The YAPC::Europe::2006 Backstage Pass
Bulletin 6.1
- A 'Behind The Scenes' missive from the organisers

"Fairies Wear Boots"

Our server has been suffering in recent weeks, due to a bad drive (now replaced) and bad reboot configuration (now fixed). Our server admin, Jon Brookes, thought it would also be an ideal time to update the server to get everything as up to date as possible. For the past week everything seems to be working and we are a little happier that we'll be safe until after the conference at least :)

"Sweet Leaf"

We have a few sponsors who have responded to us over the last few months, but to help us put on the kind of conference we want to we could really do with some more. A few sponsors have already come forward, we're just waiting for funds to clear before we announce them. If you or your company would like to help sponsor the event, please ask them to get in touch with the organisers, and will send them our prospectus and application form. Whether you can offer a small or large amount, it all helps, and we'd be pleased to hear from you.

"Symptom Of The Universe"

Well hopefully you'll have seen the latest press release announcing the website and wiki. The website has once again been develop using the Labyrinth application that runs the Birmingham.pm site, as well as a few band and personal sites. The biggest buzz has to be the conference map, which has been put together thanks to a lot of fiddling with DonkeyMagic and trawling the internet for addresses and the like of the kind of places we thought you guys might like to know about. If you have any more suggestions for entries we can add, let us know.

"Neon Knights"

Accommodation is in two camps, standard and budget. The standard hotel, Jury's Inn has a decent sized lobby and bar area that can accommodate all of us and will allow everyone to congregate at the end of the night. This was originally our second chice venue for the conference, but unfortunately the price proved too much for us. The budget hotel, nitenite, is aimed at the ecomony business guest, and as such has smaller rooms and no bar or congregation area. There are a few other hotels not too far away, which we've indicated on our conference map, if you wanted to seek alternative accommodation.

Once you've booked into the hotel, please take the time to add yourself to the accommodation list on the conference wiki.

"The Mob Rules"

We're getting a very nice trickle of talks being submitted, and if we keep going at this rate we're going to have quite a nice variety of talks to put on for you all. Please keep them coming in. Also if you have any ideas for hackathons or workshops, please send in those too.

"Falling Off The Edge Of The World"

That's it for this little addendum to our main announcement. We'll be including more minor updates to future announcements, so keep an eye for them as we go on.

If you have any questions about the conference the organisers can be reached at The Organisers, and we'll get back to you as soon as possible.

Cheers,
The YAPC::Europe::2006 Organisers.

PS: This Bulletin was brought to you with a little help from the boys from Aston, Birmingham (that's Black Sabbath if you didn't realise)