This document reports everything behind the placement research for DebConf4 in Porto Alegre - RS - Brazil. The main purpose is to sum up information about places the local team have prospected, and to present a budget projection for the DebConf4 local expenses (like hosting, food, auditoriums, and so on).
Since the possibility of really organizing a DebConf in Brazil came up, we, the brazilian Debian Developers, started a discussion about the ideal place for DebConf. It's our understanding that Porto Alegre, in Brazil's southmost state, would be the best place for it, for reasons that goes beyond the scope of this document.
So, besides me, a group of other "locals" formed a local DebConf4 team to prospect places to hold the event. It were more than 20 meetings, and 11 places originally enlisted, from which only 7 are described here. During this process, pictures were taken, and a lot of negotiation took place. This report is this team's hard work result and it represents our true desire of making this DebConf4, not only a great event, but also a democratic one. We release this document now, so we all can begin the discussions about the best suited place to hold the DebConf4.
The following table is a summary of the 7 places we've visited and/or negotiated with. I'll present it first and then I'm going to discuss every place. This way we can have a visual of everything before getting into details. Beware of the last column: not every place were available during the time of the event... I've enlisted them here, though, for reference...
Table 1. The "Big 7" places
| Place | Capacity | $/Person/Day | Food | Rooms | Accessibility | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Capuchinhos | 150 people | R$ 43,00 (US$ 14.57) | 3 meals + 2 coffee breaks | 2 big ones (50 and 110 people), and 2 small ones, for logistics | Not currently. Planning on install elevators before the event | 26 May ~ 6 Jun |
| Saint Joseph | 70 people | R$ 35,00 (US$ 11.86) | 3 meals + 2 coffee breaks | 2 big ones (60 people each), and 3 small ones, for logistics | No. | No. The 29-30/May were already taken but unconfirmed so far |
| priest George | 104 | R$ 45,00 (US$ 15.25) | 3 meals + 2 coffee breaks | 2 big ones (70 people each) | No. | No. |
| Betania's House | 100 | R$ 35,00 (US$ 11.86) | 3 meals | 2 big ones (40 and 60 people) and a small one for logistics | No. | No. |
| SESC | 150 | R$ 32,27 (US$ 10.93) | Only breakfast. Other meals average: R$ 9,50/meal (US$ 3.22) | 1 auditorium for 300 people, 1 for 50 people and 2 for 30 people | Yes. | 26 May ~ 6 Jun |
| Suelen's Building | 102 | R$ 15,00 (US$ 5.08) | Nothing included. Other meals average: R$ 9,50/meal (US$ 3.22) | No rooms, but there's the possibility of turning some rooms into classrooms (for 30 people) | No | 26 May ~ 6 Jun |
| Coral Tower | 150 | R$ 44,00 (US$ 14.91) | Only breakfast. Other meals average: R$ 9,50/meal (US$ 3.22) | Room for the computers and a logistics one. Other rooms under payment. Auditorium for 250 people: R$ 800,00/day (US$ 271.18) | Yes | 26 May ~ 6 Jun |
The following list tries to summarize the costs not involved with the placement itself.
Rented Computers: R$ 12.000,00 (US$ 4,067.79)
Networking: R$ 2.000,00 (US$ 677.96)
Projection Equipment: R$ 3.000,00 (US$ 1,016.94)
Since the size of the event depends a lot on the number of atendees, and that is not defined, we've considered 3 sizes and the following table represents a budget projection for each option, taking also in account the duration of the hosting (including the days of the FISL and not). The unavailable places are not listed. Please, note, also, that I've not included the R$ 17.000,00 (US$ 5,762.00) represented by the costs in the previous section:
Table 2. Costs according to the size of the event
| Option | Capuchinhos | SESC | Suelen's Building | Coral Tower |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 70 people | 3 meals: R$ 21.070,00 (US$ 7,142.37) | only breakfast: R$ 15.812,30 (US$ 5,360.10) 3 meals: R$ 25.122,30 (US$ 8,516.03) | no meals: R$ 7.350,00 (US$ 2,491.52) | only breakfast: R$ 21.560,00 (US$ 7,308.47) 3 meals: R$ 30.870,00 (US$ 10,464.40) |
| 70 people + FISL | 3 meals: R$ 30.100,00 (US$ 10,203.38) | only breakfast: R$ 22.589,00 (US$ 7,657.28) 3 meals: R$ 35.889,00 (US$ 12,165.76) | no meals: R$ 10.500,00 (US$ 3,559.32) | only breakfast: R$ 30.800,00 (US$ 10,440.67) 3 meals: R$ 44.100,00 (US$ 14,949.15) |
| 100 people | 3 meals: R$ 30.100,00 (US$ 10,203.38) | only breakfast: R$ 22.589,00 (US$ 7,657.28) 3 meals: R$ 35.889,00 (US$ 12,165.76) | no meals: R$ 10.500,00 (US$ 3,559.32) | only breakfast: R$ 30.800,00 (US$ 10,440.67) 3 meals: R$ 44.100,00 (US$ 14,949.15) |
| 100 people + FISL | 3 meals: R$ 43.000,00 (US$ 14,576.27) | only breakfast: R$ 32.270,00 (US$ 10,938.98) 3 meals: R$ 51.270,00 (US$ 17,379.66) | no meals: R$ 15.000,00 (US$ 5,084.74) | only breakfast: R$ 44.000,00 (US$ 14,915.25) 3 meals: R$ 63.000,00 (US$ 21,355.93) |
| 150 people | 3 meals: R$ 45.150,00 (US$ 15,305.08) | only breakfast: R$ 33.883,50 (US$ 11,485.93) 3 meals: R$ 53.833,50 (US$ 18,248.64) | no meals: R$ 15.750,00 (US$ 5,338.98) | only breakfast: R$ 46.200,00 (US$ 15,661.01) 3 meals: R$ 66.150,00 (US$ 22,423.72) |
| 150 people + FISL | 3 meals: R$ 64.500,00 (US$ 21,864.40) | only breakfast: R$ 48.405,00 (US$ 16,408.47) 3 meals: R$ 76.905,00 (US$ 26,069.49) | no meals: R$ 22.500,00 (US$ 7,627.11) | only breakfast: R$ 66.000,00 (US$ 22,372.88) 3 meals: R$ 94.500,00 (US$32,033.89) |
"Capuchinhos" is how is denominated a catholic order of priests. They have a "Preyer House", as they call it, where people can get together for some religious activity. About 2 years ago, they've open their house for other kinds of events, besides the religious ones.
