Request For Proposal for XDC
These are the general outlines of what the Xorg Board is looking for when voting on an XDC RFP. The Xorg Board will not organize the conference itself, the person or team proposing the conference will be the conference organizer. The Board will only vote on the proposals and afterwards collect the bill. Please submit proposals to the BoardOfDirectors.
Organizing Team
Organizing a medium-sized event like XDC requires the work of several people, don't expect that could be done by one or two persons. 1-2 people are enough for planning and preparing the conference, but the workload is signifincantly bigger in the month leading to the conference to get everything sorted, prepared and set up - you don't want to debug video in the first talk and print badges when the attendees show up!
For the conference itself, even with the help of the venue staff, the organization team needs to be minimum of 4-5 people during the event: Registration (late arrivals and answering attendee questions), handling video recording, taking care of speakers and running the Q&A (need at least 2 mic runners) and generally making sure things work smoothly. You need to know where you get all these volunteers from.
Venue
The venue should be known and included in the proposal, including the estimated costs. If the venue options aren't fixed yet there should be at least one guaranteed fallback.
Thanks to our sponsors we can afford reasonable venue costs. We can share proposals and budgets of past conferences to interested organizer teams.
For the main track we need a room sitting up around 150 people (attendance is usually 100-200, generally more in Europe than Americas).
A second room (or rooms) with whiteboards and a few tables/seats is needed for workshop track and really useful for ad-hoc hallway tracks and coding sessions. WiFi network needs to be there&solid.
Virtual Conference
It is possible to make XDC a virtual conference in case of force majeure, like happened in XDC 2020 with the COVID-19 virus. Also, it is possible to organize a hybrid conference (onsite and online talks) depending on the situation.
X.Org Foundation Board of Directors may change how the conference is going to be some months before XDC, but taking into account the organizers' opinion.
For organizing a virtual/hybrid conference, we need a good video conference platform, ideally open-source, where both speakers (for talk presenting) and attendees (for QA) can join. The recording can be done either locally by organizers, or automatically by streaming it to a third-party service like Youtube and/or media.ccc.de (open-source platform, preferred). Note: for importing Indico schedule into media.ccc.de streaming page, you can use this pull request as reference to do so. We expect a similar number of simultaneous users like in physical conference (average <150 people, peaks of >200 users). Good open-source alternatives available in 2020 are Jitsi and Big Blue Button.
It is usually recommended to stream the video to another third-party service in order to have a fallback watch-only streaming, like Youtube, media.ccc.de (open-source platform, preferred) or similar, to unload the main one when it is overloaded.
XDC 2020 organizers wrote very good reports on what a virtual XDC organization entails from the A/V point of view. Read them here and here.
We also need an open-source messaging system (e.g IRC, Matrix, Mattermost, Rocket.Chat, etc) that allows attendees to both chit-chat and do QA. The organization should have a person responsible of moderation tasks and to forward the questions to speakers when needed. Code of Conduct applies to all the video and chat platforms of the conference.
For workshops, we need a videoconference room with streaming/recording capabilities available for the interested attendees.
In order to have a similar hallway track experience than onsite conferences, we need a videoconference room that attendees can connect (but no streamed nor recorded), and it should be promoted in the chat platform periodically. Also a text-based chat room is recommended.
Accommodation
A lot of students travel to XDC on small budgets, hence there should be affordable accommodations available in close proximity (or well-connected with public transport). Best to list a few recommended places including expected price ranges.
Location
The Xorg community likes to visit new places to enjoy all the hall/pub/sightseeing/... tracks too. Sell your city here, but important points are places for lunch/dinner in walking distance or well connected with public transport from both the venue and recommended hotels. It's also great to organize a tour or similar for Saturday after the conference to a local sight.
Currently XDC is alternating between Europe (odd years) and North America (even years). That's where most of the Xorg contributors are, which means lower travel costs and hence higher attendance. Given that constraint the board will consider proposals from other continents, especially if there's a colocation opportunity with a related event.
Travel
The Xorg community is all over the world. List options international travel. Include planes&trains, especially if there are non-obvious ones (like flying into another city and then taking a train ride) to save a few monies.
Visa Invitation Letters
A lot of our GSoC/EVoC students need visa to travel to Europe/Americas and may need an invitation letter for that. Since that usually must be done by someone local the Xorg Board can't provide that. The best way to do that is through the hosting/sponsoring company/university. We need a contact there.
Video Recording
Since a lot of people can't attend every XDC we want to record and livestream all main track sessions. Make sure you have the equipment and people to do that, including publishing the videos (preferably within a week) to X.Org Foundation channel at youtube. Additionally, it is recommended to upload them to open-source platforms like media.ccc.de or archive.org.
There's also sometimes local laws about required signage when sessions are recorded, please make sure that any such are indicated on the XDC webpage too.
