Here is my report about our visit in Sarajevo. Sorry, that it took me so long to send it. You'll find updated versions in the svn repository, too.
General impressions about Sarajevo and their local team: ======================================================== Let's first start with the the small anxieties I heard some people would have about safety in Sarajevo. As stockholm already said in Mexico: "Apparently, the war is over." It's true ;) Yes, you can still see military presence of the EUFORCE, and you might have bad luck when some kind of Diplomat passes by, to be stopped or something similar. I don't consider that to be a problem; you might not even notice them, while being in Sarajevo; you might encounter a patrolling Jeep, but that's it. No nervous control points with heavily armed Soldiers in full fighting suit. Just as if they were police. There seems to be no reason to be worried about any leftovers from war or other things in Sarajevo. BTW: Of course you can still see results from war; bullet holes in buildings etc. I would like to mention, that that's the same for Berlin; and the last war in Berlin is even longer ago, than the one in Bosnia ;) I was also satisfied, to find out, that the Bosnian local team consist of more then the two or three guys we saw on IRC till now. We had chats with 10 people (several others couldn't join us, but seem to exist, too.) All of them seemed really willing to have the Conf there. All of them seemed quite enthusiastic, asking the right questions. Some if them have experience in organizing bigger events (one mentioned a bigger conference with... uhm... forgot the exact number, at least one thousand attendees). Also there are several working for local ISPs; they told us there employers are willing to support them while working for the Conf and sponsoring the Conf directly. I would also like to mention that they confessed, that's laziness is part of them, but they are also hard working, and in some way reliable. If they say, they would do something, we could count on them doing it. I like that kind of honesty ;) Short Summary: ============== They prepared two different venues for us. One hotel and one student dormitory. The hotel has nearly everything we need, including different conference rooms. They don't have network connection right now everywhere we would like to have it, but they plan to build it up and promised cooperation during the build up phase. Having the Conf there would surely be more expensive, but would be a "conference of short walks". I would also like to mention, that the hotel could take a lot of the workload from our shoulders, one example would be the registration/info desk. The other venue would be a student dormitory with a nearby culture center. It would be a really cheap option, but with more work for us to do. While the student dormitories are... well, cheap student dormitories, the culture center, where we would have auditoriums, has a quite high standard. The distance between the dormitories and the culture center was an seven to eight minute walk for us beneath a larger street. Food will be served at the dormitories, hack lab would be at the dorm, too. Perhaps we could have a second one in the culture center. The opening hours of the culture center are limited (07:30-16:30, closed on weekends; it might be possible to extend them). Detailed report: ================ We arrived Wednesday the 28rd afternoon at Sarajevo international airport. Although this airport isn't perfectly connected and small, it's still okay. There seem to be some low fare airlines (e.g. blue1) and "normal" airlines, like Lufthansa. You'll probably need to change plane in Munich, Budapest or Prague and book well in advance, or the small planes might be already booked out. We spend the first evening travelling to a suburb of Sarajevo, where saphire, head of the local team, is living. (I would again thank him and his mother for the accommodation and all the time they spend on this!) During a BBQ in the evening we made first contact with some of the local team and discussed various things; most of it was getting to know each other. As you could expect most of the local team work in the IT sector, at least two for local ISPs. They are members of the Linux User Group of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which will act as legal umbrella for the Conf should we go there; so they know Free Software and the culture of the community. Some but not all of them are even Debian users. First venue: Hotel terme ------------------------- Our first visit the next day was the Hotel "Terme". It is quite near to the airport (but still silent; the benefit of SJJ being a small airport ;) This Hotel is used to host various conferences and meetings. We had a talk with their marketing chief, which would be our main contact to them. As already mentioned, the Hotel would offer us nearly full service: Five conference rooms of different sizes, breakfast, lunch and dinner. If we like, we could have a late night snack, too. Although they have 400 beds (which stockholm assumes to be the expected numbers of participants for the next Conf) some of us would be needed to stay in an other nearby hotel (due to various other contracts the Hotel needs to fulfill). The hotels are nearby and offer the same standard as the this one. About 300 would stay direct in the hotel. If people like, they could even arrive with their caravan and stay at the hotels special parking lot. This hotel is also used as "health spa clinic". Therefore they are used to handle disabled persons. They have a medical service including two doctors and various therapists and male nurses, offering messages and special bathes and various other stuff. The complete Hotel is built to handle disabled people, including ramps instead of stairs, big elevators, wide doors and special designed bathrooms. Vegetarian, vegan and (most) other special meals wouldn't be a problem; actually they are used to cook special meals for the different spa guests. Costs would be ~33 Euro per person per night. That includes: Accommodation, Conference areas, Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner, storage rooms, and even more. They were very cooperative, even when asked regarding the special needs about network topology. Nota bene: The current Hotels ISP is the already mentioned employer of one of the LUG Bosnia and Herzegovina members, who's willing to sponsor us. The conference rooms are well equipped with sound system (but I don't know details about them), overhead projectors, flippcharts and projectors (not in every room; they have three portable ones). Stooling and tables could be placed according to our needs. As already mentioned they have five different rooms, ranging from smaller ones to a big one. The biggest one would be okay for bigger talks, as well as for DebianDay. Behind the biggest conference room (which is near to the hotels entry and could therefore easily be used for DebianDay) is a smaller room (for speakers warm up and similar things), which we could be used for video editing. Rooms used for storage and servers are available, too; we won't need to rent rooms for that. Behind