Posted by highermath on September 27, 2007 at 5:03pm
I recently attended DrupalCon Barcelona, where I floated the idea to the Drupal Association Board of having a DrupalCon in the Los Angeles area in the Spring of 2009. To make this happen, we would need at least four people who would be willing to commit a significant amount of time and energy between now and the event.
If you are interested in working on this, please speak up. If there is sufficient interest, I will put together an organizing meeting where we can start planning a proposal.
I have already made exploratory contact with potential sponsors.
Comments
sponsors for Drupalcon LA
I will look into who, outside of the technology field, would be interested in sponsoring the event.
Venue
I will look into a downtown venue.
Expected attendance and venue sizes
Who or where could we reference attendance and venue requirements?
Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant
I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us
Expected attendance and venue sizes
Based on the general trend -- the fall Druplicon tripled in size, this year -- we are looking at a projected attendance of 800. The Association is very price conscious, and while they don't expect that future Druplicons will be priced at 50 euro (the Barcelona venue was totally free), they want them to be affordable for developers and users from less wealthy countries.
DrupalCon LA 2009
Achieve Internet would welcome the opportunity to assist in making this happen. We can contribute the following resources Time/energy/Gold Level Sponsorship.
Put us on the list & let me know when it's time to move forward.
Jeff Badger
Director of Sales & Marketing
Achieve Internet
800-618-8777
Jeff Badger
Nice picture Mr. Badger
You definitely look better in person...hahaha. BTW - It looks like DrupalCon LA 2008 may be a possibility?
http://groups.drupal.org/node/6413
Gus Austin
PepperAlley Productions
Gus Austin
I got at least one sponsor
First, I'm totally down to be a part of this. I'm sure a lot of who attended and organized DrupalCampLA are a great start.
Sponsors I can work on getting: Rich Media Institute, Almer/Blank, those two pretty sure should be in, and maybe I can get something from FeedBurner, and maybe even Adobe. Two companies out here that could be interested would be Google and Yahoo! since they both have offices in Santa Monica.
Supporters: LA Drupal (of course), LA AIR, LA Flash, Community Buildrs, RMX (new service launches later this year), Web Spinners, SoCal Podcasters (L.A. podcasters, O.C. podcasters, S.D. podcasters), 3grams, Connected.LA ... to rant off a few.
Someone we should get to promote the event would be Twit.tv, they're C.A. folk. Any others we should make sure we're giving a heads up to? PHP.net has an events calendar I believe; maybe MySQL and O'Reilly events calendars too.
Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant
I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us
This is a great start
What I am looking for at this point are people who want to get involved in organizing the event and who would be willing to meet - preferably on the west side - to discuss it.
If we can agree on a plan, we will need to submit a proposal to the Drupal Association.
At this point, best guess on potential attendance is 800. I think that the format of Barcelona, with about six sessions a day across four days worked pretty well. We could potentially have a preconference training or development event, as well.
Their seems to be a consensus that the cost needs to be kept low, be held in an interesting area (or, as in Barcelona, with easy access to interesting areas) and there must be low cost housing available, as well.
Downtown BID
I have been working pretty closely with the downtown Los Angeles Business Improvement district, and approach them about a conference package at a hotel, and also work with local restauranteurs to arrange for nightly dinners.
I can only work with them in contexts which are familiar to them, a hotel, its conference facilities. While this may seem a bit of line with past BarCamp and Drupal events in Los Angeles, this is an impossible city to comprehend for the non-native. The urgency and accessibility, and appeal of downtown is something to consider.
It is more than camp
I agree. This is larger than a camp and people will adopt it so. There will be world-wide marketing in the Drupal world for this, and local groups/companies who we'll need to reach and let them know why they should be there.
I think anywhere we can have hotel and conference would be the prime location. Downtown is in an upswing, and since LA Drupal plans to help the city's online needs, why not see what the city can do for a web conference. It'd be wonderful to see Drupal Show day packed with biz owners interested in hearing about manageable websites and groups of people who back the technology.
In fact, I loved the Drupal Show pre-day event that was all the beginners info dump day, and if they go to the con, then cool.
Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant
I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us
understood
Understood. If westside is to be the meeting place for event coordinators I'd like to propose the RMI facility. In fact, tonight is the Community Buildrs meeting at RMI. Wifi on a T1, 150" projector, and enough chairs and table(s) to house anyone involved.
Chris Charlton, Author & Drupal Community Leader, Enterprise Level Consultant
I teach you how to build Drupal Themes http://tinyurl.com/theme-drupal and provide add-on software at http://xtnd.us
Count me in
I love this idea and would like to help organize. I attended Open CMS Summit at Yahoo! last November, plus Lullabot seminar and open hack day. Not as big as what is proposed, but larger than our recent Drupal Camp.
Markus Sandy
http://apperceive.com
http://ourmedia.org
I'll help if I can...
This is great! I don't know what I could contribute, but I'd enjoy being a part of making this happen. I'll be too busy for the next few months to contribute, but since the event won't be until 2009, I guess I'll have all of 2008 to play a part. It would be great to have a page/site where conference requirements and session schedules could be proposed and tracked. I'd be willing to help put that together and manage it.
To clarify: 2008 or 2009?
I think this whole thread got sidetracked....I'm pretty sure Cary meant 2008. Ideally, I will be looking to lock and load on a Spring 2008 location for DrupalCon North America in the next 30 - 60 days.
Any credible proposal will have:
In all likelihood, there will be a GM that is partially paid by the D.A., as we've reached the limit on volunteer-only conferences.
2009
After having a lot of discussions in Barcelona, I was left with the impression that 2008 was going to be in an East Coast city that had been determined, and that we should think about 2009. Obviously 2009 would be easier to accomplish. If the D.A. needs a 2008 proposal, that changes everything.
We need to meet
In case anyone is monitoring this thread, I propose a meeting for anyone who wants to play an active role in putting this together, next week, Tuesday, Wednesday or ?, at my place in Mar Vista or ???. Please sign on in the update thread.
Thanks!