[Mono-list] Mono summit, options.

[Jacobo Polavieja]

Miguel de Icaza escribió:
> Hello folks,
> 
>     Am trying to decide on a location for the next Mono summit.   One of
> the challenges of the summit is that the Mono team is now pretty large,
> so it is quite expensive to fly and host everyone, so am trying to pick:
> 
> 	* An affordable city (good hotel prices).
> 	* Hopefully easy to reach by cheap flights.
> 
>      Am not sure what format we should have for this year.   Am not sure
> that having a strict schedule with talks was all that great last year, I
> felt that we had too little free time to talk among us than we did
> listening to presentations.
> 
>      So am thinking:
> 
> 	* Limit the presentations to a handful, on key topics.
> 
> 	* Organize the rest in an un-conference style, kind of like a 
> 	  BOF, where we get people together and people get to discuss
> 	  things.
> 
>      Ideally, we should host this in a University, as the hotel that we
> picked last time in Boston was far from ideal as well.   
> 
>      Some cities that I think might be within range are:
> 
> 	* Boston, but we have to be careful with the time, due
> 	  to the city being expensive for a bunch of special events.
> 
> 	* Prague, has a SUSE/Novell office, but there are few direct
> 	  flights to it. 
> 
> 	* Madrid, potentially we could find a University there that 
> 	  could host us.
> 
>      Am afraid that Mexico and South America will be expensive to reach
> for Europeans, but if the cost is not too larger, we could pick a city
> in Mexico (We all know that Mike Kestner wants Cancun, but having been
> there for a conference once, I can attest that most attendees skip on
> the meetings).
> 
>      Which probably means "Do your conference in Boston, in mid
> February" to guarantee attendance ;-).
> 
> Miguel.
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> 

As a Madrid inhabitant and mono fan all I can say is I could see some
Universities about supporting the meeting, in case you finally decide to
come. Any other thing I could do is offered...
Of course I'd be delighted if my city could host such an event =).

Flights within Europe are now pretty affordable with some companies. You
can usually get low cost flights from around 50€. Am not so sure about
transAtlantic flights or from other continents (I'm going to NYC next
week and it cost me 750€~1000$, it's July anyway...).

As I see the advantages of Madrid are:
- Weather
- Off-talks activities / tourism / places to stay and talk (it's more or
less our national preferred activity).
- Food
- Probably easy to have University support.
- Easy and cheap to get here.
- Cheaper than Boston.
- No accomodation problem, wide variety and offer.
- Quite good transportation --> Metro (Underground), train and bus
services all around the city.
- Nice girls (just in case).

Drawbacks:
- €uro higher than Dollar.
- Maybe expensive for Americans to get here?
- Not the majority of the people around the street speaks English.

Prague has some of the same advantages and disadvantages of Madrid, and
it's like every European city will suffer from a higher €uro and the
cost for the Americans to fly to Europe.

Hope that helps and, again, everything I can do... just ask.

Cheers!