Venue and food represent the majority of the conference budget. Your job directly affects every other functional area and the budget. The venue determines how many attendees can come, how many sponsorships can be sold, the food options, AV equipment needed, etc.
The venue lead is responsible for making sure that the venue is setup to run the conference. This includes making sure that there's:
- Space for sponsors to setup their tables.
- Room for open spaces.
- At least one stage or main hall for talks.
The venue lead is the glue that holds the conference together. Your job is to make sure that the venue has all the space and equipment to put on a great conference. You'll also be coordinating with many of your fellow leads so that their functional areas are setup for success.
- Coordinate with the venue on layout.
- Arrange a walk-through for the organizer team.
- Work with the AV lead to hammer out AV needs.
- Work with the sponsor lead to organize where sponsors will setup.
- Work with the volunteer lead to arrange where registration will happen.
- Work with the swag lead to decide where swag will be distributed from.
Most venues make their money by locking you into their vendors for food, AV, etc. That's how they make their money. Hotels are the most expensive places to host a conference, but they're also setup exclusively to host them. If you go with a venue that's not a hotel, you may still be required to use their food vendor. You need an estimate of the conference size to start determining a venue. A good rule of thumb is that most non-hotels can handle 400 or less attendees. Above 400 attendees, you will probably be locked into using a hotel.
- 6 months before conference: Identify the venue, secure the deposit, sign the initial contract
- 5 months before conference: Arrange a walk-through for the organizers so they can get a feel for the space
- 2 weeks before conference: Finalize the contract, pay the remaining balance (this depends on the venue, could be earlier or later)
- Day of: handle any issues that arise with the venue
Start the venue search. I cannot stress this enough. Most venues in town are booked year(s) in advance, so finding the right venue will take a lot of research and a little bit of luck. When looking at a venue, you need to evaluate a lot of factors. It helps to make a spreadsheet so you can track the details for each venue you survey. Here's an example we used in 2019.At a minimum, include the core organizing team in the venue search. Beyond the core team, you may include additional organizers, but make sure that whoever is involved has the time to help with the venue search. You need to see the space with your own eyes, don't rely on pictures on their website. Physically inspect every venue.
When working with venues, explain how our conference works. Use some variation of the following description:
DevOpsDays Austin is a two-day tech conference where attendees learn about DevOps culture and trends. Each day we start with a keynote for all attendes. We then break into talks in one or more tracks. In the afternoon we have open spaces, where attendees crowdsource topics to discuss in small groups. At the end of day one we have a happy hour for attendees. We provide breakfast and lunch for all attendees. We host the confrfernce with funding from sponsors and ticket sales.
When you start the venue search, prepare to ask a lot of questions. Here are a few to get you started:
- What is the maximum capacity for the main room(s)? This determines how many people you can invite to the conference, which affects every single functional area.
- What AV equipment is included in the rental? If AV is not included, can we use our own AV or do we need to go with a specific vendor (many times venues have a preferred vendor)? If we use our own, is there an additional charge?
- What equipment is included in the rental? Some venues charge for each chair and table used, for tablecloths, etc., some don't. Identify every piece of furniture, included platform risers, podiums, etc. that you'll need to host the conference.
- What is the wifi situation? Is wifi included or is it extra? What's the bandwidth? Can the SSID be customized so that we can sell that as a sponsorhip?
- Can we use our own food vendor? If the answer is yes, find out if there is a service charge for using an outside vendor. At the UT stadium we had to pay 20% of the food cost as a "tax" to the venue for using outside food vendors. Food is where most venues make their money, so expect to be locked into using their food.
- How many entry points are there to the venue? Use this to decide where to locate registration.
- Is there an open area / space to put sponsors? Sponsors need at least a 6 foot table. The number of sponsors you can fit in the venue directly affects the conference buget.
- Does the venue supply power cables for sponsor tables or do we need to use our own?
- What is the payment schedule? When is the deposit due? When is the final ammount due? What is the back-out and refund policy?
- What is the emergency plan in case of tornadoes, earthquakes, etc?
- What is the parking situation? Is free parking included? Can you prorate parking for guests or validate parking?
- What is the shipping policy for the venue? Can sponsors ship their sponsor kits ahead of time? If not, where can they be shipped to? Is there a fee to handle shipped items? How do we ship items out when the conference is over?
- What is the setup timeline? How early on the day before the conference can we get in to setup? How much time do we have? Is there a fee involved? Where do we load in and load out? Do they have dollies for us to use or do we need to grab our own?
- Can we affix signage to the walls / doors? If not, we'll need to use free-standing signage. If yes, what kind of tape can we use?
- How is the venue secured overnight? Do we need to hire a security guard?
- Is there space to host a happy hour? If not, conduct a search of nearby places for happy hour.
- Are there smaller rooms for open spaces? Can large rooms be subdivided with air walls? Open spaces are the most important part of the conference.
- Identify the venue. You need at least six months of lead time in order to organize the conference, so the venue must be locked in. The venue will determine how many of the functional areas work so they'll need plenty of lead time to get organized.
- Pay the deposit and agree to the fee schedule.
- Organize an organizer site survey. Find a time that works during the day (lunch is best) and schedule a site survey for the rest of the organizers. Take lots of pictures and share them in case someone can't attend. If an area lead can't make it, be prepared to ask questions on their behalf.
- Determine the conference layout. Use powerpoint or LucidChart to come up with a diagram. Use this to determine how many sponsors you can fit it, how many talk tracks, and the guest total.
- Finalize the venue contract. It should include line items for everything you're paying for. Udpate the conference spreadsheet with the projected cost. After this point the only thing to update with the conference is the guest total. Keep an eye on ticket sales and adjust the contract (and costs) as needed.
- Pay the rest of the venue rental fee. Work with Conference Ops to get this paid via invoice.
- Hammer out any last-minute changes with the venue. Have we oversold / undersold? Are there any sponsor additions / subtractions? Adjust everything based on tickets and sponsorships sold.
- Your job is to make sure setup goes as smoothly as possible. Make sure that you know who to contact on site from the venue if there are any last minute hurdles.
- During the conference, make sure to check in with the venue to make sure everything is on schedule. Keep an eye on the other functional areas in case they need help with something from the venue.