LAC 2015 feedback - Linux-audio-user

13 Apr 2015

Hi everybody,

as threatened in the closing sessions of this year's LAC, here are some
of my observations about the conference and suggestions for improving
some things. I attended the conference for the fist time, so please let
me say, that I enjoyed the conference *very much*. I liked many things
about it. The list below is only about the things that I didn't, but
please don't take away from this that I think that the organizers did a
bad job, they did very well IMHO. But there's always room for
improvement. So here goes. Items in each section are listed in
descending order of importance / seriousness.

Problems
--------

- For a conference about audio, the speakers' audio was surprisingly
  poorly organized and consequently technical issues lead to
  *sometimes* poor intelligibility of the speakers or poor quality of
  audio demonstrations (especially in P2 and P5).

  I observed:

  - Poor leveling leading to:
    - distortion,
    - too quiet speech levels,
    - huge level differences between microphone(s) and other audio.
  - Non-functioning or accidentally switched-off microphones.
  - Too short cables.
  - Loud pops when things were plugged in or unplugged.

- Sometimes it seemed that the video stream was more important than the
  present audience. Indicators:

  - Camera in front of the screen, obstructing part of the presentation
    slides.
  - Camera filming the setup on the table next to the speaker desk but
    for the audience in the lecture hall it was hard to see what was on
    the table.
  - The video splitter *may have* interfered with resp. prevented video
    output to projector from working.
  - Camera set up in the middle of the audience room, and thus making
    seats in front of it unavailable for participants (Camera team
    asked participants not to obstruct the camera view even during the
    breaks between talks).

  IMHO the needs of the people who make the effort to come to attend the
  conference personally should always be the most important.

- The intended purpose and acceptable usage of the "Hack'n'Roll" room
  and how to organize its shared usage or request using it for a
  certain time slot was *not at all* clear.

- There was no opportunity to *spontaneously* do a small presentation
  of a project or idea to a bigger audience (see Lightning Talks below).

- The "Aufenthaltsbereich" (lounge area) in the hall outside P2-P5 did
  not have enough tables and seats and it could have been a bit more
  comfy.

- The wifi access was slightly mis-configured, one had to change the
  encryption type used from "Tunneled TLS" to "PEAP" and this was not
  clearly documented, so one had to find this out by trail-and-error.

Suggestions
-----------

- Have a mailing list for conference organization that's also there for
  discussion about the future of the conference, so that ideas are not
  lost in the noise of the general LAU mailing list

- Have a session chair for each session, including for workshops, that:

  - May fill the role of technical assistant (see below) as well.
  - Maintains order:
    - Sees that doors are closed at the beginning.
    - Reminds everybody to turn their cellphones silent and keep
      disturbance by leaving or fiddling with equipment to a minimum.
  - Announces the title of the talk, the name of the speaker, the
    duration and time for questions.
  - Makes sure the speaker stays on time.
  - Moderates the question session and reminds the speaker to repeat the
    questions asked.

  Session chairs can be filled by participants. Assuming three days and
  three tracks and one session chair per half-day, twelve persons max.
  are needed to volunteer as a session chair.

- Require speakers to test their video and audio setup (including the
  speaker microphone) *before* the beginning time of the talk, and plan
  change-over times accordingly or have dedicated testing slots in
  between session slots (e.g. during lunch breaks).

  This means that somebody is needed to actively seek out speakers and
  check that they have tested their setup. Speakers can also be
  reminded to do so at the registration desk and be told where to find
  technical assistance.

- Provide a pool of common adapters and cables for video and audio
  connections with sufficient cable lengths. Even if speakers are told
  to bring appropriate adapters in advance, some of them *will* forget
  to do so.

- Have a technical assistant in *each* lecture hall that:

  - Helps the speakers to check their setup.
  - Sets up audio and video connections.
  - Levels audio channels.
  - Mutes/unmutes mixer channels as needed.
  - Fixes problems.
  - Prevents other participants form tampering with the equipment.

- Tape over on/off switches on microphones.

- Have a more informal Lightning Talk Session of approx. 1 hour with
  *5-minute* lightning talks, possibly on several days. Speakers can
  apply for lightning talks slots *only* during the morning of the day
  of the LT-Session on a first-come-first-served basis (only one slot
  per speaker, if necessary).

  The LT-Session needs a moderator and possibly a technical assistant,
  which ensure that talk times are strictly kept and change-over time
  is minimized.

  Slides are not mandatory for lightning talks and if they are used,
  the number of slides should be kept to the minimum necessary. There
  should be a central space on the web site to upload LT slides without
  fuss.

- Have a paper time table on the door of the "Hack'n'Roll" room where
  people can register for using it at a certain time for a given
  purpose (restrict number of slots that can be used by one
  person/project).

  Identify an opportunity (e.g. at the beginning of the first talk in
  the morning/afternoon), where people/projects can announce when they
  have something happening in the "Hack'n'Roll" space.

- Provide a glass and a bottle of water for each speaker.

- Have more power sockets in the lecture halls.

- Buy more (real) milk for the coffee and do not use plastic cups
  (waste, too hot to hold). Put up a sign with the suggested donation
  amount. If necessary, find a sponsor for the coffee.

Thank you for your attention and for a great LAC 2015,

Chris