UniversityPlaceHotel

Part of how many we expect depends upon how many we want to come. The more we advertise and network and sign up rock stars the more people will attend. The question becomes … how many do we actually want to come?

TedLeung? of MindCamp? said they got their space (easily held our 150 people) for free. Granted, it was only two days of use. But it was free.

If I recall right, he said getting space was easy- apparently there are a lot of tech-friendly space providers that think that these sorts of meetings are very interesting, and are happy to let people use the space.

Contact TedLeung? if you are interested in persuing this sort of thing; He knows lots about it.

I personally met a pastor, and another fellow, who had church and warehouse space, that they were eager for someone to make use of.

It should be possible to get space for free, without much effort, I think.

At MindCamp?, we just slept in the main room, and attached side rooms. A handful of people went and got hotel rooms.

It just wasn't a problem.

I'll ask about the commitment to exact location; I think it was roughly 2 weeks in advance for MindCamp?. Invitations went out a little over a month before the event, I think. That is, not knowing location wasn't a problem, either!

Free is great. Nobody had to pay for anything. There were a handful of sponsors; I think Microsoft paid for all the catering. They snapped it up in a flash- it was very easy to get them to do it.

Let me introduce you to TedLeung? or NancyWhite; They were planners, and would probably be happy to talk with you on the phone.

Please do, feel free to call me (NancyWhite) - we had our mindcamp debrief Tuesday and I have our notes about what went well, what we're planning to change for 2.0 We agreed that if we could get the same space again, we'd go for it in a second. We'd use it slightly differently. But a vacant office space is terrific and it worked for "camping" – keeping our cost low. Andru estimates that if we had no sponsorship, it would have cost $10K to do the event for 130 people. As it is, the out of pocket was around $500. And the sponsors were very happy to pitch in. We had a fully sponsored box lunch, fantastic buffet dinner (high quality) and continental breakfast on Sunday. We asked people to bring snacks and drinks (no alcohol) and they did in droves. We had a car full of leftovers to haul to the foodbank on Sunday. We used white butcher paper on the walls, had 5-6 "white boards" and 3-4 flipcharts we all hauled there. Don't forget blue painters tape for putting up stuff. Ask people to bring their plugin strips. Test all electric outlets and internet access well in advance (we had a few last minute surprises). If you are in a donated space, have some volunteers do hourly sweeps of the restrooms – mostly to empty trash cans, but we were responsible for our space. Small, frequent cleaning increments are much easier than facing it at the end.

A lot of the needs in this list seem like TechSetup, which I have some energy for. I'll make a page.

Let's remember the "simplest thing that can work" mantra as well while considering spaces. Most important is that this thing happens. Many of these requirements fall away from that perspective, no problem searching for them, as long as we're ready to drop them and take something simpler that will still work.

The University Hotel is reserved, we have until January 1st to actually book it and sign a contract at which time we'll need to make a $450 deposit.