Devopsdays - Organizing Guide


Introduction

Congratulations! The fact that you have reached this page means you at least have an interest in spreading the devops love to the world. Back in 2009 when we organized the first event, we were probably as excited as you are now. But we were also bit scared and full of questions: how does this work? how do we get sponsors? what is the first thing we have to do?

Years later, we can offer some advice from our experiences. Even though every event is a bit unique in its own way, we’ve come to a more or less standard approach for organizing these events. With this document we want to support you and make you feel at ease in organizing one yourself. Don’t worry; we’ll be there along the way!

We recommend that at least one person on your team attend another devopsdays first, and then get in touch with the core organizers to tell us about where you’d like to organize your own!


Assembling a team

In the devops spirit of collaboration, find people in your region that want to help you run the next awesome event.

  • Talk to people at your local devops or related community meetups.
  • Tweet that you’d be interested in running one in your region. (Use the #devopsdays hashtag.)
  • Email the global core organizers and we’ll try to connect you to other people in your region

You’re going to need at least three people from three different organizations on your local organizing team, so you have a broader base of support and involvement from the community. We aren’t going to green-light events put on by just one company, and you’ll want the organizers from the relevant local meetups on board. Make sure everyone understands this is not about lead generation; organizers cannot use contact info from the event for their own companies.


Website, Email, and Slack

When you have your initial team, email the global core organizers and we’ll schedule a kickoff meeting with you. This will be an hour-long video call with your team.

After the kickoff meeting, we’ll wait for you to send your initial pull request and for you to email us the email addresses and names of your organizer team. When we have those, we can officially set your event’s tools up.

The way you get your event listed on the website is by submitting a pull request to https://github.com/devopsdays/devopsdays-web. The instructions can be found on that repo’s README.

We prefer the city name for the actual email and site. Wider regional terms are less preferable since someone in a nearby city may want to host their own devopsdays. Fun nicknames require too much dereferencing of pointers and so are best kept for slogans and t-shirt designs.

It’s fine if you just list the organizers, the city, and say “coming soon”. You don’t need to have selected the date and venue yet; however, we won’t merge a PR with dates unless it also has a venue listed. You also do not need to open registration or open the CFP right away.

The devopsdays code of conduct for the overall organization is based on the template from Conference Code of Conduct. You will need to have a code of conduct for each event before your initial pull request will be merged; you can use or adapt the provided template as desired. (You can add local numbers, email addresses, and contacts as needed.)

We’ll set up the cityname@devopsdays.org mail alias for your team. This will let you have a standard email listed as a public-facing organizer point of contact. All organizers on your team need to be on this alias individually, and the global core team is also on this email alias. It’s fine to use other email lists, chat programs, and other tools for your internal coordination and outgoing announcements, but we require that your event’s published organizer_email: field be set to this for consistency and problem prevention.

We’ll also invite all your organizers to the global devopsdays organizer Slack team (with organizers from around the world!) so you can meet other organizers and share ideas. Using the global devopsdays organizer Slack is optional, and is also the best way to meet and chat with other devopsdays organizers, get help with the website and other tooling, and tap into the collective history and wisdom of devopsdays events from around the world! The only people we’ll invite to this Slack are the people listed as organizers on your contact page, and if you join, it’s a good idea to list your city in your Slack profile. If you want to use Slack for attendees at your event, you should set up a different one.


Rules

Every devopsdays event is different, but there are a few rules to keep in mind if you’d like your event to be listed on devopsdays.org:

