Congratulations! The fact that you have reached this page means you at least have an interest in spreading the devops love to the world. Back in 2009 when we organized the first event, we were probably as excited as you are now. But we were also bit scared and full of questions: how does this work? how do we get sponsors? what is the first thing we have to do?
Years later, we can offer some advice from our experiences. Even though every event is a bit unique in its own way, we’ve come to a more or less standard approach for organizing these events. With this document we want to support you and make you feel at ease in organizing one yourself. Don’t worry; we’ll be there along the way!
We recommend that at least one person on your team attend another devopsdays first, and then get in touch with the core organizers to tell us about where you’d like to organize your own!
In the devops spirit of collaboration, find people in your region that want to help you run the next awesome event.
You’re going to need at least three people from three different organizations on your local organizing team, so you have a broader base of support and involvement from the community. We aren’t going to green-light events put on by just one company, and you’ll want the organizers from the relevant local meetups on board. Make sure everyone understands this is not about lead generation; organizers cannot use contact info from the event for their own companies.
When you have your initial team, email the global core organizers and we’ll schedule a kickoff meeting with you. This will be an hour-long video call with your team.
After the kickoff meeting, we’ll wait for you to send your initial pull request and for you to email us the email addresses and names of your organizer team. When we have those, we can officially set your event’s tools up.
The way you get your event listed on the website is by submitting a pull request to https://github.com/devopsdays/devopsdays-web. The instructions can be found on that repo’s README.
We prefer the city name for the actual email and site. Wider regional terms are less preferable since someone in a nearby city may want to host their own devopsdays. Fun nicknames require too much dereferencing of pointers and so are best kept for slogans and t-shirt designs.
It’s fine if you just list the organizers, the city, and say “coming soon”. You don’t need to have selected the date and venue yet; however, we won’t merge a PR with dates unless it also has a venue listed. You also do not need to open registration or open the CFP right away.
The devopsdays code of conduct is based on the one from the Geek Feminism Wiki as well additions by Andrew Clay Shafer for devopsdaysPGH 2014. You will need to have a code of conduct before your initial pull request will be merged.
We’ll set up the cityname@devopsdays.org mail alias for your team. This will let you have a standard email listed as a public-facing organizer point of contact. All organizers on your team need to be on this alias individually, and the global core team is also on this email alias. It’s fine to use other email lists, chat programs, and other tools for your internal coordination and outgoing announcements, but we require that your event’s published organizer_email: field be set to this for consistency and problem prevention.
We’ll also invite all your organizers to the global devopsdays organizer Slack team (with organizers from around the world!) so you can meet other organizers and share ideas. Using the global devopsdays organizer Slack is optional, and is also the best way to meet and chat with other devopsdays organizers, get help with the website and other tooling, and tap into the collective history and wisdom of devopsdays events from around the world! The only people we’ll invite to this Slack are the people listed as organizers on your contact page, and if you join, it’s a good idea to list your city in your Slack profile. If you want to use Slack for attendees at your event, you should set up a different one.
Every devopsdays event is different, but there are a few rules to keep in mind if you’d like your event to be listed on devopsdays.org:
Part of organizing the event is handling of the local event’s money. This will be needed for:
You cannot announce a date until you know you have a way to handle money. Realizing too late that you cannot process money has led to rescheduled or canceled events in the past.
The way many events have handled this is to find a local company that is willing to handle these logistics. In some countries, a local company is the only way to handle taxes. Some events register a local not-for-profit entity; there is no such central entity.
Depending on the size of the event, you might want to give them a Silver or Gold sponsorship in return. Make sure they understand they will need to generate invoices and accept/make payments with a fast turn-around.
If a local company is not an option, we’ve worked with a few companies in the past that are willing to help you for a fee:
If you would like to use this method, contact us to get more details.
To make invoicing smooth, it helps to use that company’s paypal account for registration (on eventbrite or equivalent) and to use paypal (or equivalent) buttons generated by them for sponsor packages.
Now that you have assembled your team, the next step is choosing a date. We usually take the following into consideration to find a good date:
Your budget is going to be refined and adjusted as you determine how many attendees you think you’ll get and how much you’re going to commit to spending up-front. You’re not going to know all these numbers immediately, but it’s valuable to start thinking about them as you’re choosing a venue.
