Major Event: Australia in Oct/Nov 2010

[dex]

On behalf of the Australian Joomla community, it is a pleasure to express our intent to organise Joomla's inaugural Global Conference in Melbourne.

Melbourne is a unique, multi-cultural and exciting destination offering world-class conference facilities to host the first International Joomla Conference. We anticipate to host the conference at either:

The Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) - very high profile; or
The University of Melbourne (UoM) - high profile and budget conscious.

We will evaluate a dual cost model for the full proposal ensuring best value-for-money for delegates, exhibitors and organisers.

The MCEC is conveniently located on Melbourne's iconic Yarra river in the heart of the city, and is surrounded by hotels, cafés, bars and is noted for some of Australia's highly-rated restaurants.
The UoM is a five minute journey by tram from Melbourne's city centre and is also within walking distance to inviting restaurants, accommodation and the Melbourne Museum.

Both, the MCEC and the UoM offer state-of-the-art venues well suited to meet the expectations of a spectacular inaugural International Joomla Conference, accommodating 1200-1500 people over 3-5 days.

At this time of year, Australia is at its best as a tourist destination, with many other summer events and beautiful warm weather.

Conference:
* 3-5 days of conference, workshops and themed days
* One day for satellite events, e.g. code sprint, bug squad
* Hands-on workshops for 2 days
* 3+ streams - enterprise, developer lite, extension developer, design
* Developer summit
* Theme days e.g. community/not-for-profit, government
* Student workshops/unconference

Preliminary event goals are:
* To host the inaugural international Joomla conference with a global reach that provides outstanding value for delegates, vendors, sponsors, people of the Joomla community and Open Source Matters.

Reach:
* Increasing the awareness of Joomla within a global context.
* Reaching out to both people familiar with Joomla and the internationally community that can benefit from Open Source.
* Attracting international media coverage.

Organizing Committee:
Matthias Raab
Andrew Eddie
Patrick Jackson
Raoul Callaghan
Nick Sibbing
John Wood
Tim Plummer
Jennifer Gregory
Dex Randall