On March 28 to 30, 2016, we had our first SC17 Planning meeting in Denver, Colorado. This is just a small, first meeting of the Executive Committee, i.e., the Chairs for Technical Program, Communication, Exhibits, Local Arrangements, SCinet, Students@SC, Communications, and Finance, the Deputy Chair, the Vice Chair, the Executive Director, a representative of ACM, and me.

Near fullscale model of StarWars X-Wing Fighter at the “Wings over the Rockies Air & Space” Museum — Picture by Bernd Mohr

On the first day, we visited various locations in Denver suitable for events with 2000 and more people. During the SC conference, there are typically two associated networking events: one for the exhibitors on the Sunday before the conference with 1500 to 1800 people, and one for the technical program attendees on Thursday with up to 2500 attendees. As one can easily imagine, organizing these large events is not a simple task and you have to start early finding the right locations and work with the local staff, to make it work.

The rest of the meeting we discussed the status of the work in each area. The main task for each executive chair in the next months is to recruit her/his subcommittee. With all subcommittees and reviewers for the technical program in place, the overall committee will be over 500 people by the end of the year. Another topic was the organization of the rest of the planning meetings; another 3 in 2016 (June, August, and November) and 5 more in 2017 (January, March, June, August, and October) before SC17 in November 2017.

The meeting went very well, and after the meeting I am now even more confident that I picked the right people for my Executive Committee.

Being SC17 General Chair also means that I am SC16 Deputy Chair “shadowing” the SC16 General Chair John West which means that I watch and learn from him at all meetings and at the conference in 2016, so I am well prepared for the conference organization work “my” year.

Snow blizzard in Salt Lake City — Picture by Bernd Mohr

The SC16 Organization Committee met in Salt Lake City, where the SC conference will be this year, for a first planning meeting on March 22nd and 23rd. The first morning, a tour of the Salt Palace Convention Center (SPCC) was on our schedule.  Just in time, when we wanted to start walking to the Convention Center , it started snowing heavily 😉  Luckily, I was prepared and I had packed some warm clothing.

Salt Palace Convention Center, ready for ComicCon — Picture by Bernd Mohr

When we arrived at the Convention Center we saw that preparations were in full swing to get ready for Comic Con Salt Lake which was scheduled to open just a few days later.

SPCC main ballroom — Picture by Bernd Mohr

When we toured the Convention Center, we could also watch the preparations in the main ball room which seats up to 4900 people. We will use it for the keynote and invited talks at SC16.

There is not much to report from the actual meeting: the progress in the different areas of the conference (technical program, finance, infrastructure, local arrangements, communications, student@SC, SCinet, and exhibition) is discussed. About 60 people, almost all volunteers from all other the world, typically attend such a meeting.

Hiking the Hilton Head island beach in a meeting break – Picture by Bernd Mohr

After the conference (see past blog entry) is before the conference! So the SC committee met last week in the picturesque Hilton Head island in South Carolina. This is the so-called “Turnover” meeting: the outgoing SC committee (SC15 this time) meets with the now-in-charge committee for this year’s conference (SC16) to exchange ideas and experiences, discuss issues and problems and suggestions how to fix them for the next conference. This is one instrument SC uses to ensure quality and continuity over the years although the organizing committee changes from year to year. The other is the SC Steering committee which also meets in the same place for two additional days to discuss strategy and policies.

These face-to-face planning meetings are important for the success of the conference as SC is mainly organized by a large group of volunteers with the help of a few contractors. The typical committee size is around 500 people. Of course, only the committee and subcommittee chairs come to these meetings but this still can be easily 60 to 80 people. (And in case you were wondering about it: yes, the home organizations of the people are paying for the travel and hotel!) Besides exchanging experiences, face-to-face meetings also ensure that the different subcommittees (e.g. technical program, exhibition, infrastructure, finance, or local arrangements) get to know each other better and learn more about the work of the other subcommittees.

The Turnover meeting is traditionally in a “warmer” location (as it is always mid to end of January), and while it was warmer than many places people came from (e.g. in Jülich it was snowing ;-)) it was not as warm as expected: the temperature was more in the single-digit degrees Celsius and with the cold wind it was feeling more like freezing. At least we were not hit by “Snowzilla”, the blizzard which went over the Northeast of the US at the end of the week. A few committee members actually got stuck in Hilton Head Island for a few extra days as there home airport was closed a few days.