ChiPyCon 2008 Bid

Introduction

The Chicago Python Users Group (ChiPy) is excited to present our bid for PyCon 2008. Chicago, as a metro area, needs little introduction. It is a world-class city, well known for its architecture, sites, sounds and culture. Proud of our reputation as "the city that works", we feel that Chicago's rich heritage makes it a fantastic place to host a conference for Python, the language that works.

Chicago is a great place for Python. Python is used in many areas of business and academia in Chicago and this is reflected in the local Python Users Group, ChiPy. ChiPy is a thriving group with consistently well-attended meetings and members involved in many aspects of the Python community, locally, nationally and globally. It is that community involvement and strong grounding in Python that we feel makes Chicago the place to host PyCon 2008.

Chicago 2008 Bid Summary

  • Main Conference Dates: March 14th-16th, 2008, with tutorial day before and sprints after
  • Venue: Crowne Plaza O'Hare
  • Room Costs: $99 single/double occupancy
  • Commissionable Rate: 10% of room rates are paid back to PyCon as per the standard practice for Comissionable Rates.
  • Average cost to attendees: Within 3% of 2007 figures (assumes lower sponsorship than 2007, so will likely be cheaper).
  • Registration Costs: $25 more per non-student registration category and $5 more for the student registration categories assuming sponsorship at 2006 levels.
  • If sponsorship levels remain at 2007 levels: registration costs should be within 2% of 2007 costs
  • Transportation costs to hotel: $0
  • Having PyCon 2008 in Chicago: Priceless.

The Bid

Beyond our own group's interest in bringing PyCon to Chicago, there was the additional push of having Chicago be the most frequently requested alternate locale in the PyCon 2006 attendee survey. We have added our own excitement for PyCon in Chicago and can offer a bid with a total cost to attendees that is within 3% of the 2007 conference in Dallas while offering more amenities and benefits to PyCon attendees.

Our bid is a little different than previous bids, but we believe that this is in the tradition of growth and development that has marked PyCon and the Python language over their respective histories. We expect that our bid, if accepted, will continue PyCon's solid track record.

In conceiving our bid, we initially focused on identifying suitable venues that were a)large enough to accommodate possible growth, b) affordable enough to keep conference registration and total cost to the attendees low and c)accessible both to airports and city transportation.

Thanks to the connections of the ChiPy members, we have been consulting with Larry Skaja, President of Conference Technology Enhancements, Inc., a professional meeting planning and management company. With Larry's generous help, we distributed an RFP, narrowed the responses down to one venue and have negotiated a strong contract that awaits the PSF Conference Committee's selection. Once that selection has been made Larry will continue to help us, free of charge, with final negotiations and the contract signing process. Given Larry's exceptional help, enthusiasm and experience and CTE's track-record, our bid includes contracting with CTE for pre-conference hotel liaison and logistical help as well as on-site services, including auditing of hotel services during and after the conference.

We have elected to bid solely for 2008. This was done with careful consideration and after consultation with CTE staff and members of the ChiPy and national Python community. We recognize that the timeline that PyCon planning has occurred in, namely with contracts being signed a year or less in advance of the event is not optimal, however, we are also concerned about our negotiating power for a possible 2008 bid if it must be contingent on a 2009 bid. Moreover, the experience and advice of CTE has led us to believe that no appreciable financial or bargaining advantage is gained by looking for a 2 year contract and there is considerable risk in being locked-in to a venue without an alternative.

Instead of the multi-year contract option, we have, in conversation with members of the PSF Conference Committee and members of the Python Community, advocated the involvement of a professional meeting planner and a centralized site evaluation and selection committee to help continue and streamline the process of PyCon selection, now and in the future.

We see the current situation as an ideal place to try one or both of those suggestions, as the PSF Conference Committee sees fit. As there appears to be multiple bids for PyCon being presented this year, we suggest that the process for selecting a venue for 2009 is not precluded by the selection of Chicago for PyCon 2008. If all else, negotiating a second year at this point should not be that difficult, particularly if we choose to involve a professional meeting planner.

Conference Scheduling

The dates for the main conference will be Friday, March 14th, 2008 through Sunday, March 16th, 2008.

The plan is for a single day of tutorials on Thursday, March 13th and two days of sprints on Monday and Tuesday, March 17th&18th.

Venue

The Chicago PyCon bid group has selected the Crowne Plaza O'Hare (additional venue information). We have a negotiated draft contract in hand [1] and ready for review of the PSF Conference Committee.

The Crowne Plaza O'Hare is a modern, upscale meeting venue, minutes from Chicago O'Hare airport. While it is a suburban location, the Crowne Plaza O'Hare is a five minute walk (or a free shuttle ride) to the Chicago Transit Authority's River Road stop on the Blue Line, a part of the world-famous "El" mass-transit train system, allowing PyCon attendees to be just a short ride away from all that downtown Chicago has to offer.

