On 7/28/08, Tom Holden <thomas.holden@gmail.com> wrote:
Well there certainly are larger venues than the town hall in
Oxford. (Though the town hall may be able to accommodate more than 500. Their
website suggests both 500 and around 750. I've sent off a clarification e-mail
about this.) The Sheldonian can seat up to 1000 and the Playhouse can seat 613.
Using both of the two 450 seating rooms at Exam schools is
another possibility perhaps. We could have cameras and projectors in both
rooms, and take it in turns between having a live video feed from the 1st
to the 2nd, and a live feed from the 2nd to the 1st.
(This would obviously only work if there were going to be multiple speakers in
the talk.)
Breaking up a single session between different spaces would make for a pretty impoverished experience, in my opinion. (If I understand you correctly.)
Just to be clear on what we need - we need a large theatre/room that holds *all* delegates (say, 700) for openings/keynotes/closings; then we need a range of medium-sized rooms that hold groups of people (eg. 1x200, 2x150, 3x80) for presentations; then we need a communal space (or several spaces) where people can mingle, chat, display posters, have coffee, etc. In addition, we will probably need somewhere to eat communally - this wasn't provided for in Alexandria, but it has been one of the criticisms of the conference raised in its wake.