It is, certainly a pleasant place, with a good backyard where the priests used to keep some plants, and where a huge barbecue can be found. It's not very near FISL, but it's close to a great avenue, where city buses can be taken to reach anyplace in town.
They have lots of stairs, and no big room in the ground level. This can make the life of those in wheel-chairs really difficult. They said they're thinking of buying some elevators, and maybe those would be in place in time for DebConf. But no warranties were given.
For pictures of the place, go to Marlon's website.
Suelen is the name of this building owner. It's a hosting-only place. There are no rooms for meetings or lectures. It's the closest place from FISL, only 3-5-min away, and, also, near a big avenue, with buses for everywhere.
The building have a lot of complete apartments (with kitchen, laundry and so on), not quite what we were expecting.
As they're full when we visited, they've not allowed us to take inside pictures. The pictures for the outside can be found, as usual, at Marlon's website
Coral Tower is the place where Bdale and Wichert were hosted this year. They can surely tell what they thought about the place.
It's a good place, near FISL, with rooms for lectures and all the infrastructure for wheel-chairs. It's half-way downtown, which makes it the ideal place for those interested in getting to know Porto Alegre. For those seeking peace, though, it's far from it: there are no green areas nearby and it's in a heavy-traffic avenue.
We had no time to take pictures, since this offer came in the last moment, but pictures of the place can be found at their website.
The "Serviço Social do Comércio" (Trade Social Service) is an entity financed by trading businessmen whose only intent is to promote the common welfare. It has public actions in the Education, Health, Leisure, and Cultural areas.
SESC was the first place we've gone after. They have a beautiful country hotel, with a good price and a huge area, really well-fit for this kind of event. This was the place where we found the best conditions to negotiate. They seem really interested in hosting the DebConf and, even after all this time negotiating, when I said I was going to publish this document, they stated they're still open to further negotiation.
They have a pleasant place, with a huge green area with sports squares and barbecues places, and a whole lot of walking sites right in the middle of the city. It's 10 minutes away from FISL, and near a great avenue where one can take a city bus for virtually anyplace in town.
Being a hotel, they have all the structure for wheel-chairs, including ramps and elevators.
The pictures for SESC can be found at Marlon's website. For the Portuguese speakers, their website brings more information about their organization nation-wide.
This is a lovely place, much like Capuchinhos. Also a "Preyer House". But I am not going into many details about it, because it's not available for the time of the event. When we first scheduled the visit, they said it were available, but when we got there to take pictures and to negotiate a good price (as we did with every other), the encharged priest told us they've booked something already for the May 29-30th weekend and the house were not going to be available on those days. They kept my phone number in case of a change in the schedule, but he didn't see much confident about that happening.
Anyway, for what it's worth, the pictures, as usual, can be found at Marlon's website
The other places listed in the first table and not discussed in this section were not visited. When we made the first contact they're available, but when we phoned them to set the visit up, the schedule were already full. So we don't really have any first-line information about them.
For all we've seen so far, and for all we've exposed in this document, it is quite easy to choose one place to recommend. SESC is, by far, the best suited place for DebConf. We can already foresee our fellows Debian Developers and other attendees playing {soccer,volleyball,basketball,put-here-your-sport} while discussing what to do with the current status of testing or how to code a new generation of signed packages, or taking a walk in the woods immediately after releasing a new security advisory.
We can have barbecues, we can attend to city tours and, if there's some time left, even do some Debian work :-). And for the ones interested in attend a good academic (not commercial) Forum, FISL is just the day after and 10-minutes away.
FISL stands for Fórum Internacional do Software Livre (International Free Software Forum). It's an academic event that has happened every year for the last 4 years. It is organized by PSL-RS (Projeto Software Livre RS - Free Software Project), a project maintained by the non-profit organization known as Associacao SoftwareLivre.org (SoftwareLivre.org Association).
More information about FISL and PSL-RS can be found at the Sponsorship Plan for the 5th FISL.
During all these 5 months we were working in this research, we were also attending to PSL-RS' meetings. Over and over, it were discussed what they could do for DebConf and how excited they were about having it so close to FISL. They've already commited to donate at least R$ 60.000,00 (US$ 20,338.98) for DebConf as sponsorship, besides getting all the contacts for the infra-structure needed and so.
PSL-RS' leaders ask me every meeting about how are things doing and reiterates their full support for DebConf. They've been a good supportive team
This would not have been acomplished without the help of those I called "local team" throughout this document:
Marlon Dutra <marlon@debian-rs.org>
Loimar Vianna <loimar@softwarelivre.org>
Mário Teza <mlteza@via-rs.net>
Marcelo Branco <marcelo@debian-rs.org>
Eurico Pittas do Canto <eurico@luca.com.br>
Christiano Anderson <anderson@gnu.org>
Me :-)