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How To Plan A Code4LibCon

157 bytes added, 14:40, 8 June 2015
Reorganize notes and general timeline
== General Timeline Process ==
* Apply to be a host
* Consider your action plan** '''Identify your venues ''' for both the conference and the hotel (if different). This is critical, as you'll want to get Get some cost estimates from each. When we hosted in Make sure the hotel will give you a room block.*** 2006/Corvallis, : the campus provided the conference space at a low cost, and this made running the conference much more affordable. When we hosted the conference in *** 2016/Portland, and : we held everything in a single hotel, and we had to acquire 2x the amount of sponsorship than what appears to be normal.** Prepare a sample / generalized budget*** Remember, your institution is taking the risk of covering any costs not covered by registrations and sponsorships. To this point, I believe the conference has always ended up in the black, but there is always a chance it won't in a given year. Drafting a rough budget before submitting a proposal is critical.*** Get data from previous years to estimate minimums and maximums, and fill in as much as you can ahead of time.*** Speaking of sponsorship, I believe we average around 20k per year in sponsorships to help run the conference and keep the registration low. Factor this into your budget.*** Also, when you get cost estimates, don't forget to include food costs.** WIRELESS* Wireless: Always an issue it seems. If you are proposing to host the conference on a campus, check with your IT folks about any additional costs. If you are looking at a hotel or other venue, make sure you talk to them about bandwidth and costs. IMHO, the two things that really need to be addressed each year are connectivity and food - everything else generally manages itself in terms of facilities.
*** make sure VPN is allowed
** Consider using a conference planner*** See if your institution has a conference planning services group or something similar - if it does, then I highly recommend using them. They'll handle registration, budgeting, contracts, etc, and really make life easy.
** Also consider using conference planning services from other entities. In 2013, Chicago used DLF services to handle registration. In 2014, NC used CONCENTRA services for all contract negotiation, fiscal activities, registration, and other conference planning and management services.
** Regarding conference hotel, you'll want to make sure that there are blocks of rooms available - not usually too bad an issue in larger towns, but in some college or smaller towns, hotel rooms may be limited.
*** prepare the hotel for deluge via web when announcement is made about hotel registration available. We overwhelmed the Seattle hotel in 2012
** Remember, your institution is taking the risk of covering any costs not covered by registrations and sponsorships. To this point, I believe the conference has always ended up in the black, but there is always a chance it won't in a given year. Drafting a rough budget before submitting a proposal is critical.
 
 
* Get approved by the community
* Find a hotel, negotiate and sign a contract with them. [[Sample RFI]]
* Invite the community to help with join committees
* Have a timeline
*[[Useful information from 2012]]
* Duty Officers
== Planning == === Budgeting===
* [[Conference_Financial_History_At_A_Glance]]
* private conlist has budget info
=== Hotels ===* You will likely have to convince the conference hotel of the conference size and past room uptake as part of negotiating your contract. They may want to contact past conference hotels to get more info about actual uptake.
* 2014 -- Raleigh Downtown Sheraton
* IMHO, the two things that really need to be addressed each year are connectivity and food - everything else generally manages itself in terms of facilities.
* Regarding conference hotel, you'll want to make sure that there are blocks of rooms available - not usually too bad an issue in larger towns, but in some college or smaller towns, hotel rooms may be limited.
* prepare the hotel for deluge via web when announcement is made about hotel registration available. We overwhelmed the Seattle hotel in 2012
TODO: put get actual room uptake numbers in into a chart here. (NB totals are only useful in the context of how many attendees there were.)
=== Wireless ===
TODO: put actual concurrent connections and bandwidth usage data numbers in a chart here. Note when problems were occurring to give context on whether these numbers were sufficient of insufficient.
 
== Shortly before the Conference ==