DjangoCon Planning at DjangoCon?

[Landon Jurgens]

Thanks Pete and everyone for your efforts the final result looks great.

Something I wanted to get out there before it left my head again was a point of frustration I ran into when floating the idea of sponsorship earlier this month. I made a connection with a company that I would think Django is right up their alley and they have an office in the Austin area. (I'm hoping to get a speaker or two out of them.) But when I started to put out feelers earlier this month the feedback I got was that their budget for conference sponsorship in 2015 was already set. I got a similar response from another and I suspect that there may be a struggle for some newer sponsors to come on board because we're approaching them in the same year as the conference.

Something I wanted to float out there was the idea of having a planning meeting for next years DjangoCon (2016) at DjangoCon I tried to go back and double-check that this wasn't something that that actually happened last year but the 2014 site isn't available at the moment. (We also seem to have a cert issue but I'll follow-up with that later.). I was hoping perhaps we could drum up interest from prospective organizers beforehand and perhaps have a meeting to help decide where the next DjangoCon would be. I'm thinking if it were possible to get to the point where we are now before the end of the year it would be easier for sponsors to get on board and really plan out the next year.

I was hoping to get everyones thoughts on the idea and perhaps some feedback. While talking about 2016 is hard when planning out 2015 I would love to take advantage of the energy at the event to help give the 2016 effort a kickstart.

Landon

[jMyles Holmes]

I think it's a great idea.

It has happened each of the past three years (and, if I recall, was announced in the morning of the third day in each case?  Russell may recall better).  However, as far as I know, it has never been on the schedule; just announced via twitter and from the podium.

The one in 2011 in Portland was really wonderful; it was the meeting that inspired me to become more involved in Django, and I've tried to stay that way ever since.

This past year had something like four people.

I think your idea to include in the schedule is a great idea, perhaps with a task management system pre-filled with obvious questions rising from the ToDos of the current year.

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[Russell Keith-Magee]

Hi Landon,

tl;dr - I agree that this would be a great idea; but there's some history that explains why it hasn't happened in the past.

Longer version:

In the past (2009-2014), DjangoCon US has been a different beast to DjangoCon Europe and PyCon US. DjangoCon Europe and PyCon US are very much community-organised events. Local user groups or not-for-profit organisations take all the financial risk, and all work is done by volunteers.

In an effort to isolate itself from financial risk of a failed event, the DSF made the decision to outsource the organization of DjangoCon US. To date, DjangoCon US has always been organised by a third party company, with the "DjangoCon US" name being licensed to that company. 

In November 2012, the DSF issued a Request for Tenders for the 2014/2015 DjangoCon US events [1]. The contract was awarded to The Open Bastion in January of 2013 [2]. They were the only bidders (and were, by the by, also the group responsible for successfully hosting DjangoCon 2010, 2011, and 2012). So - organizers have historically had multi-year lead times to approach sponsors, etc.

However, since the events were for-profit, commercial endeavours, there hasn't been formal planning meetings for future events at each DjangoCon. There may have been some informal meetings, but that was more in the vein of a recruiting drive. I don't believe there was any such event in Portland this year (if there was, it was so well advertised that I didn't hear about it). The intention was for the DSF to issue multi-year licenses to a company, years in advance, and let the commercial organizers sort out the volunteer requirements, approach sponsors, and so on.

Due to a number of factors, the 2013 and 2014 events were not as successful as previous events, and as a result, The Open Bastion decided to withdraw from the organisation of the 2015 event. The DSF was notified of this in October 2014. 

Luckily, a number of members of the community have stepped up, and the DSF has a new plan for 2015. We're setting up a separate not-for-profit organisation, and that organisation will be granted an ongoing license to run DjangoCon US. This means we'll now be organising events in much the same was as PyCon US, but with a layer of protection for the DSF itself. However, it also means we have less than 8 months to organize the 2015 event.

Looking forward, we're hoping to get back the lead time that we've historically had. We're still trying to get the last of the legal agreements in place for 2015, but once that's done, I'm hoping that there will be a call for tenders for a host city for 2016/2017. I'm hoping we can announce a successful bid city at DjangoCon US this year. 

I'd also expect to see a BoF (or similar) session at DjangoCon US for people who want to volunteer - both in terms of providing feedback on the event that will have just concluded, and to shake out volunteers for the 2016 and future events.

Sorry for the long explanation. I just wanted to make sure everyone understood why we're so far behind this year, and to let everyone know the DSF is committed to improving for future events.

Yours,

Russ Magee %-)

[1] https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2012/nov/08/djangocon-us-2014-15-request-proposals/

[2] https://www.djangoproject.com/weblog/2013/jan/27/djangocon-us-2014-15-contract-awarded-open-bastion/

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[Landon Jurgens]

Russell,

Thanks for giving me (and others) the context to better understand how things were and how they've come to be. I'm thinking I remember the overhead of planning and setting up was one of the reason PyCon did it's two year cadence for host cities. Has it been suggested that DjangoCon follow the two year cycle? If so could Austin host both 2015 and 2016? I'm certainly up for it but I am a bit biased actually living here in Austin.

Landon

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[Russell Keith-Magee]

Hi Landon,

DjangoCon *has* been operating on 2 year cycles - Open Bastion was granted the contract for 2014/2015. However, they signed a contract with Hyatt that was able to be split over 2 cities. They did the same for 2012/2013 cycle (held in Washington DC and Chicago, respectively). However, Open Bastion has pulled out of 2015; given that the host city for 2015 had already been announced, we needed to hit the ground running (due to the timeframe), and we had the option to take over the existing contract, we're staying in Austin for 2015 even though Open Bastion isn't involved anymore.

Exact details of the bidding process for future events will be up to the new not-for-profit that has been established to run DjangoCon events in North America. However, I imagine that 2 year bids would be welcome (and possibly even preferable, given the financial terms available to such bids). 

Regardless of the final bid requirements, I can't see any reason that Austin wouldn't be able to bid for 2016 (and 2017, if it's a 2 year bid) - it really comes down to having locals who want to do the leg work. Evidence so far suggests these locals exist, so I'd say Austin has at least an outside chance :-)

Yours

Russ Magee %-)

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