This summer, Sherri, Audrey and I will debut our Event Planning for Geeks workshop at OSCON. We gave a very successful session on this topic at last year’s OSCON and decided to scale it up to be a three-hour interactive workshop.
I’ve included the description and abstract below, or you can read about it on the OSCON schedule. If you’re planning to attend OSCON, but haven’t yet purchased your ticket, use the code OS12FOS to receive 20% off your ticket price.
Description
A fun, comprehensive tutorial on how to host a successful code sprint, hackathon, (un)conference or workshop.
Abstract
Event Planning for Geeks is back with even more resources for event organizers from beginners on up! We’ve expanded our successful talk from last year’s OSCON into a full three-hour workshop.
If you’ve ever thought about hosting a code sprint, hackathon, (un)conference or workshop, this talk is for you. We’ll give you an overview of what you need to know to execute a successful event, including:
- assembling and organizing your planning team
- identifying and securing a venue for your event
- how to get money and pay for things
- volunteer recruitment and management
- determining your event format and creating your event’s schedule
- advertising your event
- tickets and registration
- insurance, liability and what to do when things go wrong
- deciding on must haves and nice-to-haves (e.g. food, wifi, etc)
- dealing with venue logistics (space, sound, power, etc.)
- codes of conduct, after parties, considerations for serving alcohol
- how to keep the momentum once your first event is over
Attendees will also receive copies of our event planning handbook and links to examples of how we run specific events like Open Source Bridge, Ignite Portland and BarCamp Portland.