Events/AsiaCon/HowTo

Here is a how-to page to host an Asia Conference.

To 2019 Tokyo staff,

いったんは日本語で書きだしましょう.

= Items and Tasks =

Country / Region to host

 * Discuss and decide at the LibreOffice Asia Committee (LOAC)

Local team

 * Building an organized team around the local LibreOffice community
 * LibreOffice Asia Committee supports local team

In 2019 Japan:

 * We already had the LibreOffice Japanese team. The Japan team ran the annual LibreOffice conference in Japan, every year. The Japanese  team is part of the Japanese community and is there for when we need to work together for events and other activities.
 * Initially, I (@enoki) thought of running by the Japanese team and adding other people to it. However, We recruited volunteers to work only on the day of the event, and the Japanese team was in charge of all tasks.
 * How to track tasks
 * Discuss and check progress tasks at Japanese team regular weekly meetings
 * Use Trello: Asia Conference board
 * Mainly 3-4 people share preparation tasks
 * 8 people participate as staff members of the Japanese team, One person participated as a speaker, so 9 people in total. And 9 people other than the Japanese team participate as support staff on the day
 * Speaker and guest support
 * Create telegram channels and share information via chat
 * Japanese staff share information in Slack in Japanese

Choice of city / town / whatever

 * The local team will decide
 * Convenient transportation access is better
 * Are there any cheap airlines flying near the chosen city?
 * How long does the trip from the airport to the venue take
 * Choosing a city where the local organizer lives is easy to set up
 * How friendly is your city towards foreigners?
 * Is it easy to get VISA?
 * Is security good?

In 2019 Japan:

 * We've prioritized place that is easy to gather from home and abroad
 * Must be able to secure a venue that matches the requirements

Venue

 * Good transportation is better
 * Get rooms as many as the number of tracks we need, scale to meet the number of participants
 * Conference facilities: chair, projector, screen, microphone, speaker, wifi
 * Internet connection can be important
 * Equipment can also be rented and brought
 * Costs that fit within a budget

In 2019 Japan:

 * It was a very accessible place in Tokyo
 * 3 tracks: English 2, Japanese 1
 * About 80 people participated: (We expected to be around 40-80 people)
 * Each room had a projector, a screen and sound equipment. Wifi was also provided
 * The cost was free
 * The venue can be mealable, so we did beer bash at the same venue
 * We had the experience of using the Cybozu's office before with LibreOffice kaigi. Cybozu challenge relationship with the IT community, and Cybozu employee in charge of the community is very friendly to the community.

Food

 * Halal, vegetarian, vegan and allergy support

In 2019 Japan:

 * Halal and vegan support requests from survey
 * Welcome party for speakers and staff, guests: Each participant places them own order
 * Beer bash on the first day: Ordered halal and vegan dishes
 * Speakers and guests were free only at Bia Bash. Other meals paid for themselves
 * I(@enoki) don't know if it was enough
 * Fortunately, there were many halal and vegan restaurants in Tokyo

Accommodation

 * Close to the venue, no problem with quality, cheap
 * Providing hotel information to speakers and guests

In 2019 Japan:

 * Local team did not book hotel
 * Suggested hotel

Excursion tour (Optional)

 * Tours offered the day after the conference
 * This is not required

In 2019 Japan:

 * Ogasawara-san chose a typical area in Tokyo
 * Due to budget constraints, participants paid for themselves
 * Only two members of the Japanese team were in charge. Because there are many people working on Monday. However Japanese people outside the Japanese team also supported us.

Travel support

 * It is important to support the travel costs of speakers, guests and staff

In 2019 Japan:

 * Support for speakers for round-trip transportation and two nights' accommodation
 * Speakers applied for TDF Travel Support. The local team supported the application
 * Guests, Taiwan team and Indonesian team travel expenses have applied directly to TDF. The local team did not support
 * Local staff travel expenses are basically covered by local sponsors fee. But we were a little short, so we only applied to the TDF for two person.

VISA support

 * Support is needed for those coming from countries that require a VISA
 * Need to send a letter of invitation.

In 2019 Japan:

 * We supported them against Albanian and Indian speakers.
 * The Japanese team is not a legal entity. I(@enoki) made an invitation letter as LibreOffice Asia Conference Commitee, but it was in fact a personal guarantee
 * For the Japanese government, letters had to be mailed, which was costly and time consuming. It took about a week to arrive
 * I contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs three times, each time giving a different answer, and I was confused.
 * One speaker was enrolled in the doctor course, so he wrote a letter with that content, but he graduated at the time of application and was rejected
 * I(@enoki) should have sended the letter two or three months ago before the conference. It takes 2-3 weeks for they to apply and get a response. I missed the time schedule
 * At the request of the Indian, Florian sent a TDF invitations to everyone who needed a visa. But this only sent a PDF file
 * At the request of the Indian, As a local team, I also sent a cover letter with detailed information about the conference to everyone who needed a visa. It was a letter from a Mozilla conference where he had attended earlier, I copied and modified it

Call for Sponsors

 * Various costs are incurred, mainly for travel expense support. Need to gather sponsors

In 2019 Japan:

 * It could be held even without local sponsors, Because the venue was rented for free and TDF provide travel expenses support
 * We got sponsors, so we were able to provide travel support to local staff and staff only on the day
 * We got a sponsor for the party, reduced beer bash entry fees
 * We created slides and sent them to anyone who was interested
 * In addition to Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze sponsors, we called for sponsors such as party and drink.
 * We also made a 10,000 yen individual sponsorship slot. Two people donated
 * Donations were raised at the reception on the first day. Also sold conference t-shirts

