There seem to be many questions about venue choice, etc, so I’m going to start this new thread here for any followup questions to EuroLLVM 2023. I’d like to keep the traffic lower on the Announcements list.
I’m happy to answer any questions.
Silly question: there were rumours of this year’s EuroLLVM taking place in Paris, any reason this couldn’t happen?
EuroLLVM 2023 will not be in Paris this year and we have signed the contract with the venue in Glasgow.
We had planned to have it in Paris, but due to drastically increased event costs and uncertainty about attendance numbers due to the recession, we looked at several different locations to see what other options could work. We have a 3rd party logistics company that helps source venues and they are experts at this. They came back with a large list of options in various countries and we picked Glasgow due to many factors that included (but not limited to):
- Available dates
- Venue and F&B costs
- Space available and layout of that space
- Hotel room rates
- Hotel location (i.e. is it an airport hotel or near other tourist attractions and mass transit)
- Accessibility (how easy is it for people to get to the city/country)
We looked at: Paris, London, Amsterdam, Dublin, Glasgow, Lisbon, Copenhagen, and more.
We got turned down by many venues because our room block is not large enough for the venue to make sufficient profit by renting their space to us. We must fill 80% (or so, depends on the contract) of our room block or we pay the remaining balance of rooms not filled. Obviously, we want to avoid additional costs added to the event. This is a common problem we have with venues and I encourage people to use the conference hotel whenever possible to help open more doors for us.
We will look at Paris again for 2024 or 2025, along with other venues. The original hotel we had picked out for EuroLLVM 2020 will be reopening next year, so that is potentially a new option. I’m always open to suggestions of cities/countries.
I hope this provides some background on what goes into making these sorts of decisions. I’m happy to answer any additional questions about this or other EuroLLVM 2023 topics.
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I don’t know if this is common knowledge, but I certainly was not aware of it. It might be worth calling out on the page that mentions the link to the hotel room block that using the conference hotel will help llvm.
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After the world-wide recession is tamed, we really should look into the places we haven’t been yet, even if the others are more convenient, at the very least for the sake of diversity and inclusion, especially for the less fortunate European countries.
For what it’s worth, I’m casting my “vote” here to Lisbon, Budapest, Warsaw, Prague, Zagreb, Bucharest, Sofia…
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I remember discussing Sofia before the world ended. I am happy to help with organizing the next event in Sofia. FWIW, the isocpp committee is coming to Varna in June and we have very concrete numbers for that location which I personally prefer. However, it’s much nicer towards the summer.
Hi @tonic, thank you so much for starting this thread!
With the inclusivity and accessibility perspective in mind, I’m wondering if visa requirement is among the criteria when the conference location is considered?
I remember hearing that the scholarship budget was underutilized the last time the conference happened in the UK (I believe it was Bristol in 2018?). Was it the case or I’m misremembering something?
Everyone’s experience is different, so here I briefly outline mine.
I’m now going through the visa process, and here are some of the consequences based on the uncertainty (i.e. while I’m waiting for the decision):
- I cannot book the hotel yet
- I cannot book flights yet
- I cannot buy conference ticket yet
- I’m not sure if I should submit my talk proposal for the conference yet
1, 2, and 3 are directly affecting the cost of the conference for me (as the prices go up every day) which is already rather high due to the UK visa costs (with all the additional payments and upsells that are not visible upfront). Arguably, 4 doesn’t affect me (I’ll either try the US meeting or submit next year) but could in general negatively affect students or other “younger” professionals (not necessarily referring to the physical age here, apologies to the lack of better terms) as not everyone is privileged enough for their work to wait for another year.
To be clear, I acknowledge that the same issue applies for the EU countries for those who are located outside of EU and I am not suggesting that EU is a better choice that the UK.
I hope this data point helps with the future decision making 
Hopefully, see you in Glasgow 
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Unfortunately the VISA situation is a problem that spans both US and Europe, as well as the UK. Visa applications are taking an incredibly long time. I don’t expect this situation to get any better in the near future. Things we can do to mitigate this is to plan even earlier than we have in the past (pre-pandemic). That means a MUCH earlier Call for Proposals deadline than people are used to and also earlier travel grant deadlines.
So while we do factor it into our decision making process, it was not a primary factor for this EuroLLVM just due to the tight timeline and other issues we encountered.
Thanks for bringing this topic up and hopefully we can get more information on the visa situation as it evolves and use it to create a longer timeline for future events.
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I understand that many factors are considered but I just would like to add some context as a student from Turkey.
Yes visa application proccesses are never easy but as you know, when you have a valid visa for a country that is in the schengen area you have access to the whole schengen area which cover a very large chunk of EU. Whereas UK requires a specific visa. So given an individual it is fair to assume they are more likely to have a schengen visa then a UK visa.
Speacilly UK is known for being very stringent with individuals who are comming from developing countries.
And as a student I am unable to prove a regular income even though I have sufficient funds to fund my expenses.
I am not sure how many individuals are in a similar situation but I would imagine a non trivial number considering all of the layoffs that happened this year. EuroLLVM could have been a great for those individuals as well.
Anyways, please enjoy the conference ! and (hopefully) see you next year : )
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Following this thought on location selection, I would like to add Madrid to that list of potential candidates.
I believe the community here is not too strong, yet plane tickets are usually cheap coming into the summer. Accommodation could vary in price somewhat but there is a good infrastructure to be creative around it.
Just wanted to post this idea too, feeling hungry for this years’ content!