Talk:Bristol Wikimania Bid

Bid Supporters (Expressions of Interest)

Bringing Wikimania to Bristol would be great for the city. Bristol Airport will work with the team to provide information on travel options and give a warm welcome to all visitors flying into the South West. Bristol Airport 10:17, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

1 - Nice idea i like it Killerb 00:35, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

2 - Destination Bristol is proud to support the Bristol bid. Working with businesses in the tourism, leisure, hospitality and retail industry across Bristol and the west of England, we can help the team bring this fantastic event to the city. We can offer a simple delegate accommodation booking system, provide advice and create opportunities for Wikipedians to fall in love with this incredible city. Destination Bristol 15:34, 29 December 2011 (UTC)Destination Bristol 15:31, 29 December 2011 (UTC)

3 - Dsoundz Media ( Samdownie 13:24, 5 January 2012 (UTC) ) is a WikiMedia member, and helped to to organise the Wikipedia 10th Anniversary day in Bristol and London in January 2011, by helping with the live webcast, the blogging, audio capture and event organisation in Bristol. Also helped to set up a blog to take note of the day's events. Samdownie 13:22, 5 January 2012 (UTC) Is proud to support the WikiMania Bid for Bristol 2013, and aim to help make it successful.

4 - Great idea! Bs5er 13:53, 7 January 2012 (UTC) As stated on the page itself, I shall raise the bid at the next Bristol Wireless monthly meeting. I can also contact Bristol Hackspace and Bristol Dorkbot informally. They're more than likely to be supportive.

5 - Either Bristol or London would be an excellent venue for such an event, good facilities and good transport links. This proposal would be supported by Stone King, charity lawyers whose HQ is in Bath and second office in London. Jonathan Burchfield, head of SK's charity team

6 - Girl Geek Dinners Bristol offer our support to the bid. Some of our members are very keen to participate and we have lots of ideas to contribute.

7 - Great idea! tonycoll 13:15, 9 January 2012 Yet again, Bristol proves that it's among the world's most innovative cities.

8- Media Anthropologist User:Glenn.hall I support this bid, and volunteer to help in organising the event. nearly 30 years now I've been involved in Bristol media in numerous forms.

8 - It'd be great to add this to the panoply of events in the Bristol calendar, especially ones that promote public engagement. The British Science Association is all about promoting openness about science in society and affirming science as a prime cultural force through engaging and inspiring adults and young people directly with science and technology, and their implications. As the Chair of the Bristol & Bath Branch, I'm enthusiastically in support of this proposal. JohnBradford 15:08, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

9 - |- |MrMattAnderson - Great idea and I believe we have the skills and the ground swell of support to make this bid successful for this highly digital and creative city! #LoveBristol MrMattAnderson 15:55, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

10 - Jason Thorne Great initiative, in favour of the bid Jason Thorne 16:56, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

11 - Doormatt fantastic idea, fully support this Doormatt 22:00, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

12 - The Marriott hotels in Bristol would be delighted to support in attracting this event to Bristol. The Marriott have over 500 rooms in Bristol, in addition to extensive conference space, and would be willing to offer favourable rates to attract Wikipedians to this great city.R Powell 13:55, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

13 - Bristol24-7 is happy to support Bristol's bid and can help to promote it on our pages

14 - Z303 is happy to support Bristol's bid and can help to promote it on our pages

15 - Maria is definitely supporting the bid and very excited about it

16 - Sheldrake It's about time the UK hosted Wikimania, and it's great to see this comprehensive and coherent bid from Bristol. Lets go for it!

17 - Evans Finch would be delighted to support the bid however possible!

18 - Jennifer Unsworth is happy to support Bristol's bid - it would be great for our fab city to host such an exciting event!

19 - Robert Briggs is happy to support the bid. Very exciting.