  • Inclusiveness and respect for differences are core devops values, and we invite you to help us make each devopsdays event a place that is welcoming and respectful to all participants. Your event will need to have a code of conduct.
  • These are community events, so your event must have an open call for proposals and accept registrations from the general public. Internal devops events focused on a specific organization or curated events with all speakers privately selected are wonderful and we encourage them, but they won’t be listed as “devopsdays” events on this site.
  • You must look for ways to create opportunities for conversation and collaboration during the event. Traditionally, this is done through the use of open spaces, but it can take many forms. Other examples include (but are not limited to) attendee-led roundtables, office hours, birds-of-a-feather groups, Q&A sessions, and workshops with robust attendee interaction.
  • These events are not for individual or corporate profit. If you have money left over, you can use it for your next event, to help other devopsdays events directly or via sending participants, or for charity. The global core team can (and will) accept donations in order to help us cover costs such as DNS and web hosting, but only from conferences that use Conference Ops. In any case, leftover money should not be making its way into anyone’s pockets.
  • Sponsors are much appreciated for their financial assistance, and they are welcome to participate in devopsdays events. They are never given attendee contact info by a devopsdays event’s organizers, nor are they allowed to purchase speaking slots for talks or ignites at a devopsdays.

Handling Money

Part of organizing the event is handling of the local event’s money. This will be needed for:

  • Invoicing sponsors and accepting their payments.
  • Accepting money from and (as needed) sending official invoices to people that register
  • Paying suppliers like the venue, catering, T-shirts, etc.

You cannot announce a date until you know you have a way to handle money. Realizing too late that you cannot process money has led to rescheduled or canceled events in the past.

The way many events have handled this is to find a local company that is willing to handle these logistics. In some countries, a local company is the only way to handle taxes. Some events register a local not-for-profit entity; there is no such central entity.

Depending on the size of the event, you might want to give them a Silver or Gold sponsorship in return. Make sure they understand they will need to generate invoices and accept/make payments with a fast turn-around.

If a local company is not an option, we’ve worked with a few companies in the past that are willing to help you for a fee:

  • US Based: Laura from Conference Ops
  • EU Based: Bernd from Netways

If you would like to use this method, contact us to get more details.

To make invoicing smooth, it helps to use that company’s paypal account for registration (on eventbrite or equivalent) and to use paypal (or equivalent) buttons generated by them for sponsor packages.


Selecting a date

Now that you have assembled your team, the next step is choosing a date. We usually take the following into consideration to find a good date:

  • Avoid overlapping dates with other devopsdays, especially nearby. We want to spread the events out; think of it as loadbalancing. All devopsdays events with their dates scheduled will be shown on the front page of devopsdays.org.
  • Avoid overlap in dates with other important local events: with other events happening at the same time, your attendance rate might be affected negatively
  • ‘Piggyback’ after/before other events: it’s a great way to get started, and as people might have traveled already, they can potentially be interested in a pre or post event conference
  • Keep on eye on other major industry events so as to avoid accidentally scheduling during a time when it may be more challenging to get the speakers and sponsors you want.
  • You cannot announce a date until you have two things: an agreement with a venue, and a way to handle money.
  • Look at a few two-day choices you can accept. When talking to a venue, you might find that they can accommodate you better during some parts of the week than others. Sometimes they may be fully booked a given week, but available the next.
  • Consider that if you schedule one or more day on a weekend, you are likely to see a significant drop-off of attendance on the weekend day(s). DevOps is part of people’s work life, and the weekends are typically used for refreshing energy with family. We recommend choosing weekdays.

Budgeting

Your budget is going to be refined and adjusted as you determine how many attendees you think you’ll get and how much you’re going to commit to spending up-front. You’re not going to know all these numbers immediately, but it’s valuable to start thinking about them as you’re choosing a venue.

Categories to consider:

Income:

  • Sponsors (could be up to 75% of your income, depending on sponsorship levels)
  • Registrations (make sure to set this such that you’re covering per-attendee costs)

Expenses:

  • Venue for talks & open space discussions
  • Internet for attendees
  • Livestream/recording/captioning of talks
  • Catering for breakfast/coffee breaks/lunches (some venues require the use of their caterer)
  • Evening event
  • T-shirts/other swag
  • Badges/lanyards
  • Signage
  • Speakers dinner
  • Speaker gifts (small token)
  • Insurance/taxes
  • Payment for accounting services

Important Reminder: As you’ve seen in the rules above, these events are not intended for individual or corporate profit. This includes unnecessary high personal expenditures for the benefit of organizers. We can’t give precise numbers as to what qualifies as large amounts, since that would vary widely. Consider typical appropriate pricing for your region, and determine if you would find it to be unusually expensive.

