The pocket guide to organizing your own Barcamp

  1. HowToGetStarted
    1. ...still working on this -- any want to pitch in?
    2. CrystalWilliams offers Ten Steps to Organizing a Barcamp
  2. BarCampTemplate - it would be helpful to have a template for the set of pages needed for a *Camp. E.g. the home page, the *Planners (includes volunteers), *Schedule, *Sponsors, etc.
  3. RecommendedSessions - sessions that are useful at nearly every *Camp
  4. Setup a BackChannel for the Event
    1. A dedicated BackChannel can be useful for storing session notes, ideas, etc. for future recollection. There are many options to choose from on the BackChannel page.wino
  5. Make sure the venue is accessible. See Christiane Link's handy checklist: http://www.behindertenparkplatz.de/cl/2007/10/12/850/
  6. Marketing a Bar Camp is very important. Review this article on advertising that works
  7. Here you'll find collection of web resources to organize a BarCamp

Things that ChristopherStJohn has wondered about BarCampDallas:

How to deal with sponsors?

Chris Messina pointed out that cash donations for the original BarCamp were limited to $200, and went into a PayPal account. He also suggested that donations of stuff, rather than cash, were easier to deal with. DavidCrow and JayGoldman have been working with a cash donation limit of $250 for the Toronto BarCamps, also to a PayPal account.

See Sponsoring for more guidelines, best practices, case studies from around the world.

How to make decisions?

For example, let's say a local company offers a venue. At some point, there needs to be a final yes/no answer. How were these sorts of decisions made at the original BarCamp? Amsterdam? Does the fact that we have months rather than days make things harder or easier?

Am I worrying about organizational issues too much? (Or too little?)

Am I being too old-school? Having helped out at company-run user conferences, I have a certain set of expectations that may not apply. How radically ad-hoc is it possible to get before it gets ugly?


Page Information

  • 2 weeks ago [history]
  • View page source
  • You're not logged in
  • JavaScript is disabled on this wiki.
  • Recent comments:
    Julius:Hi there I'd like to suggest my collection of resources for BarCamps but wanted to get feedback before editing the page http://www.eventmanagerblog.com/2008/01/20-resources-for-a-smooth-barcamp.html
  • No tags yet learn more

Wiki Information

Recent PBwiki Blog Posts