Venue Highlights:

  • 503 total guest rooms
  • Meeting space for groups of up to 3000 people (theater style)
  • Extremely well kept and updated interior, very comfortable and modern
  • Located close to Chicago O'Hare airport, the hotel runs a free shuttle every 15 minutes to/from O'Hare
  • Frequent free shuttle to/from the CTA Blue Line for easy access to the city (including other low-budget housing options, such as hostels)
  • Restaurants: many within walking distance, including Gibson's and Morton's, both are iconic Chicago steakhouses. Many more within 1 mile and with the easy access to the CTA, a trip into the city for dinner isn't unimaginable for many attendees.
[1]The most recent draft of the contract that we have in hand does not completely reflect the current state of negotiations as we have been going back and forth with the hotel a number of times and do not want to ask for another draft until we're fairly certain that we'll be able to sign in short order. This has been done as per Larry Skaja's advice.

Meeting Space

  • Free as long as room commitment is made. Sliding scale otherwise.
  • Room assignments and final space commitments are not specified in the contract yet -- as negotiations have been going on during the 2007 PyCon registration period, we have watched the impressive attendance growth and decided to leave room specifics to the final negotiations, but initial attendance levels specified in the draft contract are sufficient to guarantee use of the ballrooms and other rooms required for a group of our size.

Room Rates, Roomnight Obligation and Commission

Currently, the contract guarantees attendees rooms for $99 single/double occupancy.

This rate is commissionable at 10%. That is to say, for every roomnight booked by a PyCon attendee, the hotel will pay us 10% of the rate they booked at, per night stayed, as an incentive to us to get our attendees to book nights there, at their hotel. This is not an uncommon thing in the hotel and event industry and should be considered within standard practices.

The contracted room block is as follows:

Wed Thu Fri Sat Sun Mon Tue
10 200 200 200 100 50 0

This totals to 760 room nights of which there is a 90% attrition guarantee -- this should be extremely easy to achieve.

1 free room for every 50 roomnights reserved by PyCon attendees and 2 complimentary junior suites for the organizers/chairs, for the length of the conference.

MichaelBernstein: Your bid looks very good, and I plan to be at the conference in Chicago, but I do note that you don't seem to be obligating the hotel to honor the rate as long as they have any rooms available.

This is a critical point, and one that (in the volunteer run science fiction convention community) is a hard-won insight. Otherwise, you risk the hotel cutting off the discounted room bookings once the block is filled if they run out of their cheaper rooms | book a second event that is paying more | decide you're "not their kind of people" | figure they can screw people into booking at a more expensive rate, etc.

Never mind that some of these strategies are self defeating. DO NOT count on the hotel to act in it's own rational self-interest, as they base their actions on experience with much more expensive events that are typically employer funded and that get far fewer last-minute registrations.

Network Connectivity

  • In-room internet will be discounted to $11.95 or lower [2].
  • Conference wireless provided by hotel, $8500 has been quoted for 3 T1 lines with more lines negotiable before contract signing, but at added cost (though not proportionally more, so an over-estimated price has been used in the working budget).
  • Included in this is a service level agreement, allowing "a reduction for service interruption due to their error or negligence." [2] It seems probable that if the hotel is properly informed of our usage and attendance, then any issues similar to what happened in 2006 would qualify as 'negligence' on the hotel's part.
  • The hotel has said, up to this point, that they will not allow us to implement our own wireless network using their bandwidth.
[2](1, 2) As per negotiations by Larry Skaja, reported via email on 2/14.

Finances

A working budget can be viewed via google spreadsheets.

Important Notes:

  • Total attendee cost is comparable to that of PyCon 2007 in Dallas. See the Per-Attendee Cost Estimates tab of the budget for details.
  • Non-student registration costs have been raised from 2007 by $25, though depending on final contract negotiations and sponsorship commitments (which were estimated at $10,000 lower than 2007) this may be able to be lowered. If sponsorship is at the same level as 2007, then the registration fees can be kept at the same level as 2007 rates.
  • Catering budget has NOT been negotiated yet, but the estimate of a total cost of $63 per person, per day is based on the catering list prices for a light breakfast and a lunch, provided by the Crowne Plaza O'Hare (included in bid packet to be presented to the PSF Conference committee) and on previous PyCon experiences. This will be negotiated and will potentially be lower.
  • A/V budget is an estimate, but a reliable one based on Karl Karsten's advice and the 2007 budget. (Karl is the 2007 A/V chair and a ChiPy member)
  • Conference internet fees are estimates, based upon on-going negotiation, as mentioned above, but shouldn't be significantly higher and may well be lower.
  • Meeting room usage is free as long as we meet our roomnight attrition guarantees.

