Just a quick note to mention we’ve corrected the GUADEC Hobbyist registration fees, as they were accidently twice what they should have been. Those people already registered and paid will recieve the appropriate refund. Anyway, this is good news as it’s now 50% cheaper than previously!
Also, even though registration will be open until the start of GUADEC, we can’t guarantee the freebies, t-shirts and other stuff (a.k.a. the swag) if you haven’t signed up before the 24th June.
The GUADEC team is pleased to announce the registration is now open for GUADEC 2007 and will stay open up until the event.
Please note, this form is for individuals who are not speaking nor requesting sponsorship. Registrations for groups (e.g. sponsors’ delegates), sponsored attendees and speakers will also be dealt with separately. If you have any queries or problems with the registration process, please contact info@guadec.org.
Karl has set up an Accommodation Collaboration page on the wiki so that people can organise rooms together for Guadec. The “official” recommended place to stay during Guadec is the Etap, which offers best value for money.
If you’d like to help out at GUADEC 2007, please add your name to the list on the Volunteer wiki page. The page also details some of the responsibilities we need covering during the event. Once we have a list of people willing to help, we can organise the schedule. One of the reasons for holding Guadec in the UK this year was to help foster a Gnome community here, so we’d especially like to hear from as many local people as possible!
We’re also still looking for anyone with particular skills in video/multimedia to oversee the recording of the event. Please let me know if you can help out with that aswell.
Please could people note that we are aiming to have all sponsored participants confirmed by May 31st. This means to process any applications we need to have them filed by the 24th May at the latest. If you think you will require sponsorship, please read sponsorship request page and fill in the requested details on the relevant form.
We will of course continue to process visa invitation letter requests up until the conference start date.
Information about the registration fees, as posted to the GUADEC mailing list, is available below and on the guadec.org website.
We are also having a meeting on the 2nd of June at the venue to do various jobs as well as organising some of the more practical issues. If you would like to help out in a practical way during the conference (i.e. being a steward) then please see if you can make it to the Conservatoire in Birmingham (UK) for 1PM. We also need a volunteer (preferably with relevant experience) to help organise the video/audio side of things during the conference. Please let me know if you think you may be able to help.
Among the other things I did this weekend, I sorted out guadec.org so that it should look much better in other browsers now (i.e. non Gecko based). There may be a few issues left, so please do bug me about them.
As people are probably aware, GUADEC is getting ever closer and we
haven’t yet announced registration. Rest assured, once we have resolved
the current problems, registration will open before the end of May and
will continue right up until the start of GUADEC itself.
Registration fees will be as follows1:
£10 – Student/Concession
£30 – Standard
£140 – Professional (i.e. being paid by an employer to attend)
A 50% discount applies to standard and professional (but not to
concessions) if you are a foundation member. A 50% discount also applies
if you are a organisation that is sponsoring and requires additional
attendee passes.
Many people may be wondering why there are no free registrations this
year, and this is simply because we will be investing a significant
amount of money per registration, and we simply cannot afford to have
people register, pay nothing and then not turn up. If look at prices to
other professional conferences, you will notice that the registration
fees are very cheap by comparison.
Another point of note is that there will not be any formal checks on
status. Instead we are relying on trust that people will pick the
appropriate registration level. We would like to encourage everyone to
consider donating whatever they feel able to afford, as all the money is
spent making GUADEC as fantastic as possible, and any remaining funds
will be transferred to the GNOME foundation to help make the GNOME
project succeed.
1: Approximate currency conversions as of 15 May 2007:
£10 = 14.63 € = 19.82 USD;
£30 = 43.91 € = 59.46 USD;
£140 = 204.90 € = 277.48 USD
A bit rough around the edges, but it’s getting there! Many thanks to Denis and Jens for helping out with this. My current thoughts are:
A lot of people have been asking questions about GUADEC recently, so hopefully I can answer them here.
If you need a visa to travel to the UK and need a letter of invitation from us, please use the invitation letter request form. This will ensure your request is tracked properly, and we can collect the required details. Please read the travel information page if you are unsure about whether you require a visa, or want to know what information we need to send out an invitation letter.
We are fortunate again this year to have funds to sponsor a limited number of people to attend GUADEC. If you think you will not be able to afford travel and accommodation expenses, but would be able to make a valuable contribution to GUADEC, please consider requesting sponsorship. See the sponsored attendance page for details.
Lots of people have been asking where to stay during GUADEC, and unfortunately we can’t offer the excellent level of service provided last year. However, we are contacting hotels and hostels around Birmingham to find you the best possible rates and discounts. When this information is available it will be published on the website.
We are expecting registration to open very shortly. The process will be similar to last year, and we will be asking for a contribution depending on your participating status. Discounts will be available for foundation members, but we would urge you to consider making a further donation to support GUADEC and the GNOME project if you feel able.
In other news, the schedule is now nearly complete, and available on-line. Many thanks to Ross and the papers committee for their hard work in sorting this out.
We’ve also got our line up of keynote speakers available on line. We are lucky again to have some very interesting people giving talks, including well known community members within both the GNOME and wider free software communities.
We also have had another three confirmed sponsors, but I’ve been so busy I haven’t had time to announce them properly. They are HP, Sun and Novell. HP and Sun are both sponsoring at gold level, and Novell is sponsoring at silver level. More details on the sponsors pages.