20 - Ace, Bristol University would be great venue Mrjohncummings (talk) 20:35, 27 March 2012 (UTC)

Planning On-going discussions/developments

Meeting with Destinations Bristol- 29/12/11 (all agreed in principle - subject to further discussions)

• Agreed that Destinations Bristol would back the bid in principle and offer 100% help in organisation of all logistics to get partners on board for the bid
• Agreed that Destinations Bristol would support the bid and play a key coordination role in liaising with the Wikimania bid committee if Bristol is successful
• Destinations Bristol has been mandated to get involved by the Leader of the City Council's Office Cllr Barbara Janke so has support of city
• Destinations Bristol would be a 'single point of contact for all hotel/accomodation and booking arrangements for all Wikimani delegates (it does this already for the city)
• Destinations Bristol would help in the approach to all venues and in negotiating favourable deals to hire venues, block book hotel rooms, to provide microsite booking information for the event which it would manage on our behalf
• Destinations Bristol would coordinate all contacts with tourism/places of interest that the bid team felt would enhance the quality of the Wikimania experience (museums, theatres, restaurants etc)
• Destinations Bristol would secure support from the Bristol Balloon Festival that overlaps the proposed Wikimania event and ensure that sponsored balloons, balloon rides were a practical and definate benefit for any Wikimania delegate that wished them

Meeting with Bristol Airport - 05/01/12 (all agreed in principle - subject to further discussions)

• Bristol Airport outlined the city’s accessibility via the major international hubs of Amsterdam, Paris CDG, Brussels and Dublin. Each is served by multiple daily flights to and from Bristol, making connections to Bristol accessible for travellers from all over the world. In addition, those travelling from the US via Dublin have the added advantage of clearing US customs in Ireland on their return journey, arriving in the US as domestic passengers.
• Agreement on the part of the airport that Wikimania can have a 'welcome desk' at Bristol Airport manned by volunteers (both ours and the sirports own) who would assist and help Wikipedians arriving in Bristol and those leaving
• Agreement that Wikimania can have/place its own branding inside the airport on and around the welcome desk
• Bristol Airport to consider a package of benefits for Wikipedians, such as Fast Track security, retail and catering discounts and a concessionary fare on the Airport Flyer Express bus service to Bristol city centre.

Email from Bristol Balloons after initial meeting - 05/01/12 (all agreed in principle - subject to further discussions)

• The following estimated charges would apply to the 3 day event to get the idea off the ground;-
• Hire complete 4 passenger balloon with plain envelope (including a trailer) = £500
• Hire a 4 x 4 vehicle at about £100 per day = £500.00
• Addition of ‘D’ Rings or Velcro to balloon for 6 banners = £250.00 (16mt of Velcro for each banner)
• The manufacture of 6 banners (4 sq mt each) = £200
• Design and application of artwork to the banners = £????
• Bristol Balloons ‘Day Rate’ to operate and staff the balloon = £800/day = £2,400

Grand Total = £3,850 Option to ‘join’ the 100 Club for the weekend (see link = £2,000 See link - http://www.bristolballoonfiesta.co.uk/content/26/the-benefits.aspx

Would this mean we could sell places in the balloon? I suspect a few wikimanians would be up for that. WereSpielChequers 10:25, 9 January 2012 (UTC) Oh yes! That's the general idea...balloons fly dawn & dusk so it does not interfere with the conference. There'd also be some sensational views out over the Avon Gorge around the suspension bridge. I also think it'll make for amazing PR if we could get Jimmy in a balloon with a few famous uber-geeks Steve Virgin 12:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Bristol vs. London

• Support Bristol, although as a resident, I have a conflict of interest. I don't currently hold membership, but will update this when that changes. Holding the event in Bristol is likely to offer the following benefits over London:
  1. Reduced cost (venues for organisers, accommodation for attendees)
  2. Potential support/sponsorship from independent creative businesses to balance large corporate entities
  3. Compact city
     • permits easy access to surrounding geographical areas
     • has potential to involve all city's stakeholders
  4. Potential to arrange (subsidised) shuttle buses via discussions with FreeBus

-- Trevj 20:43, 21 November 2011 (UTC)

The cost saving will be more than cancelled out by the added cost of getting there. For most people in the world, you have to go via London to get to Bristol, so it inevitably costs more. --Tango 01:23, 22 November 2011 (UTC)

