Interview with Florian Lorétan

Florian: Well, we have enough space for 2500 people. This is bigger than other European conferences, but at the same time, well… there’s been steady growth in the community. Also Munich has a very central location in Europe. It’s very easily accessible from pretty much anywhere by either plane or train, so I’m expecting a lot of people to come. Also, since we want to reach out more to people outside the community, it’s not going to be an event that’s just for a niche group. We want to make it a great event that we hope will attract people from outside the community. I personally expect the conference to sell out. It might not be possible to buy tickets at the entrance. If we get as much interest from attendees as we got from sponsors, if it goes as quickly, then we will definitely be sold out.
Lowell: That’s great! Unfortunately, I’m not personally going to be able to get to Denver… between the cost of airfare, the cost of staying in a hotel for a week, and other expenses, it’s just not in my personal budget right now, so I’m wondering how the prices of hotel accommodations in Munich compare to the costs in London and in winter-tourist-season Denver?
Florian: In Munich, the conference is taking place at a hotel where they’ve offered conference attendees a special price which includes, among other things, free Wi-Fi in the rooms. There are various advantages. You can already make reservations by phone or by e-mail just by mentioning DrupalCon and there’ll be a special form for booking your hotel accommodations which should be ready soon. Otherwise, Munich is not a cheap city, but there are some budget priced hotels in the area and the local transportation is good, so it should be possible to stay at other hotels and easily get to and from the conference location. Public transportation there is great and I would certainly recommend anyone coming for the week, especially if they are staying at another hotel, to buy a public transportation ticket for the week. I think it’s 13 or 14 Euros.
Lowell: That’s a good deal. Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share with us.
Florian: Well one of the things that we did in London is that when we announced the conference in Munich we handed out stickers. The logo for the conference is actually a beer coaster. And our design team from Cocomore came up with the idea, “Hey, the logo is a beer coaster, how about printing real beer coasters?” And so we looked into that, and then when we were looking at the quantities, we realized that we could actually use a lot of those. And so a couple of weeks ago they were printed and then just last week we received them in our office. It’s two very big and very heavy boxes full of beer coasters, and now we’re distributing those at various Drupal events. so we’re here at DrupalCamp Essen and people are very excited about them already and they’re taking them back to their respective user groups. We’re taking them to CeBIT, the largest IT conference in Europe, where Drupal has a booth. We are also taking many of them to DrupalCon Denver and to many other events. And so one of the things that were going to do with these is we’re going to have a contest for the most creative use of these coasters. So it’s going to be on Twitter; just post a creative use of your beer coaster. And, of course you first need to get your hands on one of them. So if you’re in Denver, be sure to get one. And if you’re not going to Denver, make sure you ask someone who’s going to Denver to get one for you. I’m sure it’s going to be a lot of fun, so more details will be coming up soon. Make sure you get your hands on one of those beer coasters. The design team from Cocomore really did a fantastic job! It’s been a pleasure working with them.

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