Alternative Accommodations

  • Additional/alternative hotels are available nearby: 4 hotels within .1 mile, 8 hotels within 3/4 mile.
  • Another excellent option are hostels, such as Hostelling International Chicago.
  • The Crowne Plaza O'Hare's proximity to the CTA blue line makes staying at a hostel or downtown hotel a real possibility for anyone so inclined.

A/V Equipment

As mentioned above in the budget notes, the A/V prices have not been negotiated yet, but we're confident that the budgeted prices can be achieved or beaten and that this is something that can be done as the event nears, just as it has been in 2007.

Transportation

  • The Crowne Plaza O'Hare offers frequent free shuttles (every 15 minutes) to/from O'Hare airport. Attendees flying into midway can reach the venue by a ~35 minute cab or shuttle ride or a hour on the CTA via the orange and blue lines.
  • Located approximately 3 blocks from the CTA blue line train, the Crowne Plaza O'Hare allows easy access to the city and attractions downtown.
  • Airfares to/from Chicago are frequently (though not always) cheaper than many other metro areas. This is difficult to rigorously/completely quantify, so it has been left as an exercise for the reader. =)

Transportation related websites:

Warm Bodies

Chicago has a highly enthusiastic group of volunteers able to shoulder much of the work required by the Python Software Foundation. For example, the A/V crew helping out with PyCon 2007 consists of local Chicago folks.

Meeting Planner

The aid and assistance we have received from Larry Skaja and CTE up to this point have been invaluable. To stress this point, the Chicago bid would be thousands of dollars worse and possibly completely non-existent without Mr. Skaja's help. With that in mind, we have decided to include limited use of CTE's services in our bid.

Service Specifics:

Advance service:

  • Hotel negotiations, AV, internet etc
  • Coordination of committee chairs and room assignments
  • Food and Beverage budgeting, negotiating and selections

Onsite:

  • Monitoring of planned activities
  • Making adjustments to the plan
  • Daily accounting of Food, Beverage, AV and internet invoices

Post Meeting:

  • Reconciling master bill [3]

Fee:

  • $7500.00
  • All inclusive, no additional costs
  • This compares favorably to many other meeting/event planners -- frequently event planners take the room-rate commission, in full, as payment. $7500 is significantly below that.
[3]This step is very important as it includes auditing all of the room-night commissions and accounting for all itemized bills (A/V, catering, etc.) and ensures that we pay for only what we used and we get all of the room commissions we're entitled to.
Why contract with a meeting planner?

There seem to be two issues at hand when it comes to the 'Meeting Planner' topic. First, the issue of whether or not we need a meeting planner at all, and second, why we should contract with CTE for meeting planning services.

First, why is it a good idea to contract with a meeting planner? In a word, turnover. In one more, experience. A lot of the first usually leads to a lack of the second.

  • Being a completely volunteer run conference, PyCon faces the danger of frequent volunteer turnover. In similar organization, it's not uncommon for some important roles to be filled by new people ever year or two. This is particularly true if the location changes with some regularity.
  • Moreover, many of the volunteers, while highly motivated and extremely generous with their time, are not experienced with the meeting planning and running process, particularly for a meeting of 600+ attendees. A meeting planner can help mitigate this turnover by providing years of experience and focus to the tasks at hand.
  • As PyCon grows, each task grows in complexity and time requirements and this adds burden to volunteers. As we value the time and commitment our community volunteers, we feel it's important to focus volunteer effort where it's needed most and can be most effective. Having a meeting planner helps us do this while getting the best results for the conference.
  • Another important thing to remember is that hotel staff positions are usually high-turnover positions. Good people move up, bad people move along. This can complicate things for any conference as we rely on hotel staff to get us what we need. Having a meeting planner acting as our liaison with the hotel staff can help make that relationship smoother.
  • Additionally, from a purely strategic point of view, it's great to have a meeting planner's years of experience when negotiating with a relatively inexperienced hotel staff person.
Why CTE?
  • CTE's website is a good starting point, in particular, the meeting support page which is the core of CTE's proposal for our bid.
  • CTE has a long track record of experience in all aspects of meeting planning and management, focusing on bringing technological solutions to conference problems.
  • In particular, CTE has a strong history of working with technology related conferences, such as the Association of Computing Machinery (ACM) which has used CTE for numerous conferences in the past and therefore, CTE knows what to expect and request of the hotel in terms of connectivity and networking demands which should aid in making networking a trouble-free experience.
  • Larry Skaja has been extremely helpful in his negotiations and advising thus far, and the Chicago bid group has confidence in CTE's value to our bid (that's why CTE's services have been included in the budget.)

last edited 2007-11-14 19:57:13 by TedPollari