Flock 2024 is coming to North America. Help us decide where to go?

Project Discussion
,
81

If you’re looking for a cheaper place for accomodation (event & personal), then I can tell you from organizing past international events that Kitchener is definitely a lot cheaper than Ottawa. Because it’s in the heart of Canada’s Silicon Valley, there are plenty of suitable/available co-working and event spaces available that are very reasonably-priced (e.g., 8 Queen Street North, Lot42, Communitech, Velocity, 44 Gaukel, and Catalyst Commons, etc.), and there are plenty of hotels that will do deeply discounted rates (we’ve used the beautiful historic Walper Hotel several times in the past for events).

There’s also plenty of outdoor things to do in the region within a 30 min drive (e.g., Tubing - Grand River Conservation Authority).

82

There is a relatively famous (for the area) Farmers Market that is very busy, but has a lot of locally grown food to offer.
Waterloo University is there as is Wilfred Laurier, Guelph, Connestoga College, Seagrams Museum and restaurant, plus a fairly active nightlife in the region. A bonus is Go Transit links to Toronto (esp. west end where airport is). Lots of restaurants , in Guelph, Waterloo, Kitchener, and Cambridge. Including some of the best Smash Burgers I’ve had in Kitchener downtown (which has been greatly revitalized). This also happens to be the home of the largest Oktoberfest in North America. Ein Prosit!! :beers:

83

I think that even keeping that as a option open the door to pressure to use it, as for example, a manager saying “we cannot force you to share a room, but if you don’t, we have only budget for 1 person”.

This doesn’t look like consent, and I have plenty of examples of it happening at cough one big sponsor cough of Fedora .

And while having people being able to express some preferences sound like a empowering idea by placing the choice in the end of who are impacted, it can IMHO be quite risky, depending on the type of preferences expressed. I do not think Fedora is in the business of being able to see what would count as preferences and what would count as discrimination around the world.

84

I’ll confess I’d love to see this in the Chicago area. There are two airports in the city, a ton of local universities, and a decent train line.

85

Thanks all for your ongoing feedback on the Flock location. I am looking to wind down the public discourse on Monday next week. The Flock process will move into the next stage of soliciting bids from a range of venues after next Monday.

Based on the multinational interest in hosting the next Flock and keeping the requirements list in the original post in mind, we would explore bids in three cities from three countries: Canada, Mexico, and the United States. The top candidate cities from each country are below:

  1. Canada: Toronto, ON; Montreal, QC[1]
  2. Mexico: Ciudad de México (CDMX)
  3. United States: Rochester, NY; Greater Boston Area, MA

I need to narrow down the list of five cities to no more than three for this next stage in the Flock process. This also means narrowing down the US and Canada options to one city per country.

For Canada: The airplane accessibility scores highly for either Toronto or Montreal. I am not sure between these two which city has a higher price point for hotel/venue space. I am also not sure which of the Canadians here are local to these two cities, or close enough that they would consider themselves local. Those two factors would sway the decision for which city to carry through to the next stage (possibly more influence than the outcome of the poll below).

For the United States: Boston has greater airplane accessibility than Rochester, but the connection route through NYC for Rochester keeps Rochester competitive. I am concerned about cost for hotel/venue space in Boston that I do not think is comparable for Rochester. We have a strong presence of locals in both cities, which is an advantage to both. Both cities have welcomed a previous Flock either directly or in the nearby vicinity. I have a personal advantage to Rochester since I lived there for five years.

These are my comparative thoughts for Canada and the United States so far. I will make a poll in the next post to get a quick temperature check on the remaining options.

