ConferenceOutline

The following is a document which outlines what a potential conference organiser will need to be able to provide. Please add/amend as necessary.

Thank you for expressing interest in hosting a BESIG conference. The following is an outline of what a conference organiser will need to provide in the lead-up to and during the conference.


 * An organising team or committee. The workload is likely to be too much for one person to realistically manage, so a team of 3+ people is likely to be needed.
 * A venue that can hold ca. 400 participants. One plenary room will be needed that seats all 400, plus 12 - 15 workshop rooms of various sizes (20 - 70 if possible) to accommodate the parallel workshops.
 * Catering facilities for all delegates. It is usually possible to have two separate seatings so that the catering may only have to be able to serve and seat half the delegates at any one time.
 * Exhibition space. We rely heavily on our exhibitors and sponsors to make the event possible so we need to be able to offer good exhibition space. Ideally it would be centrally located so that delegates are likely to go to this space naturally, and accommodate 200 - 300 delegates at one time, browsing the stands.
 * Refreshment area. Ideally this could be within the exhibition space or very near to it in order to encourage delegates to visit the exhibition space with their refreshments in between sessions.
 * Technology in session rooms. Ideally all rooms should be equipped with a computer with Internet access and a data projector. Although the majority of presenters have updated to this technology, they should still have access to overhead projectors, flip charts, video playback facilities (VCR and DVD), and audio (CD players or drives in the computers; in rare cases, cassette playback possibilities; loudspeakers appropriate to the size of the presentation space).
 * Organisation of a Friday evening opening event. This will include speeches, entertainment of some sort and food and drink.
 * Organisation of the programme. This includes assigning workshops to adequately-sized and equipped rooms, laying out the programme itself and having it printed.
 * Organisation of a "conference hotel". Ideally the hotel would be near the conference venue, be able to accommodate all delegates, and would be affordable (often a special rate can be negotiated with a hotel based on the number of potential bookings).

The BESIG committee, in particular the two events coordinators, will be there to help and advise wherever possible. Because they are not "on the ground", though, most of the actual coordinating will need to be done by the Local Organising Committee (LOC). Specific areas that are dealt with by the events coordinators include:
 * Booking of and most of the communications with exhibitors. Once the exhibition space has been determined the events coordinators will deal with the sourcing of exhibitors and placing within the space. The LOC will however need to supply and arrange any required tables as specified by the events coordinators.
 * BESIG website. The website is maintained by the committee and will include the Call for Papers, registration process, and making available of information supplied by the LOC (e.g. information about the hotel(s), how to get to the venue, the programme etc).
 * Choosing of the talks. Based on the speaker proposals received the BESIG committee will choose the talks. Timetabling of the talks will be done by the events coordinators in conjunction with the LOC.