 Okay, yeah to start. Yeah, okay. Let's just start right So welcome to that talk about Drupal Europe that we did in 2018 and we're just gonna share with you the learnings that we had and actually hoping that we can maybe Do fewer mistakes and more of the stuff that we actually think that we manage to do good so I'm batty and I was in the team and to with me is yeah, and I'm I'm Gabber. I was also on the team Yeah, there's several others that will show towards the end of the slides so question was this the first like why did we do Drupal Europe so there was a Need because there was no Drupal con in 2018. We felt actually very abandoned By the Drupal Association and that was a fact. So there was a lot of anger in the European community and We had a lot of sessions and this was one of the first ones Then we were sitting in Drupal Camp Belgium and we just said like why are we actually why do we care? You know, why is it for us a big topic to do a camp con like that or a conference? and I think that The reason why the Drupal Association stopped doing it because we had a loss But and that was just not a sustainable model for them so we of course thought that we could do that differently and We were actually mostly and I think that Gabber said that correctly is that we need to have these events So we can actually get people to contribute to the project So if we don't do these events, we don't get contributors to contribute and then we have difficulties and especially in Europe as As we are very proud of this next slide, which is 45 percent of Drupal contributors are from Europe A lot of them of course also sponsored by companies that are not in Europe But still it is an important fact. So therefore important that We have something like that where we can also meet because not everybody can come to the United States to a conference Yeah, so many of the Europeans were Concerned because they've seen that okay the DMX money in the US But but but if you look at where Drupal is made, it's in a large part made in Europe So we were like Conflicted about the feeling that the conference is not going to be held But all even though a big part of Drupal is made in Europe So what happened actually next is that we started to you know, we had like they were actually multiple groups that were Foruming and in Drupal con Vienna that was a little bit tough also because there were More groups that wanted to do this together So there was also like we had to bring these groups together and make sure that everybody was on the same path So that probably started there in Drupal con Vienna we joined this one and we put out the first hello world post and and then the Actually, what happened the next is that we got like the hello world post Yes, that was there were three things that we said that would be important One is that we want to bring together the community. That was like goal number one Number two, we want to make sure that Drupal stays as a really strong brand in Europe and and the third was that we actually want to show that we can do an event in Europe that is Sustainable and that the cost will not we will not be losing So these were the three things that we were aiming at from the start So this is probably what we sat down in the first week and that we defined and put it out in a hello world post Yeah, and Vienna We had a lot of discussions of if do we even need this event in terms of Europe because there's already Dev days and there's already front-end United and there's a bunch of other events that attract a lot of people and we came back to this Realization that we need a place for the community to get together all together and to cross influence each other from businesses to developers to marketers to content editors to whoever is using Drupal and and have this cross influence where it's like somebody comes in who are using your software and you can be proud of providing of Building that software that they could make value with and they could provide you feedback how to improve what you're working on Yeah, so this was then in October, which was then we had a year but The first thing you need to do is of course to see like where can we actually have this event? And that is a really tricky part when it is only one year before the event Because we knew that we had to find something that had more than a space for at least 1,000 people so we were always looking at up to 2,000 so finding an a venue for such a large event is nothing that is easy so we first did like a call for venues and We got a lot of submissions Some of them were more serious than others and others were actually just putting in a name So some of them followed with like an information. So this this model was taking from the deaf days, right? Yeah, so there was a there's always a question list in deaf days that goes around because deaf days in front-end United is Organized in a European level so there is this list of things that you should fill in and then the community selects the Good the best case or the one that fits the best So we got all of these venues of missions and one we even got from Australia Like the Europeans know that Eurovision the song context Australia is allowed to participate in that so they thought that they would also be allowed to participate in Drupalcon Europe Yeah, why not so but they were not selected So they were obviously We went really close into looking at even venues in Germany and Netherlands and also in Scotland and Poland probably these were those that we went into the big most detail so what we did yeah We did like an interview with them or we spoke to them. We got more information We we looked at the pros and cons and we made up a sheet where we could say okay How cheap is it for people to get there? How easy is it how far is it from the airport and we had to think about all these things So this is also everything that we can see here with all of you But I think the criteria there was also pretty pretty good how that was set up And we came from dev days and we needed an event that could scale from maybe a thousand people to maybe 2000 people and like have the kinds of flexible room set up and stuff like that that could accommodate that So we selected darmstadt, which we thought that was amazing because the venue if you for those who came you You saw that the venue was just great Every single room had light So you were always exposed to sunlight and it was just generally probably one of the best conference venues that I've ever been to Pretty new But there was obviously of course a reason why this venue was not booked in the week that we booked it We didn't