Venue(s)

[Brian Shaler]

I would love to find some way of arranging a single venue. However,
with the ad-hoc nature of the events, that will be very tricky. I'm
putting out feelers at colleges and high schools.

A more practical plan would be to find an area with a good mix of
venue types and sizes. Some of the events involved require one or few
large rooms (Type A), some require many smaller classroom-style rooms
(Type B), and some can use both. I'm skeptical we will be able to
accommodate both types at a single venue AND be able to pull it off
financially.

Instead, we can look at areas that may have different types of venues
within walking distance of each other. For example, in the downtown
Tempe area, the Tempe Center for the Arts is a great example of an
attainable Type A venue, while classrooms at the ASU campus (though,
weekdays would be tricky) or offices of Tempe-based companies (Off
Madison Ave, Sitewire, Terralever, etc) are reasonable Type B
accommodations.

I personally find the downtown Tempe area to be especially attractive
for Geek Week AZ, because of the venue options, restaurants/bars, and
convenient airport access (light rail).

Please let me know your thoughts!

[Joseph Guadagno]

While Tempe is a great meet up place. It might be difficult to find a mix of meeting spaces.  It is my understanding the Tempe Center is expensive.  It might be best to block out a hotel with mixed sized conference rooms for a week.

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[Brian Shaler]

I've used ASU facilities for meet-ups before, and they're great (and
usually free) for weekday evenings and weekends. It is possible but
will be more tricky to find facilities that may be open during weekday
mornings and afternoons.

I don't know much about pricing for TCA, but Jeff Moriarty is on this
list and he just held a free event there this week with great success.
I'm not sure how much it cost (there were a few sponsors) but it must
have been reasonable. We can talk with them and see if we can get a
deal. They sounded excited to welcome Ignite Phoenix back.

Hotels may be more of a struggle. They're generally pretty expensive
and they generally play ball when you can guarantee guests for room
rental. One thing we don't have (yet) is a strong out-of-town
attendance at our partner events. As they are mostly attended by
locals, we can't carry much weight with room guarantees. One goal of
Geek Week AZ will be to increase awareness and attendance from
out-of-towners. In a year, we would probably have better numbers to
work with.

If we have connections with hotels, we shouldn't take the option off
the table. Let's try to get numbers and compare how the options will
impact partner events.