RFP for Major Events
The Joomla Project and Open Source Matters are seeking proposals for up to four multi-day conferences in 2011 and the fourth quarter of 2010. Each event will be on a different continent.
Each proposal should be authored by a local organizing committee consisting of at least 8 people strongly committed to working on the conference for the whole time period of organization and implementation, which will be approximately one year. This committee will be the "on the ground" organizers and will work in partnership with the Events Team in planning the conference. Open Source Matters will provide financial, legal and organizational infrastructure including conference management software and some seed money. The organizing committee will form a program committee drawn from the worldwide Joomla community which will work with the organizing committee to organize sessions and other events. OSM will be the organizational entity with ultimate financial responsibility for the conference although the organizing committee will manage conference expenditures and revenues in cooperation with the OSM treasurer and accountant. Any residual funds from a conference will be retained by Open Source Matters.
Proposals should include the following elements:
- Description of the local organizing team and team members and their plans for carrying out the organizing tasks.
- A meeting venue that can accommodate approximately 1200-1500 attendees for 3-5 days
- Accommodations plan including low and moderate priced rooms
- Estimated expenditure budget
- Estimated cost per participant (please note this is not the same as the ticket price)
- Proposed theme. This should be relevant for a broad range of attendees including developers, designers, site administrators, and hosts.
The following elements will be present in a strong proposal:
- Proposal includes space/infrastructure for a variety of events including keynotes, informal meetings (e.g. Birds of a Feather), several presentation tracks, an expo hall, poster sessions, social events and other activities.
- Location is easily accessible by public transportation and less than one hour from the nearest airport.
- Event facilities are accessible to all.
- Location has nearby attractions (such museums, historical sites, performances) of interest.
- Location will allow for easy media coverage.
- Location has local sponsors interested in supporting the event.
- Venue can support 1200-1500 people.
- Accommodations are within a short walk of the venue.
- Technological infrastructure is adequate.
- Availability of space for professional training and development events (e.g. code sprint, Pizza, Bugs and Fun, Doc Camp) on the days before and after the event.
- Venue is close to hotels and restaurants.
- Venue costs are realistic.
- Venue contracts are reasonable and do not expose either OSM or local organizers to excessive financial risks.
Time Frame for submissions
Potential organizing committees have 3 weeks to send in a one page document indicating intent to apply, location, organizing team members. The deadline is Midnight GMT 30 November 2009.
They have a total of 8 weeks from today for creation a full proposal. The deadline is Midnight GMT 3 January 2010.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to discuss their plans with the Joomla Events Team prior to submission of final proposals.
We strongly encourage potential organizers to use the Joomla! Events Forum to find collaborators and get community feed back on their ideas.
We estimate that it will take approximately 4 weeks to make selections. Please plan for the possibiliy of one online meeting to discuss your proposal.
Conference dates
We want to provide flexibility to organizers but also to insure a reasonable events cycle. So events should be proposed for one of the following months:
November 2010
February 2011
May 2011
August 2011
The preliminary expressions of interest do not need to include specific dates, but they should include a preliminary choice of one of those months. However, prior to the final submission this choice may be changed based on discussion with the events team, community feedback, availability of venues or for other reasons.
Other
All first and second round proposals will be available for public comment.
Preliminary Submissions may be made here:
http://opensourcematters.org/major-event-proposal.html
Groups making preliminary submissions will receive information on how to submit the final proposals.