3. Get an organization (501c(3) or otherwise) to act as an overseer for the event, requires a lot of trust between the community and that organization and requires the organization to be more open with their books than normal. Also requires a lot of time for the organization, which you may need to compensate. You can choose either a local association that the group trusts, or perhaps try to find a non-profit "fiscal sponsor" or "fiscal receiver" that performs this kind of receivable/accounting role as a service to budding non-profits.

Another considerationi: keeping costs really low makes it easier to deal with all of this.

Last year in Colorado we went with option 1. We are working toward option 2 as a long term strategy. This year we are going with option 3 :)

There have been calls for the Drupal Association to get involved here. That's not feasible 1) because the association is based in Belgium which makes money transfers hard and offers no tax benefits in the US 2) because the association is too busy working on other things to be able to really support this role. Perhaps at some point the association could do this, but it's not likely yet.

--
Growing Venture Solutions | Drupal Dashboard | Learn more about Drupal - buy a Drupal Book

knaddison blog | Morris Animal Foundation

very helpful...

Posted by Mediacurrent on May 4, 2009 at 1:35pm
Mediacurrent's picture

This is great - thanks for the insightful data. Wow, its exciting to see the exponetial growth you've had in Colorado. I'll be sure to reference this as we continue forward with our planning.

Thanks again, Dave

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