Conference Planning
Brainstorming page for all sorts of conference planning.
This is kept in english because this information might be useful for an international audience.
Types of Conferences
Different types of conferences have different requirements, on these sub pages the individual requirements are described:
Normal/Traditional conferences: These are conferences which have a preplanned schedule, known speakers and keynotes.
UnConferences / Barcamps: Here only the room is given, a schedule and the actual list of talks and speakers is planned spontaneously at the conference
Requirements planning
Checklists
A list of checklists of what you should think of when organizing a conference.
List of ideas
Please add your ideas below of what you think is needed for a great conference:
working wifi: Maybe the most important thing in order to spread the word about the conference and the topics discussed. [cs]
sprinting during the conference: Some people want to code during the conference already. It might be nice to have rooms for that available [cs]
tutorials: there are always newbies which are interested in basics. [rb]
enough room for spontaneous sessions (open space): Sometimes an important topic comes up during the conference. Having room for spontaneous sessions and a way to announce them would be great. [cs]
Twitterwalls everywhere: In order to encourage people to use twitter (or other social media tools) to spread the word it seems to help if they see their content live. It also enables a second level of conversation about some session or talk and integrates people outside the conference better who also can participate and give feedback. [cs]
Live Streaming: Having a live stream for me seems to much more engaging than having recorded talks because you feel a bit more like participating, esp. if you can also engage with conference participants via twitter/IRC etc. [cs]
conference recordings: It's great to have something for the archive and as Google Juice in form of video and/or audio recordings. The better the quality the better for us. Needs people, time and equipment though. [cs]
Conference IRC-Channel: Usually such a channel is quickly setup but it might be helpful to plan this ahead and also tell e.g. freenode about the conference IP ranges so that people don't get blocked. You can also easier link to it from the conference homepage [cs]
automatic social media inclusion on conference homepage: This means that photos, tweets, blog posts, videos, audio recordings etc. found on the web and tagged the right way could automatically be included on the homepage. Attendees should be encouraged to upload their media assets to at least the common social media sites also to spread the word about it. [cs]
well designed conference homepage: You usually make it easier for people if information needed is easy to find and the site looks appealling. [cs]
hotels close to venue: The closer the hotels or even if the conference venue is inside a hotel makes socialising easier. [cs]
Long opening of conference venue: If sprinting is possible and maybe sessions could possibly go in til later the night, it might be nice to have a venue which can be open that long. Some experimentation with time frames would be good (e.g. start later but also end it later, make long pauses in the middle or not, keep rooms open in case people want to meet). [cs]
some food and coffee: some catering of essential stuff besides wifi [rb]
(in case you add something please also add your initials to your entry)