Thanks to everyone who provided feedback to the survey that was run in mid May to gauge interest in plans for DrupalSouth 2022. We had about 90 respondents and the feedback was incredibly useful in determining next steps for the event.
For the type of event people would prefer to attend, unsurprisingly we had zero people say "online only"! 29.5% of respondents were interested in a hybrid in-person event with online participation, but the vast majority (67%) wanted a return to a full in-person event.
People do want to see a relatively traditional format of presentations and collaborative sessions, with an emphasis on social interaction.
The overwhelming majority of respondents (81%) want a two day event with a separate day for a contribution sprint. From past events, we've found running sessions on a Wednesday and Thursday with a sprint on Friday works well for most people.
In terms of event location, we had at least half of people favour an NZ location with 70%+ favouring one in Australia. A consideration for the organising team is "which location will attract the largest number of people?", which does lean towards an Australian location for the first in-person conference post-COVID. However, there is an opportunity to ensure there's an NZ event in the first half of 2023 if we do one in Australia in 2022 again.
There was quite a lot of feedback on a venue that's somewhere warm, fun and central to entertainment. The other consideration is always access via direct flights, proximity to airports and availability of varying grades of accommodation.
In terms of COVID precautions, almost half (49%) favoured no restrictions beyond what's mandated by Government. 30% favoured some extra precautions, and 21% definitely wanted to do more than what's mandated. This means that we would lean towards doing some more for COVID precautions than may be prescribed at the time to ensure the largest number of people are confident attending.
And timeframe? We didn't ask about that in the survey, but given we need at least a few months to organise an event properly, expect to see dates in late October or early November, outside of any overlap with school holidays and enough lead time from Christmas.
Stay tuned for more details and please contact us if you'd like to be part of the volunteer organising team.