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.
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2016-07-16
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CFI announcement
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2016-07-22
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CFIs received until this day will be announced in the
conference closing session
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2016-07-29
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Deadline for CFI submissions
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announcement + 2 weeks
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2016-08-05
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Announcement of the CFP candidates
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announcement + 3 weeks
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Sept 2016
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Announcement of the CFP
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Proposal Workflow
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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.
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We will announce the groups who have already submitted CFIs in the
closing session of the conference.
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The board will review the proposals and possibly request for a short
meeting with each team.
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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:
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1100+ participants
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8 days of conference
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1 day for workshops (Beginners day and Django Girls, weekend)
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7 parallel tracks (5 talk tracks, 2 training tracks, weekdays)
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2 days sprints (weekend)
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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.
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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.
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The on-site team should be geographically located in a country within
Europe.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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:
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Short intro to team members (with contact details)
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Available legal entity to back the local team, including VAT ID.
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Possible conference venue and catering choices, including cost
estimates
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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