  1. What happened to Ottawa? I was considering Ottawa and started to check for international flight fares. I looked for New Delhi, India; Lagos, Nigeria; Prague, Czech Republic; and Mexico City, Mexico. Airfare cost for August 2024 increases and there are lengthy journeys for many international travelers with 2+ stops. I checked each city with Toronto and Montreal, and I felt that the airfare was more viable in total number of hops and also considering transit visas that would be required for some routes and their connecting flights. ↩︎

1 Like
86

Poll 1: United States

If Flock went to the United States in 2024, which city would you prefer?
  • Boston, Massachusetts
  • Rochester, New York
0 voters

Poll 2: Canada

If Flock went to Canada in 2024, which city would you prefer?
  • Montreal, Quebec
  • Toronto, Ontario
0 voters
87

I voted for Rochester — I think transit-accessible Boston is too expensive, and outside of that, too hard to get to. I could go either way for the Canadian options — I’ve actually been to neither!

2 Likes
88

If US == Rochester I would prefer Montreal over Toronto bc we’ve had a FUDcon Toronto but we’ve never been to Montreal

Actually, honestly Montreal is the only city out of all we’ve not done

3 Likes
89

I know it’ll take longer to get to Rochester, but I think the overall costs would be lower so voted for that. I could go for either Canadian city but as I had to choose I picked Montreal and like Matthew I haven’t been to either.

2 Likes
90

And train?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7P2MzVHt0A&ab_channel=PeterGreen-Topic

91

Voted and for the love of transparency :slight_smile: I voted for US == Rochester and Montreal over Toronto

1 Like
92

I would definitely want to hear from our Canadian friends who chimed in earlier.

In terms of Toronto vs. Montreal, are any of you more familiar than the other, local enough that you could help us with tips and advice on booking meals and evening activities, and any idea in the price factor between the two cities with hotels and things to do?

93

I’ll second this. We did Rochester already. And “Greater Boston”…I mean waaaay back when we did FUDCon Boston numerous times as well as FUDCon at MIT and we had Flock Cape Cod, though if we look for a place in the greater area that is still transit accessible that could be doable. FUDCon Toronto was also a thing we did, but I remember it being way outside the city (hotel in Vaughn and venue in York? there was a sea of parking near the hotel and an IKEA, Walmart, Future Shop, other things…hotel wifi was not sufficient for all of us.)

On this list I vote for Montreal.

1 Like
94

In terms of Toronto vs. Montreal, are any of you more familiar than the other,

The only thing I know about Toronto is the coach bus stop, and having walked up/down Bay street and across Yonge (?) street 8 years ago. I wouldn’t mind (re)discovering it, but I’d certainly be a tourist, unable to advise on entertainment possibilities there.

Montreal, on the other hand, is my home turf, so I know it reasonably well.

local enough that you could help us with tips and advice on booking meals and evening activities

Any large city will have no shortage of restaurants, but Montréal is kind of notorious for this in particular. Wikitravel bombastically says:

Montreal is a culinary mecca, with more restaurants and cafes per square kilometre than anywhere in the Americas. The city has a massive variety of food options, from diners and fast food to haute cuisine to the incredible vegan diversity across a plethora of cuisines from Chinese to Ethiopian to Italian to Afghan to Peruvian to authentically Quebecois. The city was recently ranked 2nd best dining city in North America after San Francisco and ahead of New York […]

Montreal’s “Plateau” neighborhood in particular (and to an extent the old port, downtown, etc.) is everything you want within walking (and walkable) distance. We also have streets that get completely converted to pedestrian-only streets with restaurant patios in the summer.

Now, that’s for individuals / smallish groups.

Montréal has a dizzying array of festivals (especially in the summer months) and urban activities. It also has big natural and urban parks (if you folks are into picnic and whatnot). I even have a big triple beach volley ball court (with real sand and all that), if you want to get some sort of volleyball tournament going. I also know some local tour guides.

If what you want is me (or Regento’s team) organizing “turn-key” events in dedicated venues (outside the main hotel venue) where we’d cater for 250+ people with food, drinks and DJ, I could get that done, but of course that’s another ballgame and that’ll depend on your sponsorship budget for food & entertainment costs, if Flock is going to be footing the bill for attendees. I can book an entire cultural arts center, exposition hall (or litterally the international Expo venues in the beautiful park on its own island, but again: budget & logistics), or a whole nightclub (or restaurant, microbrewery, theater, or other event spaces in modern or historic buildings) if you need me to, it really depends how tame or wild you want to go.

any idea in the price factor between the two cities with hotels and things to do?

