With 500+ participants from over 20 countries, UXcamp Europe is one of the largest conferences on user experience. These slides offer a peek behind the scenes: What you need to take care of, what works and what doesn't if you want to organize a UXcamp yourself. Please also have a look at our sponsor information doc: https://www.slideshare.net/sfreimark/uxcamp-europe-sponsor-information-2017

1. How to organize
UXcamp17
June 4th, 2017

2. Okay, not on video, but we make an audio recording
which is going to be available on the Internet forever.
If you are not cool with that…
•remain silent
•or leave ;-(

3. You can download the slides
(plus screencast later)
Slides
https://www.slideshare.net/sfreimark
Screencast (=video of slides + audio)
Give me one to two weeks, we will announce it via
Twitter and Facebook:
https://vimeo.com/freimark

4. Topics
• Some numbers
• Location & Date
• Sponsors
• Catering
• Volunteers
• Tickets & Badges
• T-Shirts
• The small things
• Friday
• Saturday
• Sunday
• Tools
• Questions?

5. Some numbers: Participants
Approx. 550 participants throughout two days (peak at
Saturday) – including:
• 120 volunteers
• 270 regular ticket holders
• 30 Friends & Family
• 20 European IxDA organizers
• 20 invited seniors
• 90 sponsor tickets
400 people on the waiting list
All gone prior to ticket release
Gone within 30 seconds

6. Some numbers: Sessions
2016:
• around 80 sessions in total (40 on Saturday + Sunday
each) in 10 parallel tracks
2017:
• 60 sessions yesterday in 10 parallel tracks
+ 40 sessions today

7. Some numbers: Budget
40,000 € total budget, everything raised from sponsors.
20,000 € Catering
7,000 € Blow-out Party on Saturday
6,000 € T-Shirts and Give-aways
3,000 € Water & Juice
1,400 € Badges & Lanyards
800 € Drone guy (filming + editing)
0 € Warm-up Party on Friday (provided by C3)
0 € Venue (provided for free by Humboldt University)
Rest Various, plus savings for unexpected costs

8. Location & Date
• Location is provided for free by a department of
Humboldt University (Institute for Library Science and
Information Science, Faculty of Philosophy)
• Pros: Free, stable WiFi, far away from the city (=people stay
at the conference), plenty of space
• Cons: Venue has no air condition, we are not allowed to
stick anything to walls/doors/floors/windows
• We agree on one or two weekends within the team, then
check with the University
• Date is announced once we have an „Okay“ from the
University (tickets released later, once we are funded by
sponsors)

9. Sponsors: General info
• Different levels, ranging from 900 € to 4,000 €
• Communication is intense (questions, contracts, more
questions, payment, logos missing, ticket codes…)
• Sponsor money needs to be handled by a legal entity
(like Luzi’s University or a „Verein“)
• Founding and running a Verein (literally association,
club, society) is a pain in the butt, hence we haven’t
done it

10. Sponsors: Info document
Download it here: https://www.slideshare.net/sfreimark/uxcamp-europe-sponsor-information-2017

11. Catering: Parties
• Friday is a no-brainer (C3 takes care of everything)
• Saturday:
- Willner Brauerei convenient (near to Luzi’s and
Henning’s home, they know us, they are un-
complicated)
- Willner won’t be possible next year
- A sponsor is necessary to cover for drinks & food
- A DJ or DJane is needed for music
- For the laundry list: Organize wrist bands

12. Catering: At the Camp
• The Café is providing us with a bunch of stuff „for
free“ (providing space, access to facilities like cold
storage room, access to those large coffee pots…)
• People to coordinate with include…
- The Café
- Company which provides juice and water
- Additional caterers like Mama Burritos
- Sponsors who want to provide food (like Adobe
with the waffles) and drinks (like Idealo)

13. Volunteers 1
• We started with a handful of volunteers who sat at the
cloak room all day
• Later around 60 volunteers with two-hour shifts
• 2016 and 2017: 120 volunteers with one-hour shifts
• Lots of communication:
- questions from volunteers
- add them to a list for printing badges
- schedule them
- handle drop-outs due to illness/accidents
- add people to a blacklist and curse them if they drop
out for another reason