Reasonable expenses for organizers:

  • Travel & lodging to participate in your event
  • Travel & lodging to participate in other DevOpsDays events for the purpose of making yours better
  • Local transportation to & from your devopsdays event or planning meetings
  • Clothing such as shirts to make the team stand out during the event
  • Food and beverage for meetings before and after the event (at typical prices for the region)

Expenses for organizers which may be inappropriate:

  • Gifts for organizers which are not given to attendees and/or speakers
  • Expensive food and beverage for organizer meetings (outside of typical prices for your region)
  • Travel outside of devopsdays participation needs (including luxury packages, travel to other events, etc).

When deciding on appropriate expenditures, check with your local team and reach out to the core team if you’d like guidance. Remember, these funds are intended to serve your community!


Selecting a venue

When you have some idea of when you want to run and how much you want to spend, you can start talking to potential venues.

Venue space considerations:

  • A (big) room where everybody can sit comfortably and listen to the talks. This of course depends on the number of attendees you expect. Events have ranged from 70 to 700 people; a typical first-year event is often around 250 people. Assess the numbers usually attending your best-attended local meetups; you might get 2-3x that.
  • A number of break-out rooms for the afternoon sessions:
    • it’s nice to be able to put the chairs in a circle for better discussions
    • you can be creative by splitting the big room in smaller rooms but in practice, separate rooms are less noisy
    • we usually go for a few smaller (10-20) and few bigger (20-40) rooms
    • it’s helpful if the rooms are close to one another, making it easier to move between open space rooms.
    • you can use the big room for open space too
  • Room to hang out: not everybody attends sessions, and some are more interested in the hallway track. If there is some room for the food or a quiet room that’s a plus.
  • Sponsor space: Gold sponsors (at a minimum) get a table to have a presence. Make sure they have a nice spot at the event (typically close to the food or hangout space).

Aside from having enough space, there are other things to consider:

  • Is the venue easily reachable by public transit and/or does it have sufficient parking, depending on the transit options in your local area?
  • Are there (affordable) hotel accommodations nearby? (Running the event in a hotel makes it easy for out-of-town guests.)
  • Does the venue allow for catering by other parties, or what are the options for food?
  • Does the venue have enough wifi/internet capacity, or can more be added? Attendees will likely expect it.
  • Can the video be streamed with enough capacity (if livestreaming is an option)?

A final big space differentiator is the pricing: as the price of devopsdays is typically relatively low, we look for affordable venue space:

  • looking for (free) innovation centers or educational venues (universities…)
  • finding local companies that can act as a host with their facilities
  • finding a host sponsor that is willing to pay for a venue for you

Venue sponsors (especially if you’re in their facility) may try to set limits on other sponsors; try to clarify this in writing ahead of time.

Don’t overcommit on the number of people coming and don’t do a pre-payment for the venue until you must. The same goes for food: it’s always easier to add a few extra plates as opposed to having too much food ordered.

If you have some legal entity created for the event, have the details at hand (legal name, contact details, business number etc.). Some venues may require this information to put in a hold for your chosen date(s).


The devopsdays logo with the gears in the brain has become recognizable for the overall devopsdays brand. For each individual devopsdays event you can take elements from the devopsdays brand logo. This is optional, but recommended. The goal should be to design something that denotes your city specifically.

Note different existing logos:

A simple exercise to do with your organizers would be to ask for one word descriptions of your city and then review and vote on the list.


Announce your event

Once you have a time and place, you can announce your event to the world! It’s great if you’ve had a chance to open your CFP and registration, though those aren’t essential to announce your dates.

Website

Update your data file for your event to add your start & end dates; this adds your event to the front page!

Twitter

Tweet with the hashtag #devopsdays and if desired, set up an event-specific Twitter account such as @devopsdaysmsp. If you PR your event Twitter handle onto your site, your tweets will be included in the Twitter feed on devopsdays.org.