There’s easily over two hundred hotels in Montréal, so until we work out the budgets, attendance, logistics and requirements, it is impossible for me to give you an exact price, too many variables involved (including the neighborhood, dates, amenities, etc.)… so in terms of “price factor” estimation, I’d bet it would be less expensive than Boston, and “overall similar to or less expensive than Toronto” :wink:

As for the price for non-hotel everyday things, well it’s pretty much always going to be a bit less expensive than Toronto. See also:

95

I’m a couple of hours from Montreal but afraid I don’t really know it well apart from visiting as a tourist (and with young kids…the biodome is great!)
My sister in law lives in Toronto so I know it better and I’ll ask if she has any advice on this kind of thing.
It would be really useful to get an idea of normal attendance numbers for a Fedora conference and usual preferred price ranges. What did you have for Ireland?

I will note that Toronto in the middle of the summer is expensive. My wife and daughter went to a concert there and we looked at a hotel downtown and went ‘eeeep’ and opted to sleep on my sister-in-laws floor instead :slight_smile:

I hate to ask, but as it’s in the news, does the recent spat between Canada and India have any impact on folk coming from India? I know it’s all politics…but it’s escalating surprisingly fast and if I wanted to travel to India right now it would no longer be possible as they’re not processing Canadian visa’s.

Mark

96

I personally like Boston, but the last couple times I’ve stayed downtown I felt roundly ripped off by the hotels. They seem to do a fine job of figuring out when conference/etc are in town and really ratcheting up the nightly rates.

97

I’m often driven by transit options. These locations all seem to have a good mix.

Do the visa requirements differ in any “significant” way between US and Canada? I’d hate for one process to be Kafkaesque and the other simple or for some community members to have difficulty getting in due to international relations weirdness.

98

Just FYI, in the case of St. Louis Missouri, Illinois is right across the river. If someone had to, they could get to a clinic in 10 to 15 minutes.

However, I don’t know that I would necessary recommend St. Louis for other reasons. It’s in the ranking of US cities with high homicide rates.

99

I’m very familiar with both Toronto (properly pronounced “Chwranna”) and Montreal.
Toronto is by far the cheapest of the two options overall due to its size - there are both expensive and reasonable options in the downtown (Front Street to Lakeshore Blvd area), as well as a plethora of reasonable options in other areas. A very popular area for budget-conscious conventions and events is the Toronto Congress Centre and surrounding area. It’s right next to the airport and has everything nearby (hotels, dining, entertainment, etc.).

1 Like
100

This is helpful. Given your full reply above, you seem well-connected and have many ideas for things we could do in Montreal. Since the poll is nearly split with a slight lean toward Toronto, this feedback pushes me toward Montreal, together with @duffy’s point that Montreal is the only Canadian/US option where Fedora has never been before.

At this stage, I don’t need exact figures but we have time and resources to investigate hotels and venues in one Canadian city, but not two.

Any other tips or insight you can provide is welcome, although we will make a final decision for the next stage (research phase) in a 2-3 hours from now.

In Cork 2023, we had ~120. In Budapest 2019, we had roughly ~200 attendees.

I believe the attendance in North American Flocks was usually higher, but the last one was in 2017 and I don’t have a good estimate from then (and a lot has changed in six years where that data might not even be relevant today anyways).

I am following this too. It does have an impact on our final decision. The next stage after today is for the Flock organizing committee to start research on our final list of cities. We would get bids from hotels and venues in each of our final list of three cities that meet the requirements for hosting Flock.

At the time when we have collected bids from all three cities in the three countries, we need to make a final decision. We will take into account the current political/immigration environment in the final decision we make then.

I think the most significant factor (for now) is what Mark already pointed out above.