[Talk] Re: Cheaper conferences Not in commercial hotels would help BSD.

[Frank Crawford]

Firstly, I'm all in favour of cheaper conferences, but, the venue is only a
part of the total cost.  We ran AUUG2K in a University venue, ANU, and as
Programe Chair, I liked it.

A University has most of the facilities we require already setup, but it
does have some drawbacks.  In general network access is harder to arrange
(they have lots of firewalls in the way) and things are more segregated,
e.g. the terminal room was at the other end of the block.

Greg, as you know, a lot of the cost also goes into printing, especially of
the proceedings, food, and international speakers.  All of which are the
same whatever the venue.

One other drawback with a University venue is the informal social
interactions outside of hours.  This year I was really happy with the fact I
could bump into a number of the delegates any time, and that I could use the
network all hours of the day or night.  Unless most of the conference
attendees are staying at the same place, this is not possible, and if there
is no accomodation at the conference venue, the delegates are likely to be
staying all over the place.

All in all, I think holding the conference in a University has a lot of good
points and I'm in favour of it, but I don't expect it to save much money.

Frank

----- Original Message -----
From: "Greg 'groggy' Lehey" <Greg.Lehey at auug.org.au>
To: "AUUG Talk List" <talk at auug.org.au>
Sent: Saturday, September 21, 2002 1:52 PM
Subject: [Talk] Re: Cheaper conferences Not in commercial hotels would help
BSD.


> FYI.  This went round the FreeBSD lists earlier today.  It's a thing
> that we've been talking about on the AUUG Board for some time.  Note
> particularly the reference to GUUG, our German counterpart, who do a
> two conferences a year with different focus.  Is this something that
> would interest people?
>
> Greg