Basic info for lazy foreigners

[uraimo]

Hi! Great conference and even more so considering it was your first attempt, well done.

I liked a lot the idea of having a Slack channel for the attendees and thanks to @vasile, @sean, @elland, @akosma and others we got a lot of additional details that were extremely useful for people that had never been to Switzerland, i.e. info about moving around the city (thanks to the one that recommended the app Swiss Transit), about power outlets, about the recommended prepaid data plan, weather and so on.
But only less than half of the attendees joined the channel so, it would have been nice to collect these info beforehand and send them to everyone before the conference.

[BalestraPatrick]

@uraimo Completely agree on all your points! Thanks for the feedback 😃
Next time we will send an email to all the attendees a few weeks before the conference with more information (to be added to your list): hotel information, sightseeing tips, whether food is provided and if yes which kind and so on. The main problem was communication in the period preceding the conference. This was mainly due to our inexperience in organizing such a big (and unexpected event). We will definitely do better next time 💪🏻

[bontoJR]

@uraimo You are definitely right! Also, there's something I want to point: this year we had a lot of door closed with partners that should provide informations like these ones. Time was ticking and I had no time to prepare a guide for people coming from abroad. I can't lie saying we did not pay attention on the countries, we were monitoring every single ticket, but as first edition, time managing was really hard and we missed some important things, like this one.

I hope that next year we can make some social events before the conference and that we can also have some partners to offer discounts and interesting places to visits with the local tourists offices. This year we did far beyond all our expectations so the buzz is generating a lot of interested about the next year event. We will try to help and give a lot of more information about the local town/city and surroundings for people visiting it for the very first time. 👍

[philhinco]

Maybe a small tour through Lausanne next year on the weekend before the conference would be a good idea for the people coming from abroad, or even those from Switzerland. Especially showing how to get from where to where (train station to venue etc)!

And maybe a quick mail before the conference giving travel info to get to the venue from some key points (train station, EPFL, etc).