know that though. We didn't think about it. So first what we what we heard as a That there was a large the one of the largest conferences that happened in Frankfurt and from studies only 20 minutes away from Frankfurt So one of the largest conferences that happen in Europe almost takes place in the same week So when we started when we had already booked a venue We were looking at when we got this information We started to look for hotels and we saw that there was just no hotel like there was nothing available Airbnb or booking dot-com. It was just everything was full So that's that is definitely something that we will next time Check like why is the venue available in this week that you want to take it? That's the catch. Yeah, and it also had a conflict to pretty Important religious holidays. So that also we didn't think about and that came a lot of discussions and Around that and of course what we don't try to do the best out of it by moving around So three snows were three snowed was for example on Wednesday and we we little bit changed the program So we could at least because it was the it was the Monday that was there. Yeah, that was really conflicting with With a holiday. So these are two things that we had with that So then came the next challenge. How do you actually organize something with a team of people that have never met and We don't know each other that well. Actually, we we didn't even know each other before So there were we were really organized and I think that we We did a lot of good things in organizational aspects We had jitzy we decided on tools in the beginning. So we decided on using jitzy for online meetings That was okay. Okay. Yeah, at least it was for free. So we didn't have to pay for the service, but It worked out. Okay. So we used slack for chatting we set up really early on a Google Drive we Started by using Trello, then we went to open social and then we set up a project on open project or we that was a Something that we used and we said that up, but actually we didn't use that at all We didn't use either of them at the end. So we were like moving from tool to tool in case We maybe find the right the golden solution But it as a matter of fact, you will not I mean volunteers who work on At least in our event the volunteers who worked on this event for their enjoyment They did not enjoy updating project management tools with their status. That didn't happen. So that was hard We use GitLab for everything in relation to the code of the website and Then we used pre ticks for we set up a pre tick Which is an open source. It's like open source ticketing tool and I think it saved us 30,000 Let's just say dollars because it's almost the same That we would have paid to for fees to other services if we had to use that Yeah, so 30,000 was actually it was we looked at it in the end and the good thing is we had one issue there and there was the Person who was behind this tool is in Germany So that was even easier that we could actually just basically call him up and get help But we of course had to set this up ourselves. So that also costs time And then we use stripe for payments. That was pretty good. Yeah And for the ticketing tool, we also got with it an app. So when we did the registration We actually scanned the code. So that came all with it So we can really recommend that tool. It was pretty the reporting to see what has been done and sending out coupon codes And creating them was really easy So when we had something so that was a very good good choice Yeah, so pre tick saved us a lot of money The UI was nice that we could like have the the ticket ticket selling part embedded on the page like any other So there was no there was no limitations other That other paid services would not have and there was a lot of additional benefits like this check-in system and it being open source Yeah Okay, so how did we organize ourselves in teams? So that was also something that we had to learn the hard way almost because we started of course in a one large group And then we realized really early. We have to start Dividing the team into sub teams. So we were really successful with these four branches like we call it So it was the the web team program team volunteers Lead team and then in the organizer team that were the main organizers And that had to maybe make the certain decisions at certain points. So We had also like single person teams So or we were we did that more, you know at Hock So for sponsorships financials catering When you attend the care communication PR that was just more done by one or two people that were also part of the other teams Then we had a week meetings so we did the the weekly update meeting where we Just always matters as you know in every single team. There was a weekly meeting At least yeah So and then we put all of our meeting notes into Google Drive So it was like rolling meeting notes so people could always if they couldn't attend They could actually go in there and then what we also did we use the what the diversity and inclusion grouped us with Making an online Information so you like on slack. So we made that in threats by saying like number one Here's our status regarding venue. So that's how we gave people information that didn't want to go and look into the weekly Notes and what was actually important is that we allowed and we encouraged always people to go to this weekly meeting So if anybody wanted to join the team then we told them to start going to these weekly meetings and Then we gave them just an update but in the web team and in those teams They of course went into more detailed Stuff. Yeah, so this worked This actually worked for status updates unlike the all the project management software And it also helped bond with the team So we could like see each other face-to-face and we like created screenshots of the Diverse team that was organizing the event And and as Betty said we so just to clarify is that for new volunteers who came in We got them into the highest level meeting where everybody every team was reporting their status So they get to see the momentum going like there's a lot of stuff happening and everybody's doing their things So they could see like all the activity and have first of all have context of what's going on in general And second of all see that there's all this stuff happening and there's momentum and they are joining a team that that has potential Yeah, and then they they could then find their own branch. You can call it like that so What is actually regarding keynotes? We just want to give you a couple of insights on keynotes is that keynotes are hard