Categories to consider:
Income:
Expenses:
Important Reminder: As you’ve seen in the rules above, these events are not intended for individual or corporate profit. This includes unnecessary high personal expenditures for the benefit of organizers. We can’t give precise numbers as to what qualifies as large amounts, since that would vary widely. Consider typical appropriate pricing for your region, and determine if you would find it to be unusually expensive.
Reasonable expenses for organizers:
Expenses for organizers which may be inappropriate:
When deciding on appropriate expenditures, check with your local team and reach out to the core team if you’d like guidance. Remember, these funds are intended to serve your community!
When you have some idea of when you want to run and how much you want to spend, you can start talking to potential venues.
Venue space considerations:
Aside from having enough space, there are other things to consider:
A final big space differentiator is the pricing: as the price of devopsdays is typically relatively low, we look for affordable venue space:
Venue sponsors (especially if you’re in their facility) may try to set limits on other sponsors; try to clarify this in writing ahead of time.
Don’t overcommit on the number of people coming and don’t do a pre-payment for the venue until you must. The same goes for food: it’s always easier to add a few extra plates as opposed to having too much food ordered.
If you have some legal entity created for the event, have the details at hand (legal name, contact details, business number etc.). Some venues may require this information to put in a hold for your chosen date(s).
The devopsdays logo with the gears in the brain has become recognizable for the overall devopsdays brand. For each individual devopsdays event you can take elements from the devopsdays brand logo. This is optional, but recommended. The goal should be to design something that denotes your city specifically.
Note different existing logos:
A simple exercise to do with your organizers would be to ask for one word descriptions of your city and then review and vote on the list.
Once you have a time and place, you can announce your event to the world! It’s great if you’ve had a chance to open your CFP and registration, though those aren’t essential to announce your dates.
Update your data file for your event to add your start & end dates; this adds your event to the front page!
Tweet with the hashtag #devopsdays and if desired, set up an event-specific Twitter account such as @devopsdaysmsp. If you PR your event Twitter handle onto your site, your tweets will be included in the Twitter feed on devopsdays.org.
On your local organizing team, it’s best to discuss the following tasks. Of course this is not set in stone, but it helps for people to focus on different areas.
When you’re ready to open your call for proposals, you’ll want to include the date it opens, the date it closes, and the date by which people will be informed of your decisions. People will usually need at least 4-6 weeks to arrange for travel or time off, and you’ll want your call to be open for at least a month, and you’ll want at least 2 weeks to consider proposals and fill in any gaps. This means that you should open your CFP as soon as possible, and close it at least 6-8 weeks before your event.
Set an official theme if one beyond “devops” is desired. Within the context of this theme (but other proposals can work too):
Events usually have 4 30-min talks per day + ignite talks. Open space sessions are scheduled during the conference, not ahead of time.
For people to respond to the call for proposals you can use your city@devopsdays.org address, a web form, a third-party CFP tool, etc.
Keep in mind that under-represented people in tech are much less likely to respond to your CFP. If you would like to encourage diverse viewpoints from voices other than those you hear the most often, you will need to reach out into those communities and encourage participation.
When looking for the best selection of speakers for your event, consider that expensive paid speakers are usually not the right fit for devopsdays, not because they are paid but because you’re looking for speakers who will connect with your community throughout and beyond your event (not just show up for their talk). While paying directly often can bring with it complex issues around taxes, visas, and conflict of interest/employment agreements, covering speaker expenses through direct payment or with reimbursements is a good use of funds if available.
Talk selection doesn’t have to be finished when you announce a schedule; it’s ok to leave some space until the end. Still, we found that a finished schedule helps for attendees to make the case for them to attend. Remember that announcing only a few speakers can lead to unwarranted assumptions about your demographics.
Don’t be surprised if proposals don’t flow in quickly at first. People usually wait a bit before sending them in and need some extra calls. It’s good to have a backup plan and contact individual speakers as well. You’re not required to create your schedule solely from responses to your CFP. You should also provide speaker support according to your budget; at a minimum, all speakers should receive a free event ticket.
It works best if you dedicate a person/pair to respond to proposals/speakers and handle communication. This is best for both ignite and conference talks. Your local team is going to select your event’s talks; you may ask other cities and/or the core organizers to weigh in to help you make a more balanced schedule having less overlap with other devopsdays, but that is up to you.