Distributing the work

On your local organizing team, it’s best to discuss the following tasks. Of course this is not set in stone, but it helps for people to focus on different areas.

  • Person/Pair handling talk proposals
  • Person/Pair handling ignite proposals
  • Person/Pair handling website updates
  • Person/Pair handling sponsors
  • Person/Pair handling registration, invoicing, questions
  • Person/Pair handling venue, catering, local things, hotel
  • Person/Pair handling t-shirts
  • Person/Pair handling evening event logistics

Call for proposals

When you’re ready to open your call for proposals, you’ll want to include the date it opens, the date it closes, and the date by which people will be informed of your decisions. People will usually need at least 4-6 weeks to arrange for travel or time off, and you’ll want your call to be open for at least a month, and you’ll want at least 2 weeks to consider proposals and fill in any gaps. This means that you should open your CFP as soon as possible, and close it at least 6-8 weeks before your event.

Set an official theme if one beyond “devops” is desired. Within the context of this theme (but other proposals can work too):

  • no speaker spots can be bought by sponsors: not ever - period.
  • encourage new content: if the content has already been presented/published online we will consider it but it’s less attractive. We want to stimulate the creation of new content as much as we can, as part of the goal is to record and spread the ideas from these sessions
  • a good balance between local and out-of-town speakers. building the local community is just as important as bringing in new ideas from the wider community.
  • favor new speakers: devopsdays is a supportive environment to encourage new voices in our space
  • encourage bold subjects: we don’t want to hear the same things over and over, do we? This avoids us becoming an echo-chamber of ideas
  • shy away from specific technology/product talks: always try to elevate it to the conceptual part balance between technical and cultural content: for specific tools talk, there are open spaces not the main conference talks

Events usually have 4 30-min talks per day + ignite talks. Open space sessions are scheduled during the conference, not ahead of time.

For people to respond to the call for proposals you can use your city@devopsdays.org address, a web form, a third-party CFP tool, etc.

Keep in mind that under-represented people in tech are much less likely to respond to your CFP. If you would like to encourage diverse viewpoints from voices other than those you hear the most often, you will need to reach out into those communities and encourage participation.

When looking for the best selection of speakers for your event, consider that expensive paid speakers are usually not the right fit for devopsdays, not because they are paid but because you’re looking for speakers who will connect with your community throughout and beyond your event (not just show up for their talk). While paying directly often can bring with it complex issues around taxes, visas, and conflict of interest/employment agreements, covering speaker expenses through direct payment or with reimbursements is a good use of funds if available.

Talk selection doesn’t have to be finished when you announce a schedule; it’s ok to leave some space until the end. Still, we found that a finished schedule helps for attendees to make the case for them to attend. Remember that announcing only a few speakers can lead to unwarranted assumptions about your demographics.

Don’t be surprised if proposals don’t flow in quickly at first. People usually wait a bit before sending them in and need some extra calls. It’s good to have a backup plan and contact individual speakers as well. You’re not required to create your schedule solely from responses to your CFP. You should also provide speaker support according to your budget; at a minimum, all speakers should receive a free event ticket.

It works best if you dedicate a person/pair to respond to proposals/speakers and handle communication. This is best for both ignite and conference talks. Your local team is going to select your event’s talks; you may ask other cities and/or the core organizers to weigh in to help you make a more balanced schedule having less overlap with other devopsdays, but that is up to you.


