2023-03-19
Attendees
@Janik @hexchen @piegames @john-rodewald @fricklerhandwerk @0x4a6f @ners @infinisil @ron @das-g @julienmalka
Agenda
- Location options
- agreed on Zurich (OST)
- Possible event dates
- agreed on 2024-09-28–30
- Learnings from last years
- skipped
- Budget calculation
- discussed boundary conditions
- Tickets
- Subsidies (public transport, food, …)
- Sponsors
- CFP
- Permissions (pretix, pretalx, domain name, streaming, …)
Notes
- Zurich crew introduces themselves
- @ners @infinisil @john-rodewald @das-g
- do regular Nix meetups in Zurich
- know the Rapperswil location
- venue proposal
- NixCon orga crew introduces themselves
Location options
- Belgium proposal seems to have fizzled out
- Zurich proposal is actively maintained
- Darmstadt could be a fallback
- Elephant in the room: total cost of attendance (TCA)
- travel + accommodation + food
- @ron: main question: What’s the highest chance of the event happening?
-
@ners: most important is to make the announcement early enough in advance
- largest impact on TCA: accomodation
- can’t do anything about travel costs
- food costs determined by total available budget
- we have vendors we usually work with - food trucks, the mensa
- one option is to have a sponsored ticket to finance free food
-
@ners: OST must be noted as one of the main organisers
- there must be a worst-case buffer for venue costs of 20k CHF
- @infinisil: would be ideal to have a binding statement from the venue
- @janik: thinks last year there was a contract with Uni Darmstadt
-
@ron: we usually get ~30k as a sponsorship baseline
- @fricklerhandwerk: ticket sales brought 14k EUR in 2022, 17k EUR in 2023
-
@julienmalka: there was a statement that we can’t have paid tickets
-
@ners: got a clarification that OST merely can’t do payment processing
- we can set up an org or use the foundation for that
- @john-rodewald: Zurich Friends of Nix already have an association that could take that
- @ners: the foundation can also simply reimburse budgeted expenses
-
@ners: got a clarification that OST merely can’t do payment processing
-
@fricklerhandwerk: what about security/safety measures and insurance, was there any such requirement or effort in the past?
- starting from a particular size of event there may even be legal obligation
- @ners: ZuriHac apparently did not have the need for that so far
-
@das-g: facility people will usually be around for events of a certain size
- other than that, attendees have to take care of their own insurance and are liable for damage
- if something goes wrong on the OST side, they have insurance for that
-
@ron:
- Paris did have security and they also were the ones handling checking for badges in the entrance.
- Darmstadt it was mainly easily handled by volunteers. This was also due to the fact that the venue only had one set of doors to enter from. (unlike Paris)
- The most critical hire for whatever we choose is to make sure that we have clean bathrooms.
- @julienMalka: In paris we needed security by law because we organized it in a public building
-
@hexchen: Is it a closed area or semi-public? Can we even practically do badge-checking?
- this is also about potential restrictions for whether we can set up stuff in the hallway
-
@das-g: the venue is part of the campus, the main room is the auditorium
- checking tickets at the entrance would likely not work, at least on workdays, because students will have to pass
-
@Janik: checking tickets is not the biggest problem; we could have a registration desk
-
@das-g: this is the usual approach. there are sometimes paid conferences, and then people get their badge at the desk
-
Map of the OST RJ venue
- Aula on that map.
-
Map of the OST RJ venue
-
@das-g: this is the usual approach. there are sometimes paid conferences, and then people get their badge at the desk
-
@ners: at least in the weekend, the areas should be completely empty
- we could scale down the Monday after the weekend, which would fit a workshop day well
- a lot of people leave after the weekend usually
-
@hexchen: while Zurich is most likely more expensive than Darmstadt, it’s the most viable option and we should go with it
- @ners: a remaining risk is the small but non-zero chance to get slapped with a 20k venue bill
- @ron: how is funding supposed to work?
-
@julienmalka: having a rough idea of the budget is necessary in order to adjust factors: sponsorship, ticket prices, options for food/drinks. It’s not easy to draft a budget with a 20k unknown
- @ron: agreed, a rough outline would be a precondition. regardless, we don’t have many other options.
- @ners: historically, the cost to run ZuriHac (without venue) is 15k CHF. With 35k CHF we can do it reasonably
- @hexchen: in case money is left over we can donate it to the foundation to use it for the next NixCon
- @fricklerhandwerk: there are still 18k EUR left over from NixCon 2024, so we can use that as a security
- agreement: go ahead with Zurich
Date
Options:
- 21-23 Sept 2024
- No go: Datenspuren; also @das-g can’t make it
- 28-30 Sept 2024
- All systems Go is 25-26th; adjacent but not overlapping might be advantageous
- Group prefers earlier rather than later
- Agreement
- 02-04 Nov 2024
Decision: 28-30 Sept 2024
Action items
- Budget draft (@ners @john-rodewald)
- Ticket sales model (@hexchen) similar to GPN
- Provide access to pretix instance (@janik will ask @hexa and @andir)
- Sponsorship policy draft (@piegames)
- Sponsorship model draft (@Janik)
-
Prepare official announcement (@fricklerhandwerk)
- with date & place
-
Website setup (https://2024.nixcon.org)
- Hosting access (@fricklerhandwerk will ping @zimbatm)
- Contents (@ners @john-rodewald)
- Design (@ners @john-rodewald)
Next time
- Discuss budget draft
- Discuss ticket sales model draft
- Discuss sponsorship model draft
- Website design
- Merchandise (maybe later)
- CFP (later)
Preparation schedule
- Budget: end of march
- Announcement: end of march
- Website: with the announcement
- Sponsorship:
- announcement by end of April
- get commitment until end of July
- option to join afterwards
- Ticket sales:
- 500 tickets
- open: once budget planning is fixed (latest end of April)
- close: when sold out or ~days before the event
- CFP:
- opens: July
- closes: end of August
- September: event