That depends on how long people stay in the area (significantly different cost of hotels). I think other issues are far more important. e.g. Facilities (East London Tech City sounds like it's gonna be awesome), the availability of volunteers to organise it and the helpfulness of useful people like the council and the owners of the facilities. Yaris678 10:34, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

Two airlines (in particular) have significant presence in Bristol KLM and EasyJet. It should be no problem to involve all the weight of the city in discussions that involve heavy discounting on plane seats/chartering for pre-booked flights out of Amsterdam (that has frequent flights into the city). There would be the full weight of the city behind this bid, that would include contacts at City Cabinet level with the airport authorities directly. Local businesses would step up and back the bid and I'd expect major levels of sponsor support from groups that have already done so before and have seen value from backing the event. There is already genuine city-wide enthusiasm and support from many groups (as mentioned in the Potential Sponsors section). There is likely to be a Wikipedia Society in the University of Bristol in the coming months, that would support the planning for the bid. There are other vehicles of support that tap into the digital media community (Bristol Media), the world class natural history broadcasting team at the BBC Natural History Unit (via our friends at Bristol Natural History Consortium) and many others.

While recognising that an event in the Olympic Village is hard to overcome, the costs could come in under half of the other event, there would be city-wide (if not region-wide) mobilisation of support behind this event.

Hotels issue - hopefully we can kill that one off too - plan is to get agreement to base 99% of all attendees in the University of Bristol Halls of Residence...so no buses to venues, all in 5-10m walking distance - and a lot of good bars, cafes, green spaces and things to see outside the Wikimania event itself Steve Virgin 00:21, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

Template:Culture in Bristol lists some places not already mentioned. I've also copied in the self-evaluation titles from the London bid, so it's not forgotten. Sorry for not actually adding any content there ATM. -- Trevj 19:53, 28 November 2011 (UTC) thanks Steve Virgin 17:36, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Move to Meta?

Hey. :-)

What's the plan about moving this to meta? Other bids are piling up there and it'd be good to have them developed on a more high-visibility wiki for others to see...

Jdforrester 17:48, 23 November 2011 (UTC)

As suggested at Talk:London Wikimania Bid#Move to Meta?, I think the idea is that we decide on a single UK bid, before moving it to meta. Yaris678 10:27, 24 November 2011 (UTC)

James - this is still in embryonic stage - can we do it in a week or so time - it is unfinished...rushed in a single couple of hours prior to a Board meeting...would like some time to think it through more carefully - say 2 weeks? Then I'd be delighted to put it across to metaSteve Virgin 15:41, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

I'm in London but I think Bristol might work better for Wikimania - in a smaller city it will be a bigger deal. --Filceolaire 19:34, 26 November 2011 (UTC)

That depends how big a deal you want to make it! London has a lot more access to international media. Is this being a big deal high on our priorities for this conference though? EdSaperia 15:30, 14 January 2012 (UTC)

Other Languages

2013 will be directly after Washington - another English speaking city. What links does Bristol have with projects in other languages besides English? Are there any Welsh Wikipedians, for example, on the list of supporters? --Filceolaire 11:32, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

• Reasonably-sized French community, probably partly due to universities, Airbus and partner companies. This means that the Ecole Française de Bristol (not a state school) is sustainable. There's also the local Alliance française, [1]. The twin town in France is Bordeaux, but I don't know the current status of the Bristol-Bordeaux Association[2], [3]. There are apparently other twin towns in Germany, Portugal, Georgia, Nicaragua, Mozambique and China. HTH.

-- Trevj 19:37, 28 November 2011 (UTC)

The Bordeaux link is very strong - regular farmers markets in the summer, trade delegations etc - given the intra-city connections developing that tie for the bid (if successful) is a superb idea Steve Virgin 17:38, 30 November 2011 (UTC)

Record of Meetups

It looks as if there's only been one! A while ago I unofficially created Bristol 2, for the Wikipedia at 10 event. Are there any others which should be noted? It's a good job that Cambridge isn't in the running! -- Trevj 11:38, 29 November 2011 (UTC)

