Local site visit requested

[Theodore Tso]

On Tue, Sep 26, 2006 at 07:48:49AM +0100, David Woodhouse wrote:
> I'm sure that those of us who are local(ish) to Cambridge should be able
> to manage that by the end of the week -- could you give us more
> specifics about what you're looking for, if you think we'll miss
> anything 'behind the scenes' that we wouldn't otherwise have thought of?

So the basics are to make sure that we have a room that can hold 100
people "caberet style" --- i.e., with round tables.  Those of you who
have been to a kernel summit in Ottawa will remember that we actually
had a room which could comfortable hold quite a bit more than that.

Basically, if you assume that an 6 foot diameter table can hold 8
people, and but that on average we only put 5 people around each table
(some might have 6, some might have 4, etc. but we need extra room
because people will want room to spread out and seats where people
have their back to the podium are undesirable and people will try to
avoid them) and that you need two feet of clearance around the table
for chairs, human bodies, and room to move around, etc., that means
that we need at least 10 foot square area for every 5 people, or about
2000 square feet minimum.  (Yes, assuming a honeycomb-like packing and
it's a bit better than that, but we don't want the tables that closely
packed so that it's impossible for people to get around --- and there
probably are fire regulations that would not allow us to use an
optimal pack since it's generally considered desierable for people to
be able to escape quickly and easily in case of a fire.  :-)  Then add
room for a stage, screen, etc., and the space requirements rapidly add
up.

But it's one thing to make a rough back-of-the-envelope sketch for the
room requirement, and another to see the room and make sure things
will actually fit.  So getting an exact measurement of the room
layout, enough so that we can make a graph-paper (or xfig :-) sketch
of the layout and then do sample layouts of tables, stage, A/V
equipment, etc. would be really, really useful.


If you can talk to the people renting it, it would simply be good to
confirm basic facts about the room:

	* Cost for hiring the room, and what is or isn't included:
		A/V, power, WiFi/networking, catering
	* Are there requirements that we purchase lodging from the
		site; if so, what the minimum number of rooms to be
		rented.
	* The A/V we need is:
			- A screen
			- A projector (preferably one that can handle
				1600x1200 laptops, but at least 1024x768
				these days)
			- Microphones at all of the tables, with a push-
				to-enable button, and a light to indicate
				when a mike is live, connected to amplifier
				and speaker system
	* We need power strips at each table; people will be using 
		laptops to take notes, etc. and folks won't want to run
		off of batteries for two days.
	* Are there at least one, preferable two, smaller rooms for
		BOF's/breakouts; are they included, or do we have to
		pay $$$ for them?
	* Where will be breakfast, tea/snacks be made available; is it
		in an adjacent room, or do we need to make room in the
		back of the main room for the food to be laid out?
		It's preferable that the food be in a separate room,
		that is large enough that people can mill about, and
		easily find each other and chat during the "hallway
		track" part of the progam --- i.e., the break times.
		This separate room could double as one of the BOF
		rooms.  But if so, again, will there be a charage
		associated with using it.
	* Where will lunch be taken?  Ideally it will be a separate
		room so that people can adjourn to a separate lunch
		room.  If lunch is not provided, we need to allow
		extra time for people to make their way out to
		restaurants and back, which generally means that 60
		minutes for lunch is not enough.
	* At Ottawa dinner is provided by the sponsors on Monday night,
		so that people more easily attend BOF sessions in the 
		evening.  How does that work in the venue?  If the dinner
		is held in the same location as one of the BOF rooms, that 
		may make it hard to have the room cleaned up so it can be 
		used as a meeting space.
	* Is there a place for us to put a registration table, where
		people can pick up their badges and pick up their gifts?
		Is the registration table located where someone can 
		easily check to make sure that only people with badges are
		allowed in, or do we need to hire door guards?  If so, 
		how many entrances would need to be watched?
	* How far away are restaurants, etc. 

Basically, especially for people who have been to a kernel summit,
just try to imagine going to a kernel summit, and translating it to
the physical site; will it work?  What sort of things might we have to
change in order to accomodate a particular site?  We were pretty
spoiled in Ottawa because we had a vast amount of space available,
both for people to mill around and chat during the breaks, and a
separate room that people could adjourn to for lunch, and easy access
to restaurants, and so on.  It seems likely that we will not be able
to replicate all of this in Cambridge, particularly the space that we
had to spread out.

That won't be a killer, but if there are any problems, like lots of
pillars or multiple levels all that might constrain table layouts, we
will have fewer margin for error, which is why a site visit is so
important.  I'm probably forgetting some things, but hopefully you get
the idea of the sort of things that we need to think about.

Thanks, regards,

						- Ted