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Looking for 2016-2017 Host Cities


PyCon moves around

PyCon North America travels from one city to the other every two years.  After Santa Clara in 2013, we'll go to Montréal for two years.  Where we go from there is entirely up to you.   

Do you want PyCon to come to your city?  This may seem very far away but it's already the time to start looking for our next venue for 2016 and 2017.  Here is how you can make it happen.

The bidding process

The next host city will be nominated by the site selection committee in the months following PyCon 2013.  Even though the deadline for proposing a city has not been set yet, interested cities should start working on their bid documents as soon as possible.  After all the bid documents are received, a shortlist of potential host cities will be picked and site inspection surveys will follow.

What goes into the bid document

The bid document should present your city, describe why it would be a great location for PyCon and highlight the numbers and the qualitative aspects that will make your city shine compared to other locations.

We are looking for a city with a thriving Python community so tell us bit about your local user group and its activities.

A critical aspect of the bid is to document that your location can support a conference the size of PyCon. That means:
  • A venue that can accommodate between 2000 and 3500 delegates with plenty of extra rooms for open-space and expo-hall;
  • A network capacity of at least 100 Mbps, ideally with existing wifi equipment, and the possibility to add routers on the spot to cover weak areas;
  • Enough hotel rooms near the venue to accommodate all the attendees at a competitive rate;
  • The venue must be available for a conference between February and April without clashes with major holidays.

We want PyCon to remain an affordable conference and the overall cost of the venue will be taken into account.  You should therefore strive to secure a venue and hotels that would keep the cost of going to PyCon around the level where it is today.


How to get started

You first step should be to form a team that is going to be in charge of building the bid and to present it at the site selection meeting.  PyCon has attained a scale that makes it a very interesting conference for the host city.  You should not hesitate to contact your local tourism bureau – they will most likely be delighted to help you with the survey of the available venues and with hotel negotiations.


Example Bid

See the proposal that Montréal submitted for an example of a well detailed document but note that for brevity and due to the competitive nature of some of the content, some of the sections were removed.

Info Session

This may all seem very intimidating and you are probably left with several questions.  Join us at PyCon 2013 for a one-hour information session on the site selection bidding process.  The session will take place in room 209 at 2 pm on Sunday March 17th.  There will be plenty of time for you to ask questions.



Still in doubt?

If you have questions regarding what information to include in your bid document or regarding technical details of the conference, don't hesitate to ask them on the organizers’ mailing list.

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