14. Volunteers 2
Friday (9 slots) Setup at Venue 1 Setup at Venue 2 Setup at Venue 3 Reception at
Welcome Party 1
Reception at
Welcome Party 2
17-19 Ming L. Nina D. Marvin H.
17-19 Ming L. Nina D. Marvin H.
20-21 Martin G. Michaela D.
21-22 Lani L. Daniel S.
22-23 Rudi Z. Christian H.
Saturday (58 slots) Coffee 1 Coffee 2 Cloakroom 1 Cloakroom 2 Reception 1 Reception 2 Saturday
9-10 Noel W. Roonak B. Berkay T. Stephan B. Pedro H. Isabel M. 9-10
10-11 Marc A. Claudia O. Carola B. Marcel P. Jan P. Katrin G. 10-11
11-12 Neil S. Nora A. Paulina P. Anaïs B. Sandy D. Petr S. 11-12
12-13 Oliver d.B. Min-Wen L. Frederik G. Lynsey D. Finn H. Adelina M. 12-13
13-14 Gleb R. Jiri K. Hanne R. Yannis D. Marius K. Baastian B. 13-14
14-15 Jonas L. Dagmar W. Anne S. Hans-Joachim B. Leeke B. Nassim S. 14-15
15-16 Rob A. Sherin W. Eva J. Johan S. Hermann F. Elisabeth B. 15-16
16-17 Derec W. Martina M. Markus H. Richard M. Nicholas d.L. Amelie P. 16-17
17-18 Otakar H. Richard W. Oliver T. Gabriela V. Willem F. Ivana F. 17-18
18-19 Lenka H. Astrid L. Braňo Š. Katrin M. 18-19
Sunday (48 slots) Coffee 1 Coffee 2 Cloakroom 1 Cloakroom 2 Reception 1 Reception 2 Sunday
9-10 Zeeshan K.S. Christian S. Eike O. Pavel R. Petr K. Kathryn H. 9-10
10-11 Pantéa N. Tereza K. Jakub Z. Elena S. Marguerite H. Tom K. 10-11
11-12 Yadira G. Christine C. Jessie B. Lukáš R. Andrea H. Aija M. 11-12
12-13 Sonja B. Beverly J. Jan K. Tobias J. Alyona M. Eeva E. 12-13
13-14 Sabrina M. Nelli H. Rostislav B. Marten B. René N. Ben H. 13-14
14-15 Christine L. Malte M. Zuzana H. Amir M. Barbara W. 14-15
15-16 Mio K. Matteo R. Yevheniia Z. Jan T. Krish N. 15-16
16-17 Marion B. Mohammad H. Klaus M. Jule M. 16-17
17-18 Pavol D. Aneta R. 17-18
Clean up Clean up Sunday
17-18 Běla B. Diana F.

15. Tickets & Badges 1
• Ticket release date is announced once we are funded
• We started with a platform called mixxt, which crashed
due to the DDoS-like situation during ticket release
• Later Eventbrite (rock-solid, but sub-optimal UX for
event managers)
• Early days: Tickets gone in 5 minutes (German ones) or
one hour (International), last three years gone in under
two minutes, this year in 30 seconds
• Since 2015: Volunteers only accepted until ticket
release

16. Tickets & Badges 2
In general: Ask your print shop! For us:
1. Export participant data in Eventbrite in a special way (Analyze tab,
Event Reports, Attendee Summary, Export as Excel)
2. Safe as UTF-16 (to preserve Czech special characters)
3. Clean up Excel export (duplicates, typos)
4. InDesign: Use the font „Century Gothic Pro“ (Pro means: Czech special
characters are preserved)
5. InDesign: Use Data Merge (Datenzusammenführung)
• Paper size A7, export with marks, use CMYK colors
• Print shop: druckwunsch.de (Varioprint GmbH in Berlin, they are great!)
• Paper: 1 mm thick „Invercote Duo“ (770 g/m
2
)
• Print approx. 50 additional blank ones
• Cost is 0.90 € each (w/o taxes)

17. T-Shirts
• We made good experiences with Spreadshirt /
yink.com
• Order roughly 550 shirts for participants in multiple sizes
Our Example:
‣ Men: S (30), M (125), L (100), XL (35), XXL (25)
‣ Women: XS (20), S (75), M (90), L (30), XL (15), XXL (4)
• Order 2 shirts for every team member (for Saturday and
Sunday)
• