I'd just like to get this discussion started - what do you think that we should do differently, or that we should do better, this time around?
There have been a lot of successful camps from them, and we can certainly borrow some of their ideas.
I'd like to add one thing I've thought about - on the LA DrupalCamp website, someone apparently went to WordCamp (the WordPress equivalent of DrupalCamp) and they had a "Genius Bar," similar to what Apple stores have, except more open (http://bit.ly/14Ada9) - here's a link to the initial post: http://bit.ly/SihyV. Basically, we'd need a few Drupal-competent people there the whole day (in shifts) answering questions - if everyone agrees this is a good idea, I'm also volunteering to co-ordinate this.
What does everyone else think?
Comments
Full vs no-shows
I love the idea of the Genius Bar and would be happy to volunteer for it.
Also I believe the last couple of years the registration has had to close early, but then there have been a lot of no-shows. So you end up with people who want to go, but can't register because it's full, and then tons of empty seats. I think it should either a) overbook with this in mind, b) charge a small registration fee so people are more serious about it, c) allow registration for each day separately, d) something else entirely to help combat this?
Also: more water/non-coffee beverages :)
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Hard Problem!
That's a really hard problem to solve. Last year, we implemented option C, but we still had quite a few empty seats. I'm not sure but i think we might have done A, but if so, we should overbook even more. I personally would not like option B, because not only is there money introduced (which makes it harder to attend, depending on how high of a price we set it), it becomes a ton more complex.
So I'd go for A and C, (which we did last year) or hopefully D
Yeah, it is tricky, because
Yeah, it is tricky, because the are hard fire-marshal imposed limits on the rooms, and at the same time, we know lots of people flake on free events, or only come for one or two sessions. We did A & C last year, but very few people, maybe 5%, bothered to pick a single day.
By how much did we oversell
By how much did we oversell last year? And, are there any alternate solutions we could take?
[Edit: do people really think it's worth it to register separately for each day?]
I don't remember, but it was
I don't remember, but it was a by a lot, at least 20% over max capacity.
One thing we haven't tried is just making pre-registration optional and letting the rooms fill up on a first-come-first-served basis. Could be an interesting experiment.
BadCamp
I don't like the first-comes-first-served approach. I will not register unless I am sure I will attend. I would hate to plan the weekend and find out at when I get there that it is full. It would be unfair to those who are responsible and reward those who are not.
Registering for specific days may help some.
Yeah, that is the obvious
Yeah, that is the obvious counter-argument, that it would be unfair to the responsible people.
One possibility would to not turn anyone away. Just have an open-door policy, and no real registration process at all (except for signing up on a mailing list for info/updates). Of course, each room has a maximum capacity, but that is always a problem, even if attendance is capped. If someone really wants to catch a talk, they can start queuing up early.
I am not sure, it could be complete mayhem, or it could be casual self-optimization.
Requesting registration
Maybe we could take a compromise - request that people register, but not turn them away if they don't (but don't guarantee this) - however, we can think of some benefit to registering, which would motivate people to register. We would stop registrations the day before, and we could also stop them if they are so many that they become unmanageable (as in, it becomes so overbooked that even factoring in no-show rates, we would have overbooked by a lot).
Here's our idea for SANDcamp 2010 registration
Dmitri & Starbow,
Here's our newest idea for SANDcamp registrations; maybe this will work for you guys too? We're requiring registration via the website so that we can order laminated plastic 'backstage pass' badges for all our attendees to be kept as souvenirs. We're also going to charge people for registration, but in reverse.
Here's how it'll work. We plan to ask for a credit card, Paypal, or virtual check, during the registration process, and we'll give you the choice of Day 1, Day 2, or Both Days. You complete your registration, and give us your payment + your full name. Done.
We've now held a spot for you, and incremented our Attendance counter.
The catch is, if you show up and check in at the desk to receive your name badge, we mark your user account (via hidden field) as an 'attendee'. At the end of the camp, we REFUND your registration deposit. Shaw-Bam! :)
This way, nobody has to pay to attend a barcamp, but if you take someone else's spot, and then don't show, you're out the cash. Hey, fair is fair!
______
Senpai
Joel Farris | my 'certified to rock' score
Transparatech
http://transparatech.com
619.717.2805
What other ideas?
I liked the sound of the all day tutorial they did at BADCamp SF. And I thought the lunchtime job fair last year went well. What other ideas do people have?
All-day tutorial
Yeah, that sounds good if we can find presenters, and it would also be nice if we could have at least one design/theming-related session at all times.
Charge
Charging a very small amount helps tremendously with the flaking problem. It can be as little as $5 or so.
Can I attend?
hi guys...
My name's Ayush, and I am an Indian grad student who has just arrived at UC Berkeley. I was interested in attending the BADCamp meet...
I am aware that registrations aren't open yet, but I just wanted to enquire if there are any other registrations/clubs etc that I need to be part of, before I can attend BADCamp.
Thanks
--
Go Bears!
Nope
Once registrations open, you just need to register and that's all.
Yes, you will be able to
Yes, you will be able to attend.
show vs. no show
With my experience in organizing other conference, I would suggest this may be one of the solutions for Show, No show, and pre-registration issues:
We can allow pre-registration, with an option for them to change his/her mind till last day. In the mean time we will build waiting list for filled sessions with FIFO (First In First Out). So whenever anyone withdraw his/her pre-registration, this FIFO member gets pre-registered. This way, we will reward the one who decides to participate earlier than others and at the same time we won't leave the late responders in the cold.
Anyone who did not go through with the pre-registration (i.e. pre-registered but did not withdraw or did not show up) should be listed along with the participants list as NO SHOW UPs so they will be viewed 'unfavorably' by our community.
-Gowri A.
Panaromic Web Design
-Gowri A.
Panaromic Web Design
What about a paid pre reg.
We have done this at the school for a few things.
Take 2/3 of the room capacity and make it eligible for paid pre-paid guaranteed seating say $5.00, proceeds to help defer costs, or make it the cost of a bad camp t-shirt. People can sign up with a credit card, they can withdraw up to one week before the camp with a full refund creating incentive to make ones mind up and opening up the rest of the spots for people on the waiting list as there is a financial incentive to come or withdraw a reasonable time before the event. Because you only allow it for 2/3 of the room people who don't bother can still line up and their s still a reasonable number of open seats. If there is 200 people for a 30 person room that will always be an issue. But at least there is an incentive to plan ahead and an inventive not to sign up and not come.
Mike Hathaway
mike@mikehathaway.com
http://www.mikehathaway.com
I agree with the $5 charge
My experiences with events have shown that even a minimal charge will lead to dramatically fewer no-shows. Registrants could get the money back with free beverages or something.
Pre Pay
I would make the charge $10.00 and not return it. $10.00 is not enough to prohibit someone from being able to attend but large enough to make them think before registering, especially if they know it will not be refunded.
I think the goal is to get as many people attending as possible and know when the attendance is filled.
We could make exceptions if someone made a good case why they cannot pay the $10.00.
Session videos!
Do you think the community would benefit a lot from videos of sessions? If so, is there a realistic way to capture them (all)? How?
If some group wants to take
If some group wants to take on video capture, like Workhabit did last year (expect, actually posting them somewhere afterwards), that is cool. Otherwise I think it is a low bang for the buck effort. And it makes it more exciting to be there, kind of like live theater :)
Session Videos!
Doing videos depends on the room.
Simplest setup is a microphone for the presenter plugged into a video camera, Presenter repeats out loud any question asked. Plugging the camera into a Mac and iMovie capture could make it fairly simple to export and upload.
The other option is screen casting but that means the presenters computer is running recording software and you cannot switch presenter computers.
The hard part is comming up with the hardware for multiple rooms and getting a crew to babysit.
Mike Hathaway
Mike Hathaway
mike@mikehathaway.com
http://www.mikehathaway.com
Short Tutorials?
This will be my first Berkeley based badcamp, but I attended the recent badcampSF. There were a lot of great sessions there.
I'm not sure exactly how you plan on structuring the sessions here, but at badcampSF quite often 1 hour just wasn't enough. Some of the sessions were very rushed, presenting a lot of really cool information but hard to soak it all up in a meaningful way.
Short 2 hour tutorials might be a great way to present some aspect of drupal and then allow the attendees to work/build/explore/play-with that technology during that timeframe. This kind of informal learning can be really rewarding and allows you to learn from your instructor as well as fellow attendees.
To avoid wasting time, a drupal install could be provided with the required modules and perhaps even different installation profiles to use for different tutorials. If you are familiar with the book "Using Drupal" you know what I'm mean. You can download the zip on their website here:
http://www.usingdrupal.com/sites/default/files/using_drupal_source-2009-...
Also would be great to have tutorials of various difficulty levels from beginner to advanced.
I don't know if this requires too much organization but I thought I'd throw this idea out there.