Hey John Green nice violation of my licensing agreement this originally published by DavidCrow at http://davidcrow.ca/article/1183/diy-democamp-in-your-town
What do I need to run my own DemoCamp?
The events are pretty straight forward. The goal get people together. Share what you are working on. No PowerPoint.
Like BarCamp, finding a space for DemoCamp is the most difficult thing. We’ve held DemoCamps in a variety of spaces: an office conference room; a complete office; a hallway; an auditorium (twice a classroom; and a bar.
We have often had the demos and the socializing take place is separate spaces. This has worked okay, though we tend to loose about 30% of the crowd as we transition to the social venue. We’ve always picked pubs that are within walking distance from the presentation space. Most of the pubs are no more than a 10 minute walk from the presentation space.
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You want a large open space that can accommodate the number of expected attendees. Ultimately the event is about allowing others in the community to meet and interact with each other. One of the pubs we’ve used has a lot of tables and very little mingling space. I find that this environment has really impeded the natural flow and networking. Early in the life of DemoCamp, corporate kitchens, boardrooms and hallways were the perfect amount of space. We could purchase beverages and pizza. The company hosting the event often would sponsor some snacks or beverages, though this was never a requirement for hosting.
DemoCamps in Toronto have been averaging about 150 people, we’ve needed to make sure that we’ve called the pub before the event to inform them of our numbers. This allows us to reserve space, allows the pub to have additional wait staff working because 150 geeks can drink a surprising amount of Guinness.
There is only 1 piece of equipment that we use for DemoCamp. We use an old school large darkroom clock (something like this if you’re interested). This is because Bryce is a old school photography geek and had one laying around. It’s basically a large dial countdown timer with a loud buzzer. Every presenter gets 15 minutes, when the timer goes off, the audience applauds and they leave the stage. You don’t need to buy one of these timers. Eli manually times each presentation at CaseCamp and announces to the presenter their time remaining. Find what works for you, but the timer is great because it just starts buzzing and the presenters disperse. There’s no “I just need a second”.
The only other pieces of equipment that have been handy to have around depending on location include:
The projector is a key part. Not having one readily available was the cause of the 30+ minute delay at DemoCampToronto7. The power cord/extension cord makes the set up and location of the projector much easier.
We try to make sure that the event location has a wifi network. But we’ve worked with wired network connections, using trusty PowerBooks and AirportExpresses to setup a wifi network for attendees and presenters.
Try the TorCamp Google Group first, or ask DavidCrow, JayGoldman, JoeydeVilla, BryceJohnson, GregWilson, or any of the others that have helped put on a DemoCamp.