Call for Presentation: submission and selection

 * In the Asian Conference we invite a wide range of presentations and select between them

In 2019 Japan:

 * We've posted the CFP in various places
 * We provided travel expense support information when start CFP
 * The number of applications from all over Asia was quick, but the number of applications from Japan was low at first
 * How did we select?
 * Japanese team members and Asian committee members have voting rights
 * Each simply vote for the presentation they want to choose. They could vote for all the presentation candidates. However, they could not vote for themselves
 * Sorted and selected in order of most votes
 * In the event of a tie, only the meeting participants voted for the final round
 * I (@enoki) was proposing a slightly more complicated method, like the opneSUSE.Asia Summit, but after discussion the simpler method was adopted
 * Provided a chance to do LT for those who were not selected for long talk. However, we did not provide travel expenses support to LT speakers

Reference information

 * Planning for the LibreOffice conference:pad
 * https://wiki.debconf.org/wiki/LocationCheckList/

= TODO schedule=

Before the previous year's Asia Conference

 * 1) Decide to do the next Asia Conference
 * 2) Build up a local team
 * 3) * It was unnecessary in Japan because there was already a Japanese team
 * 4) Host country / region determination

(The schedule below is when we don't choose in Call for location)

12 to 6 months before the conference

 * 1) Local team decides the purpose and outline of AsiaCon, LibreOffice Asia Committee (LOAC) agrees
 * 2) Create a program outline
 * 3) * How many days, track numbers, workshops, etc.?
 * 4) Make a simple schedule plan up to the event
 * 5) Schedule conference date
 * 6) Book conference venue
 * 7) * Some venues require reservations from a year ago

January

 * 1) Apply for TDF NLP Budget

6 to 5 months before the conference

 * 1) Create Wiki page for this Asia Conference, Add to the Events page
 * 2) Start building a website
 * 3) Creating a logo
 * 4) * If they want to hold a logo contest, I think it's better to be at least 6 months before the conference
 * 5) Start to Call for Sponsor
 * 6) * Create draft of slide
 * 7) * Discuss, modify and complete slides
 * 8) * Make a list of potential sponsors
 * 9) * Announce and start approaching potential sponsors
 * 10) Set up accounting
 * 11) * Decide the accountant.
 * 12) * Prepare a bank account: There is also a way to get a company to be a point of account contact
 * 13) Decide and negotiate keynote speaker candidates
 * 14) Start to CFP
 * 15) * Disclosure of travel expense support information at the same time
 * 16) * Post to blog, website, mailinglist, etc.
 * 17) * Decide the number of slots to select in CFP
 * 18) * Decide CFP selection rules
 * 19) Find someone to take TDF certified interview if necessary

4 to 3 months before the conference

 * 1) Publish website
 * 2) Decide "Conference Party" overview
 * 3) Decide "Welcome party" overview (optional)
 * 4) Decide "Excursion Tour" overview (optional)
 * 5) CFP deadline
 * 6) * Review and vote on CFP, Select speakers
 * 7) * Send notifications and surveys to speakers (Visa support,food requests,LT, Welcome party, Excursion Tour)
 * 8) * Also decide LT: If there are extra LT slots, you can recruit applicants on the day
 * 9) Start VISA support
 * 10) Creating a travel guide
 * 11) Create telegram groups for speakers and guests
 * 12) * I think creating a telegram group for the participants is also a good option
 * 13) Start to design T-shirts, conference bags and goods
 * 14) Call for booths if necessary (optional)
 * 15) Start general participation application
 * 16) * Recruit staff on the day

2 to 1 months before the conference

 * 1) Book a party venue
 * 2) Order T-shirts, conference bags and goods
 * 3) Build up the video and photo team
 * 4) * More preparation needed to provide video streaming
 * 5) Find TDF certified workshop interpreter (optional)
 * 6) Make a slide template (optional: not made in 2019)
 * 7) Notify speakers of information such as projectors and slides
 * 8) Announce Conference in various ways

From one month to just before the conference

 * 1) Print preparation (Sponsor logo, Timetable, etc...)
 * 2) Book the welcome party (optional)
 * 3) Translate keynote slides (optional)
 * 4) Event announcement: Introduce keynotes and individual sessions
 * 5) Staff team build-up on the day
 * 6) Identify the role of the day and assign a person in charge

During the conference
Customize every year. 2019 example:
 * Welcome party (optional): for speakers and staff, guests
 * 1st day: 2 keynotes, 3 track sessions, party
 * 2nd day: TDF Certification Workshop and Interview, CJK Hackfest
 * Excursion tour (optional)

After the conference

 * Collect slides, photos and video files
 * Speaker commits to provide slides under CC-BY-SA license when applying for CFP
 * Photos are collected not only from the staff in charge but also from participants
 * Upload slides to Asia Conference website
 * Edit video, upload to Website
 * 2019: Also upload to Youtube
 * Write and publish Asia Conference report：blog, global
 * 2019: We wrote in commercial magazines
 * Report and thank for the sponsors
 * Support travel expenses for speakers and staff
 * Support for application to TDF
 * Local travel support
 * Receive sponsor fee
 * Settle by accounting