I'm pleased to announce the RacketCon 2022 is cleared for takeoff! Mark your calendars: October 28-30, 2022 at the Department of Computer Science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, USA.
This will be an in-person conference. Friday, October 28 will be a half day (afternoon), and Sunday, October 30 might be a half day, too (morning), though if there's a lot of interest we can make it a full day.
The official RacketCon web page has been updated, though, as I write, there's a lot of stub content there; the page will be updated and fleshed out as planning for hackathons, tutorials, and talks proceeds.
Main thing: If you are considering going, please fill out the registration form. The form helps us in a few different ways:
We need to know how many people are likely to attend (do we buy coffee & donuts by the pound or by the bushel?)
We are working on arranging a blocks of rooms at a couple local hotels in Providence and need to know how many people are likely to stay, and for how long. (You don't have to stay at either of these hotels. But informing us of that is also useful to us!)
A handful of speaker invitations have already been sent out (and even accepted!), but we are trying things a bit differently this year and opening the door to the community to nominate speakers & tutors. (No, you don't have to nominate anyone. Yes, you may nominate yourself. No, there's no guarantee that if you nominate someone that they'll definitely come. A speaker may not be able to attend, may decline the invitation, and there's only so much time!)
We know that many people need to leave on Sunday, so we need your input to help plan Sunday afternoon. We want to avoid inviting speakers for a Sunday afternoon talk/tutorial if only a handful of people are around.
So again, if RacketCon 2022 sounds good to you, please complete the registration form soon.
Another new thing we're trying this year is to set aside a half-day on Friday afternoon (October 28) for hackathons. Currently, one hackathon, dedicated to Racket internals, is penciled in. We have space for a couple more. Suggestions are welcome! If you suggest a hackathon, please also think about standing up to help organize it, or at least offer some suggestions for what to do. (We're trying to avoid having Friday afternoon devolve into merely an extended coffee-and-donut-fueled free-for-all.)
We don't (currently) envision doing a proper hybrid event. That said, there will be ways of at least partially following along and participating:
Live streaming of the talks might be possible. (They will be recorded. The question for the organizers is whether we're in a position to do live steaming and how much of a hassle that is. I think so, but I need to double-check.)
For after-talk Q&A, it should be possible to field questions from remote attendees, say, via Discord.
The hackathons and tutorials might use tools like Discord or gitter.im for doing live chat.
These are some options I can think of off the top of my head. Does anyone else have suggestions?
What about doing the remote part in Gather, like the last RacketCon and the monthly meetings?
Live streaming would be nice, so that remote attendees can ask questions and discuss the talks; but I can understand if you don't have the resources in time or technically to set this up.
Thanks -- I didn't think of that. This suggests to me that that registration form could be updated with a new question: What's a good time to start on Sunday? The options would be:
Can't attend Sunday at all
Can be there by 10
Can come, but not before 11 am
Can come, but not before noon
Can come, but not before 1 pm
That should give us some visibility into attendees who might need a late-ish start on Sunday owing to things like church.
I'll check the nights-in-Providence question. It sounds like I just configured it incorrectly somehow.
We'll make a good faith, best effort attempt to accommodate remote participants. Using the Gather space, for instance, is a great idea.
If you would like to attend but likely can't physically come to Providence, please do complete the registration form anyway! Some of the questions it asks make sense for remote participants.
I filled out the form considering participation in general (including remote), so for example in the question how likely I'm to attend I selected 4 (quite certain). I can't remember having seen a question about remote participation, so I hope my interpretation of the questions is what you had/have in mind.
https://con.racket-lang.org/ lists all the Saturday events as taking place at 10am, suggesting that it's only possible to do one event and then the rest of the day is empty. Is that right, or is it a listing error on the website?
FYI The deadline for the two blocks of rooms we reserved at local hotels expires in 5 days. After the deadline, there's no guarantee that you'll get the agreed-upon rate!
FYI 2: we're finalizing plans for the conference dinner on Saturday, October 29. Which means that we're settling on ticket prices. We've settled on:
WITH dinner: $60
WITHOUT dinner: $25
We'll soon provide y'all with a link where you can get your ticket (it's not available yet).
We're pleased to announce that RacketCon tickets can now be purchased! Up to now we have had essentially a pre-registration form (which was very good input for us on the planning side). As of today, you can now get your 100% genuine authentic RacketCon 2022 ticket. Just go to the RacketCon homepage, scroll down to the Registration section, and follow the link.
A ticket costs $25.
On the second step of the ticket purchase form, you're asked whether you want to attend the official conference dinner on Saturday evening. The dinner is optional. If you do want to come, though, it's an additional $35.
Now is the time for all good Racketeers to come to the booth and get tickets.