No - there was one in May 2010 following on from the Annual Fund Raising Conference listed on the page - then there has been a series of events (see above) at which a wide variety of Wikipedians and would be Wikipedians have got involved. There was also around 30 volunteers 'working' during the Jimmy Wales talk in January 2011 - tweeting, blogging and assisting with the organisation where needed. Bristol has tended to 'do events' over just WikiMeets - the testimony is visible on the page above Steve Virgin 15:49, 5 December 2011 (UTC)

Is the "testimony" what's included at Bristol Wikimania Bid#A city with a track record of support to our movement? Is it worth discussing whether any of them would qualify for being retroactively classified as WikiMeets (even "fringe" WikiMeets tagged on to more prominent events)? (Sorry, if this is a distraction which is unnecessary to pursue.) Thanks. -- Trevj (talk) 01:58, 11 December 2011 (UTC)

Well we had a UK AGM there, that certainly should count as a Bristol meetup. It was a bigger event than most of the London events I've been to. WereSpielChequers 22:02, 2 January 2012 (UTC) Wikimeets - you could argue they were all 'Wikimeets' of sorts...just look a bid odd and hyperactive. Big difference between what we were doing and a WikiMeet is that we had a specific activity (training, teaching, explaining, discussing or something of that nature) rather than just meeting as a group of like-minded friends for a drink and a chat. There was one of those in May 2010 (on the saturday evening of the Fund Raising Conference. Steve Virgin 12:27, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Accommodation

Halls of residence sound great and this sort of thing worked well in Haifa and Gdansk, except that some of it was 20 minutes walk away in Gdansk, and Haifa was a coach journey. So how far will they be from everything else? Currently the bid reads like everything is easy walking distance except the Accommodation. Also we have people on varying budgets including some who will expect a 5 star option - I'm pretty sure Bristol has such but can you confirm and add, including again the proximity to the venues. WereSpielChequers 00:38, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

Good questions - am working on confirmation of this now - in theory as follows: University of Bristol based at the top of Park Street - it connects to Harbourside by a 5-6 min walk down hill. The majority (if not all) of the venues will be no more than 10 mins walk. Accomodation - student halls are on the Downs near Clifton (mostly) - that's about 15 min to 20 min walk. There are other student places right slap bang in the city run by a private company called Unite - who we will be talking to. Hotels - through Destination Bristol we will have a single point of contact, single point of booking for all travel and residence. So 'it is taken care of' and our Bid team just coordinates with them and does not have to do much of the donkey work at all. They'd also be the 'hub' for me now in contacting all interested parties, venues, universities and other bodies to meet them and to woe them onside for the bid. They have been instructed already to offer full support by the Leader of the City Council Barbara Janke (hence we have the city swinging 100% behind the bid). Steve Virgin 12:24, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks. While the bulk of the jury are volunteers a lot of Foundation staff and of course the trustees are put up in hotels at the cost of the Foundation. I think you might find it worthwhile finding out the necessary spec adding that to the location information - especially the distance from such hotel or hotels to the venue. WereSpielChequers 19:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Side trips.

If you don't have a day trip to London in the excursion list then people may overestimate the distance culturally or literally between Bristol and London. Also one of my many nice memories of Buenos Aires was one of the locals conducting a guided tour for a bunch of us early birds. WereSpielChequers 19:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Presentation polishing

One of my suggestions on the London bid that you may want to ponder is that a lot of presentations are by geeks, often in a language that they aren't perfect in and in a venue where they haven't sat in the back row and tried to read their own slides. A presentation polishing day with some presentation experts would I think be very popular with our presenters and in many cases would make a big difference to their presentation. WereSpielChequers 19:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Rail Reading

If the coach and train via Reding is the quickest/cheapest route to get from Heathrow to Bristol then it would be worth including its cost. If we have a range of choices, coach cheapest and Express most expensive then it might be worth explaining that. Heathrow will I predict be one of your most significant gateway airports. WereSpielChequers 19:13, 16 January 2012 (UTC)

Rewrite "Getting to Bristol"

I think the "Getting to Bristol" section needs a rewrite to discuss how to get to the actual accommodation from the train and bus stations. Talking about how close they are to the city centre isn't that useful unless the venue is in the city centre. Is it? --Filceolaire 21:22, 16 January 2012 (UTC)