SAT is the (proposed) location for the RoCoCo 2007 unconference. "SAT" stands for "La Société des arts technologiques" (Technological Arts Society); it's a research centre and event organizer for the Montreal community. Typically SAT covers issues of digital art, digital communications, and digital convergence. Example events include electronic music festivals (like Mutek); digital arts series like The Upgrade); and technology-community events like BarCampMontreal.
It's an open, funky space in the centre of Montreal's downtown, near public transportation and parking.
Discussion
Antoine and I went to SAT today to talk to Hugues Monfroy about the space. I think we were both really impressed with the flexibility of the site.
Some of the questions we had about SAT, in no particular order, with their answers:
Space: the venue consists of two large rooms; one with lots of windows and light in the front, and more of a theater-space in the back. We said we were expecting a maximum of 200 people, possibly stretching to 300 people, and he thought that the front room was adequate. It's really a huge space -- very open, with a bar along one side, some projectors and screens, a lot of light.
Dates: Hugues confirmed we would have the space from Friday morning on the 18th to Sunday the 20th. There will not be any evening events or other people in the space during that entire time. So we don't need to put stuff down each night!
We also mentionned the idea of holding a party of some sort on saturday night... -- TheAnarcat 2007-02-08 19:33:22 EST WiFi: we were concerned about WiFi connectivity, but Hugues said that the entire building was well-covered. Antoine connected while we were waiting, and he got HTTP and SSH but other ports were blocked. This should probably be OK for what we're doing. Hugues expressed some concern on having 200 people with laptops on the network at the same time; we may want to look into beefing up our network presence, either with some support from ÎleSansFil or from other volunteers. Or, we tell people to get their noses out of the computer and interact.
Food: SAT has a bar with beer and coffee, but no food. Hugues said it was OK to have outside caterers provide food; I asked that he provide some names of caterers that have served there before. (It really helps to have the caterer know the venue.) He said that if we wanted to have an evening event one night (Saturday or Friday), they could open the bar for us, which would probably be really great. We could almost certainly find DJs/VJs who'd like to perform atmospheric music for this space, and they've got excellent sound, etc.
Insurance: Facility rental comes with $1M in liability insurance. This is a huge relief; I don't think we'll need any other insurance.
Chairs: They have 175 "regular" chairs and about 40 "funky" chairs that we can use. If we have more than 215 participants, we'll need to seek out some other chairs, but I think this sounds unlikely.
Tables: No tables. We may need to buy/rent tables for registration, etc., although they do have a front "ticket" booth that may work for what we need.
Prices: We mentioned BarCampMontreal and he said that we would probably get a similar deal. However, since we're taking an entire 3-day weekend, including two potentially lucrative weekend evenings, we might pay more. That sounds pretty reasonable. The 800$/day number was mentionned at some point by Anne, i think, before we met Hugues today. -- TheAnarcat 2007-02-08 19:36:42 EST
Our next steps are to write up a schedule and an event description so that Hugues can give us a quote. I think we'll want to have this for seeking sponsorships, anyways, so let's start RoCoCoSchedule and EventDescription and try to get them in shape for next week. --EvanProdromou
Nice review Evan, thanks!! -- TheAnarcat 2007-02-08 19:36:42 EST