WordCamp Cape Town 2012

Last Thursday I went the Kirstenbosch conference venue to speak to the Alison Pekeur who is the Events Co-ordinator at the Kirstenbosch Visitors’ Centre. She has booked the venue for WordCamp Cape Town on Thursday 4th October 2012.

The votes indicated that the most popular date for the event was the 5th October, however by the time I put my booking in the 5th was already taken. The next best date was the 4th October and its booked!

The top level agenda is as follows:

• 8-9am registration starts
• 9am introduction speaker
• 10:30-11am tea break
• 11-12:30am next session
• 12:30-1:30pm lunch break
• 1:30-3pm next session
• 3-3:30pm tea break
• 3:30-5:30pm last session for the day

Zaheed Manuel commented about Friday mosque, so happy to tell our Muslim friends that you won’t be missing out on anything.

Rob Hope mentioned that Rocking the Daises is a 4 day event this year starting on the Thursday 4th October and Nicholas Pretorius commented that he is keen to fly down from Pretoria to attend both WordCamp CT and Rocking the Daisies.

I am glad that the admin task of booking the venue is behind me, now I have to start raising sponsorship to pay for the event. If you would like to sponsor WordCamp CT then please take a look at the sponsorship packages and apply to be a sponsor.

Its hard to please everyone, last year I feel we made a success of pleasing our Campers! One of the comments was that the food served was amazing, it was really great, but unfortunately its costly to provide food for all the attendees. Last year the food and coffee per head price was approximately R300 per person which worked out to be around R60000. WordPress requested last year that WordCamp organisers charge approximately R135 per ticket, which meant that sponsorship was key to making the event a success.

This year the aim is to get at least 300 people and WordPress has said we can sell tickets at R165 per person. Venue hire and catering costs without lunch for 300 people work out to be about R300 per person currently, this is due to the anticipated increased number of attendees. If we manage to get sufficient sponsorship to cover lunches for everyone, then we will definitely cater lunch.

Moyo has taken over the restaurant at Kirstenbosch gardens and they have provided this as a menu:

• Arrival tea/coffee – moyo crunchies and seasonal fresh fruit platter
• Mid morning tea/coffee break – Homemade muffins with Tierhoek preserves
• Afternoon tea/coffee break – moyo chocolate brownies

To conclude, I am certain this year’s event will be one up on last year’s event. The venue will be stunning as its in spring time and the flowers will be out in full bloom. The snacks we do have planned will be delicious. There should be a bigger crowd, which will help to make the experience more diverse. I doubt we will run out of space as the venue could cater for as many as 400 people.