because of the room size So we want to have you know, you see this room here, you know, we don't have that many people in here But we have in other rooms. We have a lot of people and in the keynote room today We had probably 4,000 people or 3,000 people. So how are you finding a venue that actually can't do that? So that is hard. So what what we did is it's a keynote room there It's actually only half of it. So we had an opportunity to actually make the keynote much larger So we could put it up to 1,400 people I think yeah, and in the setup like this We had it only half, but that had it had to be decided like when we also knew how many were gonna come But we had that flexibility in this venue. That was what we liked about the venue And also like regarding the the other rooms. They were smaller than the room that we are in now So it was about 90 people 100 people that could be in there so in the end we decided on purpose to Keep the keynote room even though we had 1,000 and 10 teams Still to keep it only for 700 It's made like us fill up the room because there's always a lot of people that are just sleeping at home or listening to it online So that made a really good feeling because you were really a part of something big in there And it was really close and every single seat was filled Yeah, in terms of keynote content We decided to not do an opening keynote and not do a closing keynote Because like we could talk about like how much coffee was consumed and stuff But there's may not be interesting for for most people What we did in studies we wrote up a report that will link at the end that where we reported on everything that we Did and like people can go back and read and this allowed us to have space for more interesting Content and like that more of the community to present themselves and what they are working on So in the search for keynote speakers, we went really We were really we said that we want to talk about the open web And that was something that we were passionate about So we said that we want to have the founder of the WordPress project and the founder of the rubble project to come to Drupal Europe and speak about the open web and Matt from WordPress. He said yes to that and we had everything was organized and We were really excited about having Matt and Dries on the stage because they did that last time in 2014, I think but unfortunately three weeks before that was cancelled by that by by Matt for some other reasons and That was pretty hard for us as a team, especially because we had been blasting his name on all channels What was good is that when we started to you know promote that we didn't see like a pike of people buying We didn't say a lot of WordPress people Buying tickets to come so so therefore it was okay But we got other great people, but they were a little bit more in the last three weeks We were basically trying to get people to come on that panel and that ended up really well We had a really good discussions. Yeah, I think we got very I think we had the best people We we could have even it even if we would have a longer time. I think it went really well So and then the program we also wanted to do something different there and that was so we really said that we want to have it more an industry vertical and use the Tags this tagging so you say that I am a government session it fits to government and then you can say like but it like it has a tag like migration and Accessibility and something else which is maybe more the traditional tracks here And by this we could actually put People on it like Christopher was here in the room. He was in charge of the government So he was really chasing people to submit So They asked so in the end like of course everything was reviewed like it review normally But we had specialists in each track team and they then tried to get people that would really well fit to it So that was a really good success. It was a success yeah, this goes back to our focus on the on Protecting a triple brand or or it's on strengthening the triple brand in Europe that we wanted to like Focus on the industries that are using Drupal to show the value that Drupal provides and obviously the Drupal and technology got the most ex submissions, so But but I think that still what what what happened then we had for every page a landing page So I know that crystal for example. He sent out to a lot of government people in Germany Hey, this is the the program for government in Drupal Europe. So for them they thought that hey Wow, there is something for us here even though that the sessions were related to something That was for a builder And this is also something that is a very normal to see that When the submissions get yeah, we've had two deadlines So you can see the two deadlines probably easily on the screen when was the first deadline in the second deadline Yeah, and how many did we get 650 sessions in total? So this was we had run we were running eight parallel sessions per per It's time. I think so we had 170 speakers and 950 attendees and in total 233 sessions and buffs so This slide is very empty because we tried to do trainings and it didn't work and and why is that is that we actually Didn't have capacity to organize it and we did it way too late And when we then started to organize it it was also a lot of extra work for us So if you ever want to have a training at your camp Then you also have to keep in mind that it puts extra work on you as an organizer So if you want to do that, you want to put a person dedicated on that because you need to promote the training you need to make Contracts with the people who are doing the training you need to do some kind of a split on the on the cost Or the how much revenue they are gonna get People attending the training need to understand that they would arrive earlier or they would book their flights according to that Etc. Yeah, we did this half-hearted. So it didn't really work No, we don't know if we would have put in more effort if it would work better or not Yeah, we don't know So ticket sale also go briefly through that we did all kinds of tickets and maybe the The one that we are most proud of I think of this list was of course the diversity tickets So we teamed up with diversity tickets.org tickets.org And we donated into that pool X amount like I think 25 tickets and then we promoted that and people then were could Apply for a diversity ticket and they took care of approving that or not. So we were not part of that process And then in the end we donated them a little amount to for their effort of doing it So that was and then then your event also gets