Sponsorship packages

Overall guidelines for sponsorship are available. Sponsor packages are decided upon by the local organizing team for a city. The global core team does not offer sponsor packages, so any sponsors will work directly with the devopsdays event(s) they’d like to sponsor. You can use the examples in the template to help you make your decisions. Here are some typical offerings:

  • Host (cost of venue): if a company sponsors the venue/food they will be acknowledged as a Host sponsor. Their logo will be directly visible on the main event page. They also have the opportunity to do a pre/post event meetup that will get promoted. And of course they get the same benefits as Gold and Silver sponsors
  • Gold (around 5000 Euro/USD): 6 included tickets + a ‘promo’ spot during talk intermissions + the ability to have a simple table/sponsor presence at the venue.
  • Silver (around 3000 Euro/USD): 4 included tickets, sometimes half a table depending on the local event’s choices, sometimes just a single shared swag table.
  • Bronze (around 1000 Euro/USD): 2 included tickets, sometimes can leave stickers/flyers/etc in public spaces
  • Community Sponsor: get logo on the site and acknowledgement on social media. Used for media outlets and other conferences that are interested in cross-promotion with you. Sometimes they’ll provide giveaways; usually you will not ask them to provide cash.

Devopsdays sponsorship prices are lower than at many other events. We want to avoid the traditional high-priced model for sponsors. We believe that the more companies that sponsor, the better: it amplifies the ideas and shows that many companies subscribe to the devops idea.

We believe the pricing is low compared to the value sponsors get. With that said, you may want to refrain from deviations from whatever standard package you publish in your sponsor prospectus. Exceptions take extra CPU cycles for your busy organizing team.

Other offerings might be:

  • A lanyard sponsor
  • A captioning sponsor
  • An evening event sponsor
  • A lunch or breaks sponsor

As a reminder:

  • we do NOT offer speaker slots in return for sponsorship, and we want to maintain a standard policy on the pricing inside a given event.
  • we do NOT ever give out or sell lists with contact details of attendees. You can share demographics in aggregate to give sponsors a feel for what kind of crowd will attend.

Finding/Handling Sponsors

Sponsors pay the bills. You rely on them. So what can you do to find them and keep them satisfied?

  • post on Twitter and other social media
  • find local meetups/companies that can help you
  • if you’re looking for a contact of a specific company that sponsored before, ping the devopsdays core organizers to see if they can help.
  • talk to the other organizers on Slack - many of them work at sponsors!
  • write a blog on the website to promote your event.

Sponsors will usually ask you the following; best to have this information ready.

  • Projected number of attendees
  • Industries/Companies represented (share only in aggregate)
  • What they get with what level of sponsorship (refer them to your sponsor page or prospectus)
  • If they can buy a speaker spot (NO, but they can submit a talk and they can suggest open space topics onsite)
  • If you provide a badge-scanning mechanism (you’re not obligated to, and we do not recommend providing one)
  • If they will have electricity & network at the venue (you should make sure the answer here is yes)
  • If they can get a monitor (let them bring their own or rent one themselves)
  • Where to ship their stuff and pick it up (don’t take responsibility and let them handle that directly with the venue)
  • What size of table they have? (find out from the venue and say they have to fit behind the one table)
  • Where their table will be located (produce a map and optionally let them choose in the order they signed up)

From experience, we found that it helps to have a dedicated local organizer or two act as the contact with the sponsors to track prospects, payment, and giving them discount codes.

When they sponsor they need to supply:

  • a logo for the website & a URL to link it to (if they’re a new sponsor)
  • an email address of a contact you can reach
  • a Twitter handle for you to thank (optionally)
  • the invoice details (including VAT in Europe)

In return you’ll :

  • send the official invoice (as applicable)
  • once payment has been received, provide the registration discount code
  • put the logo online (adding it if it’s new) once they’ve paid
  • link this sponsor from your page on the website once they’ve paid

On the registration page, have them select the special sponsor ticket with their discount. Many of the sponsor contacts are traveling from event to event, so you may have to follow up with them a bit so they sign up their crew in time for your badge printing. Make sure you make the invoices “due on receipt” or provide Paypal links so sponsors don’t wait months to pay you.


Tickets and pricing

We want to ensure that anyone who’s interested in attending a devopsdays is able to, and that price is not a barrier. So, you’ll want to keep your prices relatively low compared to many industry conferences.

