Posted by arcaneadam on August 3, 2010 at 9:21pm
I just want to put this out there to all of you and ask for your support. I think we should push for the Triangle to be the host for 2012 DrupalCon. I've posted a comment on the following thread and I think we should get as many people as possible to comment there in support of it, but also take the survey linked to in that discussion and write in Raleigh, NC as an alternative city. Lets get our city some Drupal love.
Comments
I vote for Raleigh for DrupalCon 2012
I posted the following in the survey:
"Raleigh has a great downtown night life, lots of resturants and a great new convention center. April is a beautiful time of year, with warm temps, and Raleigh will be awash with color from the blooming cherry and pear trees. It's a high tech town and would be a great location for DrupalCon. I would rank it as a 10 if it were on the main list."
Everyone in the local triDUG should take the survey and write-in Raleigh.
Paul
Thanks Adam
I posted and voted.
I voted for Raleigh
I voted for Raleigh, and based on early numbers we have a lead.
As convenient as it would be
As convenient as it would be to have DC in Raleigh I don't think it's a good (or even viable) choice. Local public transportation options range from potentially dangerous to nonexistent. As such the Triangle area isn't a good option if you don't have wheels.
Hotels
One thing I've learned about events is there are a lot of factors involved in determining locations for events of this size. One being hotel rooms. afreeman already mentioned the public transportation issues, but one thing the event coordinators will look at is hotel capacity. As cool as it would be to have 3000+ Drupalers from around the world come to the Triangle, I'm not sure we have the hotel capacity downtown to accommodate.
But the hell with that, go vote for Raleigh and we can fill every hotel room downtown and then some. We can worry about that problem after this place has been selected.
Jason
Good points but don't sell us short...
Out of curiosity, I did some Googling for large conferences in Raleigh.. and found:
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=7570648
15,000 Omega Psi Phi members in Downtown Raleigh..
Also, in the future:
http://www.ases.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=751&Ite...
The American Solar Energy Society is using Raleigh for it's 2011 Convention:
This is one of the largest solar conferences in America, expecting to attract more than 5,000 solar professionals, business leaders, and entrepreneurs to downtown Raleigh, with participants traveling from across the U.S. and internationally
So, conferences as large as DrupalCON do happen here.
Probably won't happen for DC.. but it's worth trying... lol.
Not to mention the issue
Not to mention the issue of... who is going to organize it? There aren't any large Drupal shops in the RTP area that are incredibly involved in the Drupal community. Most of us here at triDUG come from ~10-person shops where 1-2 people at best are interested in being part of the community at large (technically, I'm not even in the area anymore) and those people are intergal to their shop's productivity and thus can't be expected to have the personal or at-work time to do any organizing.
And trust me, we as a user's group don't want to have to take on the responsibility of organizing a Con, especially without an employer who will pay one of us to work full time on organizing for 6 months. Plus, at any given time over the past 2 years, we've never had more than 3 people interested in working to organize group meetings, which takes almost no time or effort compared with organizing a Con. You can't imagine the hell the poor bloke who gets stuck organizing triDUG's DrupalCon will have to look forward to.
But, all that said, having it in Raleigh would be awesome. :)