the Hotel building is a park (which we didn't see ourselfs; we just saw pictures). The Hotel employees will be capable of speaking English. Some of them speak German and/or Russian; some even a bit French. We have been told, that one could find several grocery stores near to the hotel. There personell should be capable of speaking English, too; all in all communication doesn't seem to be a big problem anywhere in Sarajevo. Second venue: Student dormitory and (arabic) culture center ----------------------------------------------------------- Later that day we visited the second proposed venue, where accommodation and conference rooms are in separate locations. First we visited a student dormitory, which will be used for accommodation, meals and hacklabs. There we spoke with the boss, who sadly couldn't understand our English, but confirmed that during the conference enough English speaking people would be present. Being a student dormitory means of course lower standard, than the hotel. I would consider it an even lower standard than the one we had in Mexico. We would get breakfast, lunch and dinner at their kitchen in a self service like way (similar to Helsinki). Vegetarian and vegan meals would also be possible. It seems to be average student meals. Nothing fancy, nothing special. They have two rooms, which could be used as hacklab. Stooling could again be made to fit our needs. An additional hacklab could be a cafe in the basement, which is open to one side; could be possible to put some tables there to make an open air hacklab. There are two and three bed rooms. Everyone has it's own bathroom and shower. As already said, it's nothing fancy: beds, a stool a small table, a cabinet. All in all they have 900 beds which would be entirely available for us during the summer break (which would mean high temperatures [around 35° Celsius with high humidity]). Although they have ramps and elevators for wheel chaired people, the bathrooms don't seem to fit for all of us; maybe even the doors to the rooms are too small. Currently we don't know of enough hotels nearby for attendees who wouldn't stay nearby and disabled attendees. Again we would need to set up the entire network our self, as well as doing stuff like reception, etc. Again we heard of several grocery stores nearby; storage rooms would be available for us, two. Special rooms like Serverroom or video editing room would most probably need to be in normal rooms. We would get the accommodation, food and hacklab rooms for 19 Euro per nigh per person. After we visited this place, we went to the location, where we would get auditoriums and several small rooms. It is an arabic culture center sponsored by King XXX of Saudi Arabia. That's why we would get those rooms for free (if they agree to host us). They have a very high standard. The culture center is easy to find; you just need to follow a four lane road two blocks down; cross the street and you are there. I don't know the exact distance between the student dormitory and the culture center. I took the time it needed _us_ walk over there. It took us nearly eight minutes. After a small check in procedure, where we needed to hand them our passports (it's not sure, if something similar would be needed for attendees of the conference) we were shown the building. They have five smaller school like rooms, with hard coded stooling and tabling. They are equipped with 32 stools, a whiteboard and a white screen to be used with projectors. They have several projectors (but not enough for all five of the school rooms at the same time). They have an other room used for computer education with several work stations (not running free software). Would be nice to have them for those, who don't have own notebooks, but we don't know if it is possible to use those computers with the software we need. They have a big auditorium for about 300 people. It is equipped with sound equipment, some video stuff and cabins for simultaneous translation, as well as a special area for journalists. It might be possible to use a large room normally used as canteen as an additional hacklab. Personal conclusion =================== Sadly I must say, that neither of the two proposed venues are really perfect for a DebConf. Nonetheless I must say, that I am sure we could have a good conference there. The first proposed venue, the hotel, seems a bit above our usual standard during other confs. It's more expensive, but I really think it would be worth the money. They would take a huge workload from our shoulders, they are cooperative, at it would be a "conf of short walks": Everything under the same roof and (nearly) everyone there, too. Considering the money, we later played a bit with the numbers: In Helsinki we had about 200 people with sponsored accommodation and food during the conf and about 70 during the camp (Actually that's the maximum; it started with a lot less people). We paid for accommodation, food and the conference building in Helsinki about 67'000 Euro. If we would have done the conf in this Hotel with this prices (33 Euro per person per night for accommodation, food and conference rooms for free), we would pay about 62'000 Euro. So it isn't that expensive compared to other confs. Of course the numbers above are a "Milchmädchenrechnung" (which is a German phrase for cheating yourself); of course we will have more than 200 people attending DebConf 7. But I still think we could finance it somehow, since a) The conference will be in Europe, which means cheaper flights (and less money we need to spend for travell reimbursement) b) Many people are willing to pay a bit for a better location (on a voluntarily basis) c) The amount of work put on the hotels shoulders will create a less stressed orga team, and therefore a less stressed conference for all On the other hand I can't really imagine at the current point to have the conf in the other proposed venue, the student dormitory / culture center. Beside stuff like the check in procedure at the arabic culture center, or the fact, that we would need to wait for their decision if they would like to host us and similar other smaller disadvantages, the main point speaking against them would be the distance between student dormitory and the culture center. As said we don't know the exact distance, but it took us 7-8 minute by foot. Considering, that we walked a bit faster than the average, it might take others up to 12 or even 15 Minutes by foot. Taking into account, that people would need to get back to the dorm for lunch, and that we will have the conf during an even hotter period of summer (because the dorm isn't available during any other period), we will make the same mistake again: Having a Conf, where people stay in the hacklab, because the conference rooms are too far away. We thought about some work arounds, like an additional hacklab in the culture center, but I consider that to be a bad idea, since this would split the conference even further up. No, I don't consider the student dorm / arabic culture center to be a good venue for DebConf7. If we go for Sarajevo, than we should go to the Hotel.
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