EuroPython 2017 On-site Teams: Call for Interest (CFI)

The EuroPython Society (EPS) is happy to announce the Call for Interest (CFI) for EuroPython 2017. The purpose of this call is to get to know teams willing to help organize the EuroPython conference on-site at a suitable location and determine the Call for Participation (CFP) candidates in the second phase of the selection process.

Introduction

This Call for Interest is meant to collect a brief notice of interest from teams wishing to help run EuroPython 2017 in a location they are local to. This first contact is mandatory to any team with intentions of organizing EuroPython in 2017. We are doing this first call in order to slowly integrate both teams. The objective of this call is twofold, on one hand the EPS will be able to help the teams to prepare their proposal document and on the other hand the local team will be integrated into the workgroups organizational structure of the EPS.

http://www.europython-society.org/post/99718376575/europython-workgroups-call-for-volunteers

We require members of these teams to work as volunteers in previous editions of the conference. This allows both sides to get to know each other better: the EPS has a chance to meet the team and the team can learn more about how the EuroPython conference organization works.

The main idea behind the workgroup model is to make sure that tasks which do not need to be done by on-site team members can be implemented by distributed workgroups, that can work remotely and persist from location to location, greatly reducing the loss of institutional knowledge we have seen in past location switches.

Unlike the final Call for Participation (CFP) for the EuroPython 2017 conference, the CFI is much less formal. Our main goal is to get a first impression and to know who we will be working with the CFP phase, which follows after the CFI.

Timeline for Proposals

The Call for Interest will run until the following deadline for submissions. Proposals must be submitted until midnight UTC on the deadline day, and must adhere the requirements specified in this document. Please make sure to read the whole document carefully.

Proposal Workflow

1. Send your proposal as an email or a PDF to the board list: board@europython.eu. This is a private list, so you can include confidential information.

2. We will announce the groups who have already submitted CFIs in the closing session of the conference.

3. The board will review the proposals and possibly request for a short meeting with each team.

4. After the conference, the EPS will work with the local teams separately to produce a good conference plan for the Call for On-Site Team Proposal. You can have a look at previous years calls to have an idea:

http://blog.europython.eu/post/101422012382/europython-2015-call-for-participation-on-site

What is EuroPython

EuroPython is the second largest Python conference in the world, right after PyCon US in North America. These are some statistics from EuroPython 2016, to give you an idea of what the on-site team should be ready to handle:

• 1100+ participants

• 8 days of conference

• 1 day for workshops (Beginners day and Django Girls, weekend)

• 7 parallel tracks (5 talk tracks, 2 training tracks, weekdays)

• 2 days sprints (weekend)

• Total revenue of more than 500,000 EUR

Note that we are open to accepting proposal which can only host fewer attendees, with 1000 attendees being the minimum. These numbers are just to give you an idea of how big the EuroPython event has become over the years and how much potential there is for growth.

Please see the EPS EuroPython page for more details on past EuroPython conferences:

http://www.europython-society.org/europython

How EuroPython is run

The EuroPython conference series brand is owned by the EPS. In the past the EPS granted permission to use the brand to local organizers based on a set of requirements, and the local organizing team then had to run the event in collaboration with the EPS.

Since this model no longer scales and doesn’t encourage the community to take part in the organization process, we have started a new approach based on workgroups as explained in the document linked to in the introduction. The on-site team has to integrate with the other EPS workgroups and be responsible for taking care of the tasks related to the conference organization on site.

Unlike in previous years, and to further reduce the burden on the on-site teams, we will only request the on-site teams to sign up for one year, keeping in mind, of course, that the team may want to submit a follow-up proposal for the next year. The EPS will take such prior knowledge into account when deciding on the proposals.

On-site Team Requirements

These are the requirements the on-site teams signs up to when submitting a proposal during the second phase, the Call for Participation (CFP). We are mentioning them here to not cause surprises later on in the process.

1. The conference will be legally run by the EPS and the on-site ream. The ticket billing and the sponsor billing will have to be done by the on-site team, so the on-site teams needs to be backed by a legal entity that can write VAT invoices and has an accountant capable of handling the necessary bookkeeping load. Our website can help with invoicing for tickets, but not for sponsors. Budgeting is done as joint operation by the EuroPython finance work group.

2. The on-site team should be geographically located in a country within Europe.

3. The on-site team must be willing to actively coordinate with the EPS board and the other workgroups, so that all parts of the EuroPython ecosystem can work together in a productive way.

4. The on-site team must be composed of at least 5 active people. We feel that 5 is the bare minimum for the team to successfully handle the amount of work. Please keep in mind that the team is required to grow significantly during the conference days and it’s considered an advantage, if the on-site team can show that they already have a good number of volunteers to count on during the conference days.

5. The on-site team must know that there is conference centers in the location. Locations must provide room for hosting at least 1000 attendees, but please keep in mind that demand for EuroPython is more in the range of 1200+ attendees. It is usually a good idea to have a workshop/sprint venue (for weekends) and a separate conference venue (for weekdays), since the weekend sessions have different requirements than the conference sessions and it’s often possible to get cheaper venues for the weekends. Additionally, the weekend sessions are usually attended by only about 50% of the attendees.

6. The conference must take place within the following timeframe: May 1st - October 31th. EuroPython traditionally takes place in July. The conference duration is 8 days: 1 day workshops, 5 days conference, 2 days sprints.

7. The on-site team will work as on-site workgroup in the context of the EPS (see below for details) and has to follow the same rules as all other workgroups in the EPS. Members of the on-site team should also participate in other workgroups to simplify coordination, e.g. there should be on-site team members in the sponsors workgroup to help the sponsors with booth setups, shipment of goods, customs, etc.

Proposal Content

The CFI proposal is a lot less formal than the CFP document. However, it should contain at least the following details:

• Short intro to team members (with contact details)

• Available legal entity to back the local team, including VAT ID.

• Possible conference venue and catering choices, including cost estimates

• Possible dates for the conference

More information is always welcome, of course. Even if your team is not chosen for next year, we will still keep you in the loop for subsequent years.

If you have team members at the EuroPython 2016 conference, please let us know, so that we can connect in person. Since we’d like to know whether the teams will integrate well into the EuroPython Workgroups, we ask the candidate team members to actively participate as on-site volunteers during the conference.

Please note: Information about potential venues, catering services and rough cost estimates are very useful, even at this early stage, since they can provide input for the teams and the EPS to talk about how to evaluate venues in the later CFP proposal and drive the conversation with the venues when talking about quotations.

Enjoy,
–
EuroPython Society