Call for venue

FOSS4G-Europe conference committee invites all interested groups from Europe to Call for venue for FOSS4G-Europe-2025

The proposals shall be submitted by 2024-09-22 to Conference-europe mailing list.

Selection process

Background

FOSS4G-Europe conference is an international symposium, where people meet to discuss and present latest development in the open source software for geospatial.

The conference is usually held in the beginning of summer. The overall schedule is not formalized, and is up for the organizers to decide. Usually it includes day(s) for workshops, spoken word presentations and OSGeo Community sprint. And don't forget social/networking events. Although FOSS4G conferences are dev/user confs, they are also a place for meeting old friends and making new ones - they are our community festival. They are the time for us all to get together and celebrate the things we have achieved and discuss how we should move onward.

Historically the number of attendants at FOSS4G-Europe has been around 200-300 people (or less) with the exception of Conference-Europe_2015-Como with 400 participants. The last FOSS4G-Europe-2024 in Tartu, Estonia, there were almost 450 in-person attendees and about 100 attendees remained on the waiting list(!). All tickets were sold out 1 day before the end of Early Bird deadline. Capacity planning is very important and if possible you should be ready to accommodate changes as they become apparent.

As a regional conference FOSS4G-Europe should create excellent opportunities for participating for those who have never been to a FOSS4G before. Please keep this in mind during budgeting and coming up with ticket prices. The last FOSS4G-Europe-2024 had roughly 50% of first-time attendees, and about 1/3 of the whole crowd was from the hosting country.

Before submitting a proposal, read the FOSS4G_Manifesto#FOSS4G_Europe_Manifesto

How to submit proposal

Let's try to keep the process informal - preparing a "full-blown" proposal takes time to prepare, as well as working through them. And we do not want to create an atmosphere of competition between the interested parties. In order to understand the options that we have, please send an e-mail to the Conference-Europe mailing list answering following questions:

Where the conference should happen - country, city, venue
Who do you partner with
Dates
What is the upper limit of attendees (if any)
What are the traveling connections from Europe
What are the accommodation possibilities
What do you expect, FOSS4G-Europe conference will bring to your region

Proposal deadline: 2024-09-22

Additional information for the proposal

Expect around 400 attendees. So far, the number has been between 100+ at FOSS4G-CEE in Prague (2012) to ~450 in Tartu (2024). We do not set any upper limit to attendees number - this lies solely with the LOC.
Regardless of the expected number of attendees, capacity planning is very important and if possible you should be ready to accommodate changes as they become apparent.
The growing number of participants is not the main goal of the event. We rather prefer modest costs for attendees, therefore co-organising the event with universities might be a good way, how to keep the costs lower.
Cooperation with universities of course implies careful selection of conference date, which is usually, but not necessary, in the holiday season.
At the same time keep in mind the typical vacation times in Europe which differ from North to South.
Although the mobile data roaming policy in the Europe Union has changed, we still advise you to make sure, that the venue is covered with stable and reliable WIFI connectivity. This is especially the case when the venue is not situated in a EU member state. Consider also, that significant portion of participants are coming from non-EU countries.
The communication language of the conference is English
FOSS4G Europe usually has a 3-day main conference, with ~4-5 parallel sessions, each talk slot arranged for 30 minutes (including discussions, and time for exchanging rooms), or 5-minute lightning talks.
FOSS4G Europe main conference usually has a separate Academic track during the parallel sessions with proceedings published in the days leading up to the conference.
Workshops are also part of the conference. You should organize the rooms but it is fine to expect participants to use their own laptops. The workshop slots are typically 4-hours, but could also be full day 8-hours slots.
The conference week should also host a B2B (business-to-business) meeting, preferably on the evening before the main conference start. B2B helps companies and individuals running FOSS-based businesses to network. There is no formal setup for the event but usually includes some form of pitching-time and/or speed-dating.
Provide space and administrative help to organize the Geochicas take <your city name> event. This event is organized in cooperation with GeochicasOSM and a local feminist or women-led organisation. It should be scheduled on the evening before the main conference start, but not clashing time-wise with B2B or other conference events.
You should also provide several rooms during the conference for BoF (Birds-of-a-Feather) meetings.
Community Sprint events are part of the conference and take place before or after the main conference (1-2 days). If you can cover both time frames, it would be appreciated. You should provide quiet work-rooms and offer administrative help as needed.
Please refer to FOSS4G-Europe Manifesto for further details
There is also FOSS4G Handbook you might find useful
We believe, students are our future - please take significant discount for students into your budget proposal
What are your COVID-19 safety plans? What will you do if travel is significantly restricted in 2025? What is your financial strategy to make the event sustainable in this complex situation?

