Blacksburg FUDCon bid commentary

[Ben Williams]

On 04/25/2011 11:48 AM, Mel Chua wrote:
> Robyn mentioned to me this morning on IRC that she's trying to get
> FUDCon discussion going so Jared can make a call soon, and I said I'd
> try to help kick-start some discussion around the bids - here goes.
>
> Since I'm pretty biased on the other bid (I'm an Olin alum and helped
> write the bid), and want to learn more about Blacksburg as a potential
> FUDCon location, I'm going to sit down here and write about how
> Blacksburg could be a great host, from what the bid page
> (https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Blacksburg_2012) says. I hope
> someone will return the favor and do a writeup of the Olin bid - it
> would be great to get some feedback on it, particularly with concerns
> people have.
>
> So, Blacksburg!
>
> The biggest plus of this location, imo, is that it would continue the
> trend of having FUDCon hosted by new people at new locations (as in
> Toronto and Tempe) - which is great, because a different local audience
> gets exposed to Fedora goodness each time.
>
> Ben Williams (who submitted the bid) works for the university and
> therefore has a ton of easy access to room scheduling and A/V resources,
> which is *incredibly* valuable for the FUDCon organizing team to
> directly have.
>
> Ben also has a lot of event experience as a veteran Ambassador and
> mentor so he knows how to quickly set up a good Fedora presence, and
> exactly who within the NA and international Fedora community to tap for
> what, especially things like shipping logistics and coordinating
> travel/funding information, which, again, are vital for FUDCon planning.
> Since Ben has contacts both locally and within the distributed Fedora
> community, it seems likely that the planning load could be spread to
> involve a good number of people, instead of having it all land on one
> person's shoulders - and in the last-minute throes of a large production
> like FUDCon, that's a *very* good thing.
>
> I'm curious who else from the Fedora world is in the area - basically,
> who else might we have on the local planning team? One thing that was
> great about Tempe is that both Robyn and Ryan were on board and very
> close to campus - for Toronto, even if Chris Tyler had a lot of
> FOSS-friendlies at his school, I feel like he got saddled with all the
> in-person stuff and that was a heavy load. So if there are other local
> Fedorans who can help with things like being a second eye on hotel
> visits, etc. I think that would be a big plus as well. Iirc, both Jared
> and Paul live in VA and there may be other Fedora folks within "can make
> it out for one or two trips" driving distance of the area, so if that's
> the case it's a plus point for this location imo.

As of this past week I pulled in a New Fedora Ambassador who has had 10 
years experience at several local SciFi conventions as Senior Staff, and 
who has had plenty of Fedora exposure.  This person has worked the 
Fedora Booths at OhioLinuxfest and Southeast Linuxfest, MY son Jamie 
Williams. And i have the full support of My Wife as well so yes i do 
have a support group on the ground here.


> VT has a big campus, so we're certain to have enough space - specific
> locations for the hackfests, barcamp, and fudpub have been identified,
> which is nice. If Ben's on staff, we're certain to have enough bandwidth
> (possibly even more vital than space ;-). The bid mentions has a Fedora
> mirror, so - yep, definitely enough bandwidth. Both these things are
> minimum requirements I'd expect any FUDCon location to meet (rather than
> "the presence of space and internet make this location special beyond
> other locations!") but it is reassuring to know they would be well taken
> care of.
>
> The university itself has a top-notch tech program, and I also hear it
> has a LUG group that's interested in helping out with the event (would
> love more details on this - what are they offering exactly?) It's a big
> school, so on-campus advertising is likely to draw some folks who may
> not have done much with Fedora before - always nice to have the fresh
> perspective of newcomers. One caveat - iirc the proposed scheduling is
> right before VT's winter break ends so I'm not sure how many students
> would come by - will they be on campus yet? Are there any other schools
> around that might be interested? Any local companies?
>

The Students will be returning that weekend with classes starting on 
Tuesday.  The proposed location for Fudcon is on the Academic side of 
campus close enough for the students who want to attend, to attend and 
far enough away that we are out of the way for move in.

New River College is roughly 20 miles away, Radford University is about 
15 miles away. Have I contacted them No, no need to inform untill the 
bid is confirmed


> Location-wise, it's in the South, and warm(er) weather is always nice.
> :) I hear that there are direct transit options from the airport to the
> university (otherwise a ~1hour drive), so that's a nice side touch to
> have, making it just that much easier for people to plan their travel
> (as opposed to "it's a 3-hour drive to the nearest airport, which is
> only open the 2nd Friday of each month from 2:14-3:56am").
>
> We usually have a lot of people coming from:
>
> * Raleigh - a 4 hour drive
> * Boston - a 12 hour drive, or 5 hour flight + 1 hour drive from airport
>
> I'm not sure how the plane flight looks from people coming from the
> Midwest or the West Coast, or internationally, but it's doable. It's
> come up in discussions before that one plus of a slightly more secluded
> location is that there will be fewer distractions so it'll be easier for
> people to focus on their Fedora work instead of traipsing in and out to
> see monuments, go shopping, etc - I agree with this and would personally
> rather go somewhere smaller like Blacksburg than to host in a giant city
> like LA or a tourist-attraction-stuffed one like DC for exactly that reason.
>
> I think a Blacksburg FUDCon would be a good, solid event - all the bases
> would be covered nicely (which is important - all the extra shiny stuff
> in the world does nothing if we can't figure out how to get people hotel
> rooms, bandwidth, etc!) - and I'd love to hear more about the
> possibility for unique local interactions that could really jazz
> festivities at this location up, because then I can get really excited
> about it. :)
>
> Also, I'm glad to see how the FUDCon planning process we started
> communitizing with the Toronto FUDCon has been picking up in the past
> few years! This is *way* more sustainable (and fun) than the old way of
> "the FPL gets to plan all the FUDCons" - and it's let us scale out
> FUDCons quite a bit from what I've seen (my first FUDCon was Boston
> 2009, which was the last FPL-planned NA FUDCon). So thanks, Ben, for
> stepping forward with the bid and a very generous offer to host!
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