On the Verge of BarCampDC

So tomorrow is the big day: BarCampDC will be kicking off at 9:30am tomorrow. Of course, several of us will have to be there much earlier to get things set up and ready in the fantastic offices at Fleishman Hillard. Overall, we all think that this is going to go very well, and we think we have a lot of the bases covered. That said, since none of us have actually run a conference/unconference/whatever on this scale, we’ll probably have a few hiccups here and there. Bear with us!

Anyway, for those of you attending, here are a few things worth knowing:

• When you arrive, there will be a registration table in the lobby with a few folks there to greet you and give you the low-down. You’ll get a conference badge and lanyard which you’ll need to wear the whole day. On it, write your name, your company (or not), and what general field you’re interested in (ie design, development, strategy, IA, marketing, etc). You’ll also get a great-looking t-shirt if they’re still available in your size, which you’re more than welcome to wear — you won’t look weird. Finally, you’ll get a series of tickets, which I’ll explain later. Hold onto them.
• When you go upstairs, go into Room 1, which is the largest of the rooms. You’ll find some breakfast foods there, which you’re more than welcome to.
• At 9:30 or thereabouts, we’ll have some quick announcements and start the scheduling process. We’ll explain how this works during the announcements, but we’ll have 27 presentation slots — nine time slots with one presentation in each of the three rooms — each of which will be 35 minutes (plus five minutes of sponsor time and five minutes between time blocks).
• Once there are three presentations per time slot, you’ll use one ticket for each slot, and put a ticket into the orange Viget Labs cup corresponding to the presentation you think you’ll probably attend. You can change your mind later, but we’ll need this to gauge which presentations should be in which room (they’re differently-sized).
• We’ll announce the titles and locations for the 10am sessions while we create some poster-size schedules.
• At 10:00, the presentations will start. Shortly before the end of each presentation block, the BarCampDC Twitter account will be updated with the rooms for the next session. It would be a good idea to follow that user and have updates sent to you via SMS if you are able to. That way, you can know where you’re going ahead of time.
• Sessions will continue every forty-five minutes throughout the day, with a 1pm lunch break sponsored by the AOL Developer Network. Keep your ears tuned for announcements for how lunch will work.
• There will be WiFi provided by Fleishman-Hillard, and you’ll get the password when you arrive. It’s six megabits down, and half a megabit up, so please try to keep your uploading to a minimum.
• We’ll have some books to give away during the course of the day. You’ll be given a few raffle tickets to put toward the books you’re interested in, and we’ll announce the results based on those. Look for the raffle at the beginning of the lunch period.
• At 5:30, the BarCampDC After Party will kick off at Cafe Asia, which is just a couple of blocks away on Eye Street between 17th and 18th. We’ve got the whole top floor, and attendees will get a drink ticket or two to help get things going. Be sure to order some food, because they’ve got some great stuff there.

Tons of folks have asked about the waiting list. As of now, the attendance list is closed. This isn’t too likely to change, even if one or two folks don’t show up. In the event that we have a ton of no-shows come late morning, maybe we’d make an adjustment to that, but I wouldn’t count on it at all. Any announcements would be made via the twitter account mentioned above. I know there are a lot of people who wanted to make it but couldn’t get onto the list, and we wish we could take everyone, but we have some limitations we need to heed. Thanks for understanding, and of course you’re all more than welcome to the after party! I’m sure there will be some great conversation there…

That’s the basic brain dump. If you have questions, feel free to ask one of the organizers, including myself. I’m the big guy with red hair who will be giving some of the morning announcements.