On Tue, Oct 18, 2005 at 12:52:29PM +0200, Eliot Lear wrote:
We have in my opinion had a consistently low operator turnout. I wonder
if it would be possible for us to align our conference dates in such a
way as to overlap with NANOG, RIPE, USENIX, LISA, and other appropriate
conferences so that we can get some crossover?
It's a nice thought, but at least as far as USENIX and LISA are
concerned (which may not necessarily be the best conferences for
operator crossover anyway), it may not be practical due to hotel
requirements. USENIX and LISA book their conference space anywhere
from 3 to 5 years out (it used to be as far as 8 years out, but we've
since pulled that in somewhat after the dot-bomb bubble), simply
because it's hard to get get guaranteed hotel space with the breakout
space requirements needed for Usenix and Lisa --- and I suspect the
IETF has similar constraints. So trying to find two hotels with the
necessary breakout space for both IETF and a USENIX conference in the
same city may be difficult/almost impossible.
This may not be as much of an issue with NANOG and RIPE, however,
since my impression is that they aren't quite as big.
And of course, aligning conference dates can sometimes be less
conducive for crossover depending on how intensively people want to
attend one or the other conference. For example, there may be people
in the Security Area that would not be happy if we scheduled an IETF
meeting on top of the Usenix Security Conference, even if they were
held in the same city, since it may make the job of scheduling working
groups far more complicated, not to mention the logistical issues of
having to travel back and forth between two conferences.
From the Usenix perspective (I'm the treasurer of Usenix, in case
people didn't know), we've thought about putting two half-week
workshops back-to-back in the same week, and we think that's likely to
work, especially if the workshops are related; however, given that the
IETF is essentially a full week, and most people would probably want
to spend their weekends with their families, trying to do something as
a back-to-back with another event seems less likely to work.
- Ted
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