Free registration

We do not recommend making your event free. Experience has taught us that ‘free’ events come with a cost:

  • about 30-40% of the people ‘grabbing’ a free ticket don’t show up in the end
  • this makes it harder to plan logistically: how many people will actually show up?
  • people who could have attended are left out because the event appears ‘full’

Minimal Cost

We recommend charging a minimal fee. This will keep your event accessible by making it cost a fraction of a typical high-priced conference ticket (perhaps 10% to 20% of what someone might pay to attend a commercial tech event in your region). This gives us the best of both worlds:

  • The numbers are more accurate that way and more people feel happy about it.
  • The financial risk for venue/catering cost is spread out

The downside is that this will require ‘official’ payment (sometimes with invoices):

  • It requires time to create the invoices (although it’s pretty much automated if you use http://eventbrite.com)
  • It might cost some accounting time because of the administration
  • Specifically in the EU region:
    • if a EU company organizes an event in another country, it will have to request a Tax-ID in that other country. The costs of doing that would take a significant portion of the event money.
    • charges for the event needs to be in the currency of the country where the event will take place

Bottom line: if you want to charge a fee (which gives you better financial protection), make sure you have considered that in your handling of the money.

To encourage people to register early it’s advised to offer discounted early-bird registration.

Because getting time away from work may already be a barrier for under-represented people in tech, offering free tickets to those individuals may make it more possible for them to secure workplace buy-in on their participation. If your budget has room, this is a good place to spend some of the extra money. Be sure you comply with all local laws that may apply in regards to demographic information and the uses thereof.


Setting up registration

Once pricing has been decided you’re ready to set up registration. We’ve had good experiences with Eventbrite integrated with PayPal payments. The paypal account for payment needs to be linked directly to the company that does the invoicing. (Note: if using Eventbrite, use Paypal, not “Eventbrite payment processing”, or configure Eventbrite to disperse funds frequently so you don’t have to wait until after your event.)

The core organizers will not run registration for you, but we can suggest things that will be useful to you in your registration process.

Specifically on eventbrite we usually:

  • require information for each attendee (rather than for the buyer only)
  • ask for employer name (optional) if people want it printed on their badge
  • ask for Twitter handle (optional) to help attendees connect with one another
  • ask for T-shirt sizes (make sure you offer more than S-M-L-XL “unisex”)
  • (in Europe) ask if they require an invoice; if yes ask more details like VAT number if needed
  • ask if they are interested in attending the evening event on the first night (optionally)
  • disable the facebook integration
  • don’t allow people to see who is coming
  • set up hidden ticket types for sponsors, organizers, speakers, etc
  • create access codes for hidden ticket types

Attendee email or direct-contact information should never be visible on the website or given out to vendors. We value privacy and do not want attendees to be spammed.


Setting your program

DevOps encourages the free flow of information, sharing experiences, and communication among peers. The recommended structure of events reinforces and amplifies these practices.

First time events should consult with a core organizer before altering the format. Doing so will ensure organizers benefit from our experience organizing and attending DevOpsDays all over the world.

The recommended format includes:

  • talks in the morning: this follows the traditional format of a speaker or panel
  • There is usually an introduction of about 15 minutes at the beginning of the conference from the organizers
  • We find that talks of about 30 minutes have the right balance for content.
  • You’ll want to let the Gold sponsors speak for a minute between the 30-minute talks as that gives presenters time to set up their laptops
  • allow for rest and discussion breaks
  • You may break for lunch before the Ignite talks if that works best for your schedule.
  • You’ll have a set of several ignite talks: 5 minute talks with 20 slides that auto-advance (More detail on Ignite format)
  • openspaces in the afternoon: a self-organizing part where everybody gets to propose a session (More detail on OpenSpace Format)

We provide a sample schedule in the event template.

