Venue
The venue is something that can be really difficult for a first-time organiser to get right. The most common thing to do is to go to go to google and look up conference venues in the area.
With a single track, single day conference, there are some simple elements that you will need:
- a main conference room with A/V
- a main room to meet and gather and eat, preferably where, if it is noisy it will not be too disturbing
- enough toilets for everybody
- good accessibility for those with disabilities (both visible and invisible)
- easily reachable via public transport
- several reasonably priced hotels within walking distance
- speaker room, as some speakers will need a space to prepare before speaking
Within most cities, these aren't too complicated a set of requirements, and they aren't necessarily in any order. If you have people flying in for example, the hotels may be far more important than the public transport. If you have
First Time ServerlessDays Events
Most first-time ServerlessDays events spring out of meetups or other events held in the same city and as such are likely to attract around 100-150 people if experience is anything to go by.
Within a city there will be a lot of different types of venues ranging from churches, to the more standard hotels and conference venues, to aquariums and museums. Many cities have different and unique buildings that can host a day long conference for up to 200 people with relative ease and without breaking the bank.
One of the most enjoyable elements of the "local" aspect of the organising of ServerlessDays is showing the attendees to the event part of the local culture and history of a city. It is worth considering this when looking at a venue.
Venues and "Extra Services"
One thing to consider is that many venues will require you to use their catering or A/V or use other services. The venues that are more setup to do conferences will be easier to price in this way, but may turn out more expensive. However considering the "local" aspect again may be a useful consideration for things like catering. Choosing a venue where you have some flexibility with the catering may be worthwhile. Also, it may be worth noting that a company that knows how to do A/V in a venue already will be a lot less hassle than a company that does not know the venue well. Worth taking the time to think it all through.
Don't Overcommit
One of the big things to say is not to overcommit too early. Going for a big venue for a first conference has caused issues for some organisers in the past and has caused postponements due to high early costs and not enough ticket sales and not enough committed sponsors early enough.
Prepare For The Day
You will need to make some site visits before the day, so prepare time for those, and prepare the venue for those, if you need to. These will be for things like where do we put the screens, where tables go, where sponsors go, what is the room layout going to be etc.
It is worth over planning this step and giving one person the organising responsibility for the logistics rather than doing this via committee.
The Venue Can Make The Conference
Picking a great and unique venue can be one of the best parts about a tech conference. If you get the venue right, and you pick something with a local flavour, you can easily increase discussion of the conference on social media, increase sponsor exposure before and after the conference, increase ticket sales...