To make sure the Q&A is also recorded and not a chore of someone running all over the room, have a mic stand, mutliple Q&A runners or one of these throwable mics in a soft cube. For throwable mics we can loan them from LPC (Linux Foundation holds them during the year) if the logistics work out.
For live streaming please make sure that at least one of the platforms used has a way to go back in time like e.g. youtube media.ccc.de. This makes it much more pleasant experience for people all across different timezones and makes it possbile to catch up in real time before the recordings are available.
Budget
We need an estimate of the overall cost. Our budget is generally quite low and mostly spent on travel assistance. We prefer locations where the venue costs are zero or cheap.
Breakfast/snack buffet is hihgly recommended to have and often not included in a sponsored venue, please include that too. This should include coffee, tea and water. Universities have catering for that, some may allow for outside food to be brought in but most don't.
AV equipment may need to be rented, please check with the location. Minimum requirements are one camera and two microphones (clip-on for the speaker, one wireless one for questions from the audience) and the associated hardware.
Any susbstantial changes compared to the initial budget estimate need to be approved by the board, including any additions. Bring these up as early as possible.
Date
Since we want to invite GSoC/EVoC students and also allow local students to join, the conference should be at the beginning of the (northern) autumn term, so late September / early October is recommended.
The conference is usually 3 days Wed-Fri, with all three days filled.
Call for Papers
When sending out the CFP please read PapersCommittee - we're looking both for main track talks and discussion proposals for the 2nd room. Don't just blindly copypaste last year's CFP letter, it's probably outdated.
Please also consult that page for lots of useful details on running the conference and the different kind of content we feature (opening session, normal talks, lightning talks, workshops ...).
Logistics
The Venue
Make sure there's enough signs for everything so people can find the venue (especially if it's on a campus or some other big venue).
Plenty of power outlets, especially throughout the main track room. Everyone's on their laptop. Get power strip and extensions cords if necessary.
Make sure there's enough toilets and that the cleaning staff is aware of the event. 100+ attendees rushing to toilets in breaks can lead to queues and a mess.
Having an extra space (big enough hallway with tables and chairs or a separate room) for hacking and hanging out is a welcome addition.
Have registration set up before the advertised opening time if possible. People like to show up early.
Keep the registration/badge station open in some form until the very end. People can show up late e.g. due to travel difficulties.
For digital marketing materials, you can develop your own or modify the materials used at XDC 2021 which worked very well for that virtual conference.
Badges
Badges help people identify each other and start discussions. This makes them important yet often overlooked aspect of the conferences.
The badges should be large and allow for big lettering that's easy to read. 3x4in is the absolute minimum. Going larger (e.g. 4x6in) is highly recommended.
Either provide lanyards that clip on two corners so badges don't rotate easily to the blank side and/or print both sides of the badges.
Include attendee's name, nickname and affiliation on the badge.
Have blanks printed and ready along with permanent markers to fill them in.
Having space for small customization, e.g. listing more projects in sharpie, adding pronouns or project stickers is welcome.
Consider getting color-coded lanyards, shirts or different color of badges for key roles like "organizer" and "CoC contact".
Having a way (sticker/lanyard color) for people to denote if they are fine with "you can/cannot take pictures" works great.
Social Event
For the social event / meet-up (usually an evening before the conference starts):
Announce the locations at least a few days ahead - this greatly benefits the international travellers.
If the event happens before the conference have a registration table there to avoid long queues the next day and so people already have their badges.
If drinks are sponsored / served make sure there's as easy access to non-alcoholic options as to alcoholic ones.
Presenting
Double-check if there are any remote presenters and have a tested setup to host them. Test the setup with the speakers ahead of time.
Make sure the stage is accessible - e.g. has ramp if it's elevated, etc.
Proposal Due Dates
The board would like to have at least a preliminary proposal 1 year ahead at the preceding XDC. It should have an indication by when a definitive proposal will be handed in and by when the board needs to make a final decision (e.g. to make sure venues can be still be booked). The board can consider late proposals and will decide on its own when is the best time to make the final vote or whether to solicit more proposals.
Process
After the final vote the board will inform all organizers.
Announcing the conference, setting up the conference page on the Indico instance and running the CFP are all the organizers duties.
The board will only serve as the papers committee and for granting travel sponsorships.
Sponsoring
X.Org has a separate policy for sponsors of XDC. Please make sure it's acceptable for the venue and organizers to have other company's branding at XDC and try to feature them everywhere where it's reasonably possible (speaker podium, reception area, live stream).
Public Liability Insurance
It's a good idea, and some of our sponsors require this. Have a quote, the board will cover this expense.
Code of Conduct
X.Org has an Anti-Harassment Policy and organizers are expected to upheld and help enforce it.
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We require a sad smiley on the bottom right corner of the 2nd last slide in the proposal.