You can usually draw on different sources to get speakers:

  • the call for proposals
  • ask on Twitter for people to retweet your CFP announcement
  • reach out to local meetups and organizations
  • contact desired speakers directly

A few words of advice:

  • No sponsor should be able to buy their way into the program. The schedule should be decided by your local organizers.
  • Usually you will receive more tools talks vs cultural talks. We believe it’s important to keep the balance right.
  • Experience reports from local organizations are very helpful to attendees
  • Tool talks should be at the conceptual level, not at the individual day-to-day level
  • We prefer new speakers to come on board
  • We prefer new content that was not presented yet (or was already recorded)
  • Avoid inviting only prominent out-of-town speakers; we need to make sure that local content/ideas get picked up and spread to the community

T-shirts and other swag

Printing shirts is entirely optional. Some events choose to donate to charity instead, while others go with a different kind of swag. If you decide to do shirts, bear in mind that at registration time, attendees can help you know what their body shapes and sizes mean for their preferences. Ask! Do not just guess, or you will find you’ve inadvertently made some attendees feel excluded.

While some shirt styles only go to 2XL, there will be attendees who (given the option) will choose 3XL, 4XL, or 5XL. Women will sometimes be happier with a fitted shirt (which is not the same as a “girl” shirt - those are typically a “junior” size). Avoid making your extended sizes and your fitted shirts significantly different from the “S-2XL unisex” shirt in color or design.

Keep in mind that you want your design to be appealing on a wide range of humans, not just those who happen to have smaller torsos without many curves. If you want soft, comfortable shirts that can fit many people, consider something like a tri-blend instead of a 100% cotton shirt.

If you’re ordering shirts a few weeks before your event, consider padding the counts by up to 30% of each size/style. Having a few extra shirts is way better than anyone going home sad.

You may also want to order stickers or other items. Give yourself plenty of lead time.

Swag vendor recommendations

Below are some personal vendor recommendations based on good past experience.

T-shirts, hats, jackets etc.: https://www.lock-promo.com/. Good quality, reliable delivery, very affordable. Used in: Chicago, Seattle

Stickers and other printed materials: https://www.minutemanpress.com/. Good quality, affordable pricing, VERY quick turnaround. Used in: Chicago, Seattle


A word on hotels

There will almost certainly be a few speakers and sponsors who will travel to your event and will appreciate having a discounted rate at the most conveniently located affordable hotel you can manage.

If you’re holding your event in a hotel, they will likely give you a “courtesy” room block that guarantees a discounted rate for your attendees.

If you’re not using the hotel’s meeting rooms and catering, they may want you to guarantee at least 80% or so of the room nights you block off for your group will be used. This isn’t as risky as it sounds if you want to start with a very small block (5 rooms or so, for the night before day one and the night between day one and day two - don’t expect people to stay overnight the evening of day two). Usually the hotel will also let you add more rooms to the block as it fills.

If you make your group rate code available on your website, keep on eye on who registers with it (the hotel should be able to provide this info), and ensure that you have enough space for all the out-of-town people you expect. You may have to remind some people to register, as the group rate usually expires a month or so before an event.


Venue logistics

You will want a local organizer acting as the primary contact person with the venue. You will need to arrange things like the chair layout, table arrangement, audio-visual needs, etc. The catering deadline (by which time you’ll need to provide numbers) is usually a couple weeks or so before your event.

Make sure you ask the venue how soon sponsors can start shipping items there, get the correct address/routing info, and ask what fees they might incur. Find out exact times you’ll have access to your space, and find out whether you’ll have secure overnight storage (because both you and definitely the sponsors will need that).

Your venue may require some form of insurance. See what they require, and look into something like TULIP event insurance depending on what’s available for your local area.

You will want some members of your local organizing team to be tasked with…

  • finalizing venue details
  • running the registration check-in desk
  • preparing and posting signs
  • printing and assembling badges
  • etc.

Evening event

Most devopsdays host a social gathering the evening after the first day of the two-day event. This is a great place for attendees to get to know one another better. There’s some sort of food and drink, but usually a full dinner is not provided. Having fun activities to participate in (bowling, trivia, other games, etc) is recommended. While alcohol is enjoyable, it should not be the only activity, and it’s important to remember the needs of attendees who aren’t choosing to drink alcohol. It’s also not required for your event to pay for any alcohol; if it’s not free, it is more socially acceptable to refrain from choosing it.

