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I organised a panel for HAR2009 on Organising a Con. The recordings are up (Video: OGV, MP4; Audio: MP3).

It was a great airing ground on starting and running a con, on both ends of the size scale. Topics covered included money, volunteers, speakers, AV, location, t-shirts, event insurance, delegation, social aspects and sleeplessness.

Anyone interested in running a con (new or existing) should take a look to pick up tips from people who’ve seen the challenges and share their insights on how to clear the hurdles.

Those sitting on the panel were:

• Emmanuel Goldstein (H.O.P.E., Hacker con, NYC – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Rop Gonggrijp (GHP, HEU, HIP, HAL, WTH, Dutch Hacker Camps, The Netherlands – Wikipedia)
• Andreas Kupfer (FrOSCon, Free/Open Source Con, Germany – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Philip Paeps (FOSDEM, Free/Open Source Developer Meeting, Belgium – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Stuart Langridge (Lugradio Live, Linux/Free Software con, UK & US – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• David “h1kari” Hulton (ToorCon, Information Security con/camp, San Diego – Wikipedia, Homepage)
• Esther Schneeweisz (PlumberCon, Hacker con, Austria – Homepage)
• Christian van den Bosch (SotM, Open Street Map con, UK, Ireland, The Netherlands – Homepage)
• Travis Goodspeed (Neighborcon, Con-in-a-Bar, US – Homepage)
• David Dolphin (Skycon, University society con, Ireland – Homepage)