I’m a big fan of the BarCamp events. There is one in Chicago soon which I can’t attend. I’m wondering if it would be possible to organize one in the Milwaukee area?
Participants
We would need participants. There’s the Milwaukee Web Design Meetup, Milwaukee Ruby User’s Group, The Milwaukee Linux User Group, The Wisconsin Java User Group, and hopefully a few more groups that might have people interested in participating… I think finding people interested in participating would be the easy part.
Location
I’m ranking “finding a suitable location” as difficult. I’ve got a few ideas so far, and I’m sure I could come up with more, but I’m very open to suggestions here. (One issue which might be a problem is “event insurance” so keep that on the list with a big star next to it.)
Sponsors
Companies or individuals that might help sponsor the event may prove harder. This isn’t San Francisco, it’s Milwaukee, and the money usually doesn’t flow as freely here. I suppose it all depends on the cost of the event as to how much sponsorship we might be able to pull together. Since things are generally cheaper in the midwest, I’d hope we could do it for maybe half the cost of BarCampLA.
Equipment
Powerstrips, networking gear, computers, misc. “stuff” would be needed. This is probably my least worried about issue, because in past events I’ve been involved with, these things always seem to work themselves out. Of course I might just be overly-optomistic here.
Planning
Luckily, there are already some good guides to help out with the planning: BarcampLA Post-Mortem, BarCamp NYC – the Nuts and Bolts, Dummies Guide to organizing a BarCamp in your city, as well as the BarCamp site’s Organize a Local Bar Camp section…
So what do you think? Could we pull off a BarCampMilwaukee?