Often the evening event will be at a different location than the venue for the talks. It’s a good idea to make it within walking distance or provide transportation if possible. Running it at the same venue can lead to higher attendance, especially if you provide some content such as the Ignite talks.

Offering a family-inclusive evening event will allow more people to participate; unlike at a destination conference, many local devopsdays events occur within commuting distance. While people who work outside the home typically have a daycare arrangement in place, it probably does not extend into the evening.


Running registration

You are going to want a place where people can check in and get their badges when they arrive. They may also pick up T-shirts there. If you use Eventbrite, there is an app which makes check-in much easier than using paper, but it may not be necessary to do more than just give the badges out (as you can see which ones are left at the end.) Sort the badges ahead of time alphabetical by last, then first name. If you separate out the sponsor ones, keep in mind that some people might not realize if they fell into the “sponsor” tickets or a “regular attendee” ticket according to how their company registered them.

Sort shirts by style and size, and then let attendees just tell you which size they wanted. If you built in enough margin of error, this won’t cause any problems and will be the most efficient way to deal with it, rather than looking up what they ordered.

You may want to staff the registration desk at all times if you want to be able to help attendees with their questions. As the conference organizers may want to attend talks, it’s wise to call in favors from friends and family who aren’t interested in the subject matter of the talks and won’t mind missing them all. Make sure any such staff have a way of getting ahold of the organizer on duty for any questions they can’t answer on their own.


Video - recording and streaming

Whether or not you’re able to livestream, it’s important to record all the talks. This is invaluable for your speakers, and it’s great for the community. Your audiovisual company should be able to provide a camera or cameras and record the feed off the board into a computer. If you have no budget for recording talks, a smartphone is better than nothing.

If you’re going to livestream, rehearse ahead of time, and then assign at least one person to run it during the event.

  • Some events stream directly to YouTube. Be very careful not to accidentally include any background music, or YouTube will take your stream down.
  • For some past events we have also used livestream.

Some services exist to record and stream; check with others in your region to see what they’re using.


Running the event itself

  • Prepare and share a team playbook of exactly what is scripted to happen when.
    • Assign one or more MCs to kick off and orchestrate the event
    • Assign people to introduce specific speakers
  • Consider assigning “on duty” shifts so one person isn’t the SPOF for all last-minute decision-making in crisis mode

Running Ignites

Running Ignites can be a challenge: people tend to submit them last minute, or they didn’t understand the format too well. Here are a few tips on making this process run more smoothly:

  • Require the Ignite presenters to send the slides ahead of time
  • Inform the Ignite presenters that there are no presenter notes during their talks
  • Animations (gifs or slide transitions) and videos may not work due to the conversion process
  • PDF is the easiest format to collect all presentations
    • An option is to use a Dropbox shared directory
  • You can run either :
  • Don’t let them run on their own laptops
  • Use a dedicated laptop (avoid any popups etc…)
  • Mention again on the day itself.
    • “Just so you know, your slides will auto advance every 15 seconds; you can’t advance them yourself”
    • Remind the presenters again that there are no presenter notes
  • Have Ignite presenters queue next to the stage and either: -start the slidedeck for them.
    • or even build all slides in Slidedeck and build in a bio slide as a interludium and have that autoadvance as well

Ignite format page


Running Open Space

There is a wealth of detail on the Open Space format page. Consider both a physical schedule grid (often assembled via a whiteboard and oversized sticky notes) and an easily-updated shared spreadsheet you can link from your event page. Also consider posting the open space choices for a specific room outside that room.


Website updates

  • The core organizers want the devopsdays website to be a central reference for all content produced during your event.
    • Embed links to each of your speakers’ slides on your program page. (Ask them to post slides on slideshare, speakerdeck, etc.)
    • Upload the videos to youtube or your video site of choice, then embed them on your program page.
  • Surveying your attendees and blogging about the results is optional, but strongly recommended.

If you have further questions, chat with the other organizers on Slack, and have fun! It’s going to be great!