listed on the diversity tickets.org Yes, it gives you more exposure and there's no questions if you are partial to the people submitting or not Yeah, and we kept the prices of the Event in similar how it was in in Drupal con before because we also had to start somewhere and we just decided to do it the same way So here's also the ticket sale We we talk about this also in the report But we saw also peaks in the ticket sale depending on when we were Promoting the camp Or promoting the event at various camps. So we were giving out discount codes Maybe even in national last year. There was a discount code for those who are in the comment So we analyzed a little bit how that went, but it was pretty, you know, it's always difficult because you need more tickets to be sold So that was a hard time to watch and count and all that so financials Okay, this is a little bit complicated slide because It basically shows the line that is all the way in the bottom this line that comes is the down payments for the venue So this is the one the target that we were always focusing on Because we had to have money because we did not have any money But we were lucky that the the Drupal Association Germany they Stood behind it. So that they were a legal entity behind it So we see that the ticketing sale there. We knew that the total cost was always going to be there on top sponsorship sale came in there and And that was like a little like you see it worked out. So we never had any problems in the payments and And We in the end we don't know exactly how much profit we got but we got profit which is a must Which came also together just in the end We're probably gonna know soon as soon as the tax stuff goes through in Germany for last year Yeah, and we also want to put a Know like show that we also paid They were they were like people part of the group that that we're also like doing this full-time and We you know because we know that It cannot just be volunteering work and doing it in your free time in the evenings So we were either sponsored by the entity or we were sponsored by our companies So that was very important part of the success. I think of the camp It's all in the reports that we will share with you So maybe a little bit to the so we're just going really briefly through the report that you all have access to but These are the people who are part of the lead volunteers. Yeah, the lead volunteers and Just our country It was just nice to see from how many different countries we were coming from and then This is most like the picture of like I think the group that was volunteering in the end There was a lot of a lot of people involved all of the registration desk and everything was was was done by volunteers and Yeah, and we also regarding catering. I don't have a slide about that, but we have text about that We decided to go for a vegetarian vegan catering We didn't talk about that much because You know people are used to eating pasta and salad all the time and Why do you have to put emphasis on that? We even got questions like where's the vegetarian food? so But there was a lot of people that were talking about it like where is the meat I need meat But it went really good and it was even cheaper for us to have that then Then having meat. Yeah having more variety is is always hard because you have a lot of leftover food And if you can if you can agree on some common denominator that would work for most people It's cheaper to order larger blocks of the same type of food Yeah, and if I can give us a yeah Yeah, I was very good food and if I can give us a little like thank you is that we had coffee all day So maybe that is a standard that we set for the future Drupal cons Now when you now have coffee all day you think about like oh That's you know they couldn't do it because that was a very important part And we also had water and even sparkling water, which is important in Germany also running all all day Yeah, so we don't have much time. So communication and we're almost just finished. I just maybe cover You know because he was in charge of our communication. Yeah, what we did on-site is we did a we did a daily review meeting every day And we reviewed what went well and what went wrong on the day so you could improve for the next day and some of the teams were on-site and improving constantly on things like the digital signage that we've had we've been improving constantly every day and As I said, we didn't have an opening or closing keynote So we were very active through the digital signage and through Twitter and other channels to Spread the messages and that worked quite well. We could we could involve a lot of people and and And we basically got access to the digital signage. So if you see the digital signage Things out here. So what we did is that they told us that we could send them what we want to display there And we said like no, can we send you on URL? so we sent them on URL and Obviously with the help of our great programmers in the team developers, they created this amazing Thing that we just told them what URL on what screen and then we were completely in charge of the signage and That was one of the things that we got the most out of in the end that people said that that was a very helpful So the full report is a thing around 80 pages. Yeah, you can really go into detail. So Devtase did this as well It's really important for everybody who's organizing a camp go and look at it because there's so much information in there About do's and don'ts and what went well and what was difficult? So I made like both the issue number, but otherwise just ask us We even printed it out and gave to the team afterwards Just now starting in 15 minutes is the buff Around the event organizers. So please go there if you want to keep on having this conversation how we can do that It's gonna be in room above three in the exhibit hall and Then of course We didn't stop so we are helping to the Co-Oni, which is a professional event company who got the license for Drupalcon Amsterdam and we are helping them to make sure that the event will be For the community and for us. So that's happening. It's happening in Amsterdam so please if you want to come there come join us and contribution strip sprints Another thing that we probably changed the naming from sprint to contribution Or at least initiated that and Please review us We expect good reviews, right? Yeah, if you have questions, probably I think it would just be good that I think the next session is starting If you have questions, let's just have that conversation now. We are always available Yep on slack So, thank you