I Co-Organised An Unconference
And it was a blast!
Just out of spite
Well, it started out as a jokey-spite thing.
I prepared a very nice talk based on my Medium article and submitted it to PyConIL 2018. I was rejected and that’s fair but by the time I received the rejection all conference tickets have run out and that was a disappointment.
Speaking to my friend Yuval Adam, I jokingly quoted bender:
But after a few days of shuckin’ and jivin’ around the subject it clicked — we can organise our own PyCon!
From a bruised ego and a gag, the idea formed into something more meaningful. Why shouldn’t the Israeli scene have a Python unconference? A free event with no entry barrier, everyone is welcome, everyone may speak and participate and everyone can steer the agenda.
not PyCon was born! A DIY/ad-hoc conference; one of the many ways we can give back to OSS and the OSS community.
So how do you organise a single day unconference on a shoe string?
Yuval and I are both well-paid software developers, but we certainly don’t have enough cash to spend on an event that’s normally funded by wealthy corporations or sponsors.
We had 3 main obstacles:
1) How do we attract attendees?
2) How do we feed attendees?
3) How do we find a cheap/free venue?
Attracting Attendees
was fairly easy. Shortly after announcing the event, we posted multiple messages in the different Israeli Python meetup groups, Facebook groups and Twitter feeds, and within 24 hours of announcement ALL 60 TICKETS WERE SNATCHED! This was a very a nice surprise as we didn’t think it would gain much attention.
But as any free event organiser will tell you, out of all attendees who’ve RSVP’d as “going”, you’re lucky if 30% show up.
So how can we better estimate the number of people who actually turn up?
We came up with what we phrased as “Honest Registration”. We’ve sent attendees a number of emails within the time window between the announcement and the event; no spamming obviously, emails contained important updates and requests for feedback.
Explaining that not PyCon is a privately funded and free event, every email included a plea to attendees — if you can’t make it, cancel your registration; you’ll save us from needless expenses and free up a ticket to someone else who wishes to attend.
Given this, and the constant request for more tickets, we expected ~40 people to show up.
Feeding Attendees
at conferences normally involves some form of catering and catering is expensive! Yuval and I are both vegan and don’t feel comfortable financing and serving non-vegan food. We had to find a solution that’ll satisfy our conscience and our attendees, and won’t incur too big of a cost.
If you’ve ever visited Israel, you know that we have many Falafel joints around. It’s cheap, fast, vegan and filling, so why not serve falafel? We’ve contacted a local falafel shop and asked them to deliver enough food for the ~40 attendees and have every attendee prepare their own serving.
All in all it cost us ~19 NIS per attendee; this directly translates to 5$ US.
On top of that, my amazing employer (Healthy.io) kindly agreed to sponsor some of the food expenses, so we were almost covered on this end.
Finding a venue
was by far the trickiest. There are many venues and offices in Tel-Aviv that host meetups, but the majority are only available after-hours (18:00+).
Yuval is a volunteer and activist at the local hackerspace, a super-cool venue in itself; we initially planned to host it there, but the hackerspace comfortably holds up to 30 people and we had more than 60 attendees.
Are we to take the pessimistic path, using the smaller venue assuming there would be a low attendance rate? But what if all 60 attendees show up?
We decided not to take the bet, and looked for a larger venue instead.
We first tried our luck with public workspaces sponsored by companies like Microsoft and Google, but they were occupied; hiring a privately owned workspace was out of the question as they cost up to 2000$ US per day.
Eventually we contacted the Association of Engineers in Israel which has a small complex in Tel Aviv that includes both offices and classrooms for engineering related events, and they were gladly willing to host the event for free.
The day of the event
quickly arrived. We gathered at 09:30 and kicked off at 10:15.
A list was placed by the coffee counter where attendees could check in to give talks/discussions and the selection was very nice; talks included Models and predictions by Ehud Lam, Public transport APIs by Elad Alfassa, Architecture by Carine-Belle Feder and many more.
Attendance was not as high as we expected; even with constant reminders of honest registration very few people cancelled up ahead, and out of almost 70 registered attendees only ~30 showed up.
Talks continued ‘till 5; we then closed shop and continued to a local bar for drinks.
All in all the experience was very positive; Attendees shared high quality content and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. This was my first time organising a conference and I feel that it was a great start.
Hopefully many more will come.