Position of the Local organisation committee to OSGeo and Conference committee Europe

The FOSS4G-Europe Conference committee will, after the selection process, "kindly ask" the best venue offer, to host FOSS4G-Europe on behalf of OSGeo-European chapter (in formation)
There is possibility to negotiate with OSGeo.org for the seeding money for necessary spending. This comes under the condition that the LOC will guarantee at least balanced budget during the final books. The seeding money shall be negotiated with OSGeo Board of directors.
Program committee shall be delegated from nominees from LOC as well as OSGeo on mutual understanding manner. The best would be to have a mix of OSGeo representatives with a previous FOSS4G Program Committee experience and LOC members co-chairing the committees.
The LOC can count for the help of the OSGeo Conference Resources group https://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Conference_Resources

Dates

Item	Date
Start and end of proposal submission. Proposals shall be sent to Conference-Europe mailing list	2024-08-19 - 2024-09-22
Selection period. Discussions on the mailing list / video calls	2024-09-23 - 2024-10-14
Venue announcement	End of October 2024
Call for papers and workshops	December 2024-February 2025
Papers and workshops selection period	February 2025-March 2025
Conference and accompanying events	Summer 2025

Note on Seeding money

OSGeo Conference Committee along with OSGeo Board can provide LOC with seeding money necessary for the start
LOC needs to guarantee, that after final books closing, the seeding money will be returned back to OSGeo
It is fair to ask for the seeding money and we encourage LOC to do so - with proper reasoning and proposed budget. But the final decision lies solely at the Board.

Submitted Proposals

Venue proposal from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Mostar ( proposal )

Discussion

The following points for discussion have been raised via the Conference-europe mailing list or OSGeo Discourse

By	Bookmark	Comment/Question	Answer
Luca Delucchi	mailinglist	I have some doubts about the local conference committee, in the proposal there is written nothing about it, it spoke just about a ecoplan company/association	Sorry for not mentioning LOC as within the RfP. Members are still joining the team, but for now we have team in place from Ecoplan Marko Puljic Lana Puljic Renata Pehar Grgo Saric Besfort Guri Tõnis Kärdi Sidorela Uku - web page Alexander Kmoch - web page Tõnis and Besfort will support us with their experience on FOSS4G organization from previous years (mailinglist)
Marco Minghini	mailinglist	Luca rightly mentioned the absence of info about the Local Organising Committee, which is key to make the conference a success. Some info on the people would be necessary already at this stage, at least to know who would be the Chair, who would be in the main team and if/what experience they have.	Regarding local team, we in Ecoplan dedicated 4 persons to be fully committed to organization, however if needed few months prior to the conference we can put more hands on the deck. Also, we expect for team to broaden soon. Besford Guri, Tonis Kardi, Astrid Emde, Sidorela Uku, Alexander Koch offered their help as well. This is sure not the whole team, but personally I'm satisfied how spots are filling up. This morning, we had first official meeting with University in which we started preparing for organization. Part of the University employees from Faculty of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Mechanical Engineering, Computing and Electrical Engineering and Faculty of architecture, civil engineering and geodesy will be part of Academic track and Program committee. (mailinglist)
Marco Minghini	mailinglist	I am not very convinced by the opening and closing ceremonies in a theatre located 500 metres away from the university, where the parallel sessions happen. 500 metres is quite a distance and this may impact the overall organisation (times, location of sponsors, coffee breaks, etc.). Also, the proposal mentions the opening and closing sessions only, but also the plenary sessions with keynote speakers are sessions that in principle all participants will attend. Perhaps a theatre room at the university (like those shown in Figures 12 and 13) may be enough?	Regarding opening and closing ceremonies, theatre is intended only for these events and not for talks during the Conference. Accommodating 400+ participants in one hall is quite challenging in Mostar, so local theatre is only viable option. However, we will be able to use 5+ lecture halls on university with 150+ seats. So our intention for the main conference starting on Wednesday to have opening ceremony and plenary sessions at 9:00 to 9:30, have 30 min coffee break to have enough time for people to transfer to University and have their coffee, and then resume for following 3 days on University. On Friday, after last coffee break at 15:30 closing ceremony will be held in the theatre once again. Keep in mind that this is only 5min walk. (mailinglist)

Conference-Europe-2025

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