Overall guidelines for sponsorship are available. Sponsor packages are decided upon by the local organizing team for a city. The global core team does not offer sponsor packages, so any sponsors will work directly with the devopsdays event(s) they’d like to sponsor. You can use the examples in the template to help you make your decisions. Here are some typical offerings:
Devopsdays sponsorship prices are lower than at many other events. We want to avoid the traditional high-priced model for sponsors. We believe that the more companies that sponsor, the better: it amplifies the ideas and shows that many companies subscribe to the devops idea.
We believe the pricing is low compared to the value sponsors get. With that said, you may want to refrain from deviations from whatever standard package you publish in your sponsor prospectus. Exceptions take extra CPU cycles for your busy organizing team.
Other offerings might be:
As a reminder:
Sponsors pay the bills. You rely on them. So what can you do to find them and keep them satisfied?
Sponsors will usually ask you the following; best to have this information ready.
From experience, we found that it helps to have a dedicated local organizer or two act as the contact with the sponsors to track prospects, payment, and giving them discount codes.
When they sponsor they need to supply:
In return you’ll :
On the registration page, have them select the special sponsor ticket with their discount. Many of the sponsor contacts are traveling from event to event, so you may have to follow up with them a bit so they sign up their crew in time for your badge printing. Make sure you make the invoices “due on receipt” or provide Paypal links so sponsors don’t wait months to pay you.
We want to ensure that anyone who’s interested in attending a devopsdays is able to, and that price is not a barrier. So, you’ll want to keep your prices relatively low compared to many industry conferences.
We do not recommend making your event free. Experience has taught us that ‘free’ events come with a cost:
We recommend charging a minimal fee. This will keep your event accessible by making it cost a fraction of a typical high-priced conference ticket (perhaps 10% to 20% of what someone might pay to attend a commercial tech event in your region). This gives us the best of both worlds:
The downside is that this will require ‘official’ payment (sometimes with invoices):
Bottom line: if you want to charge a fee (which gives you better financial protection), make sure you have considered that in your handling of the money.
To encourage people to register early it’s advised to offer discounted early-bird registration.
Because getting time away from work may already be a barrier for under-represented people in tech, offering free tickets to those individuals may make it more possible for them to secure workplace buy-in on their participation. If your budget has room, this is a good place to spend some of the extra money. Be sure you comply with all local laws that may apply in regards to demographic information and the uses thereof.
Once pricing has been decided you’re ready to set up registration. We’ve had good experiences with Eventbrite integrated with PayPal payments. The paypal account for payment needs to be linked directly to the company that does the invoicing. (Note: if using Eventbrite, use Paypal, not “Eventbrite payment processing”, or configure Eventbrite to disperse funds frequently so you don’t have to wait until after your event.)
The core organizers will not run registration for you, but we can suggest things that will be useful to you in your registration process.
Specifically on eventbrite we usually:
Attendee email or direct-contact information should never be visible on the website or given out to vendors. We value privacy and do not want attendees to be spammed.
DevOps encourages the free flow of information, sharing experiences, and communication among peers. The recommended structure of events reinforces and amplifies these practices.
First time events should consult with a core organizer before altering the format. Doing so will ensure organizers benefit from our experience organizing and attending DevOpsDays all over the world.
The recommended format includes:
We provide a sample schedule in the event template.
You can usually draw on different sources to get speakers:
A few words of advice:
Printing shirts is entirely optional. Some events choose to donate to charity instead, while others go with a different kind of swag. If you decide to do shirts, bear in mind that at registration time, attendees can help you know what their body shapes and sizes mean for their preferences. Ask! Do not just guess, or you will find you’ve inadvertently made some attendees feel excluded.
While some shirt styles only go to 2XL, there will be attendees who (given the option) will choose 3XL, 4XL, or 5XL. Women will sometimes be happier with a fitted shirt (which is not the same as a “girl” shirt - those are typically a “junior” size). Avoid making your extended sizes and your fitted shirts significantly different from the “S-2XL unisex” shirt in color or design.
Keep in mind that you want your design to be appealing on a wide range of humans, not just those who happen to have smaller torsos without many curves. If you want soft, comfortable shirts that can fit many people, consider something like a tri-blend instead of a 100% cotton shirt.
If you’re ordering shirts a few weeks before your event, consider padding the counts by up to 30% of each size/style. Having a few extra shirts is way better than anyone going home sad.
You may also want to order stickers or other items. Give yourself plenty of lead time.
