The 2013 DrupalCon North American Selection Committee is looking for input from the Drupal community to help select the location for DrupalCon North America in 2013 (and beyond).
Straw poll
As we did last year, we’re releasing a “straw poll” intended to gauge community interest in various cities. This list is not intended to be exhaustive, and community members are welcome to suggest alternative options.
You can make your voice heard by going to http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/drupalconpoll now!
The poll takes less than five minutes to complete, and we’ll be accepting responses through June 19, 2011 in all timezones (deadline is 11:59pm Hawaiian Standard Time Standard Time or UTC -10 hours). Everyone is welcome and encouraged to complete this quick survey.
City Nominations
In addition to the straw poll, this year we’re also inviting interested communities to answer some questions about why DrupalCon could or should be in their community. Please note that your city does not have to be one of the name straw poll locations to submit a nomination (https://association.drupal.org/node/964).
The questions are intended to help the committee understand the local community. Each local community should work together to submit only one application per location. The nominations will also be accepted through June 19, 2011 in all timezones (deadline is 11:59pm Hawaiian Standard Time or UTC -10 hours).
What happens with this information?
Once we have the results of the survey and the nomination form, the committee will work with Neil Kent, the DrupalCon Event Manager, who will conduct an assessment of several leading cities, weighing factors such as cost and venue availability. The results of this study and any recommendations from the committee will be submitted to the board, who will then make the final determination. Our goal is to have a location picked and begin negotiating venue contracts for DrupalCon 2013 later this summer.
While we will look to engage the community as much as possible through this process, neither the list of finalist cities under consideration nor the selected location will be publicly announced until after a venue contract has been signed. This not only provides maximum flexibility when negotiating venue contracts, but also ensures that the selection process doesn’t result in unnecessary competition between different local communities.
We will work closely with the community in the selected city to help make DrupalCon 2013 the best event possible. Finalist cities that are not selected for 2013 will be given strong consideration to host DrupalCons in 2014 and beyond.
As we mentioned last year, this process is designed to ensure that future North American DrupalCons are run in a sustainable manner that results in high-quality, profitable conferences. Community initiatives like the redesign and git migration have been funded with the proceeds from previous North American DrupalCons and our community benefits greatly from these types of projects.
The committee members are Jeff Eaton (eaton), Betsy Ensley (Betsy Ensley), Tiffany Farriss (farriss), Cary Gordon (highermath), Emma Jane Hogbin (emmajane), Greg Knaddison (greggles), Jen Lampton (jenlampton) and Jacob Redding (jredding). Advising the process is the Events Manager of DrupalCon Inc., Neil Kent.
Links
Straw poll - http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/drupalconpoll
Nomination form - https://association.drupal.org/node/964