There will almost certainly be a few speakers and sponsors who will travel to your event and will appreciate having a discounted rate at the most conveniently located affordable hotel you can manage.
If you’re holding your event in a hotel, they will likely give you a “courtesy” room block that guarantees a discounted rate for your attendees.
If you’re not using the hotel’s meeting rooms and catering, they may want you to guarantee at least 80% or so of the room nights you block off for your group will be used. This isn’t as risky as it sounds if you want to start with a very small block (5 rooms or so, for the night before day one and the night between day one and day two - don’t expect people to stay overnight the evening of day two). Usually the hotel will also let you add more rooms to the block as it fills.
If you make your group rate code available on your website, keep on eye on who registers with it (the hotel should be able to provide this info), and ensure that you have enough space for all the out-of-town people you expect. You may have to remind some people to register, as the group rate usually expires a month or so before an event.
You will want a local organizer acting as the primary contact person with the venue. You will need to arrange things like the chair layout, table arrangement, audio-visual needs, etc. The catering deadline (by which time you’ll need to provide numbers) is usually a couple weeks or so before your event.
Make sure you ask the venue how soon sponsors can start shipping items there, get the correct address/routing info, and ask what fees they might incur. Find out exact times you’ll have access to your space, and find out whether you’ll have secure overnight storage (because both you and definitely the sponsors will need that).
Your venue may require some form of insurance. See what they require, and look into something like TULIP event insurance depending on what’s available for your local area.
You will want some members of your local organizing team to be tasked with…
Most devopsdays host a social gathering the evening after the first day of the two-day event. This is a great place for attendees to get to know one another better. There’s some sort of food and drink, but usually a full dinner is not provided. Having fun activities to participate in (bowling, trivia, other games, etc) is recommended. While alcohol is enjoyable, it should not be the only activity, and it’s important to remember the needs of attendees who aren’t choosing to drink alcohol. It’s also not required for your event to pay for any alcohol; if it’s not free, it is more socially acceptable to refrain from choosing it.
Often the evening event will be at a different location than the venue for the talks. It’s a good idea to make it within walking distance or provide transportation if possible. Running it at the same venue can lead to higher attendance, especially if you provide some content such as the Ignite talks.
Offering a family-inclusive evening event will allow more people to participate; unlike at a destination conference, many local devopsdays events occur within commuting distance. While people who work outside the home typically have a daycare arrangement in place, it probably does not extend into the evening.
You are going to want a place where people can check in and get their badges when they arrive. They may also pick up T-shirts there. If you use Eventbrite, there is an app which makes check-in much easier than using paper, but it may not be necessary to do more than just give the badges out (as you can see which ones are left at the end.) Sort the badges ahead of time alphabetical by last, then first name. If you separate out the sponsor ones, keep in mind that some people might not realize if they fell into the “sponsor” tickets or a “regular attendee” ticket according to how their company registered them.
Sort shirts by style and size, and then let attendees just tell you which size they wanted. If you built in enough margin of error, this won’t cause any problems and will be the most efficient way to deal with it, rather than looking up what they ordered.
You may want to staff the registration desk at all times if you want to be able to help attendees with their questions. As the conference organizers may want to attend talks, it’s wise to call in favors from friends and family who aren’t interested in the subject matter of the talks and won’t mind missing them all. Make sure any such staff have a way of getting ahold of the organizer on duty for any questions they can’t answer on their own.
Whether or not you’re able to livestream, it’s important to record all the talks. This is invaluable for your speakers, and it’s great for the community. Your audiovisual company should be able to provide a camera or cameras and record the feed off the board into a computer. If you have no budget for recording talks, a smartphone is better than nothing.
If you’re going to livestream, rehearse ahead of time, and then assign at least one person to run it during the event.
Some services exist to record and stream; check with others in your region to see what they’re using.
Running Ignites can be a challenge: people tend to submit them last minute, or they didn’t understand the format too well. Here are few tips on making this process run more smoothly:
impressive -a 15 http://impressive.sourceforge.net/There is a wealth of detail on the Open Space format page. Consider both a physical schedule grid (often assembled via a whiteboard and oversized sticky notes) and an easily-updated shared spreadsheet you can link from your event page. Also consider posting the open space choices for a specific room outside that room.
If you have further questions, chat with the other organizers on Slack, and have fun! It’s going to be great!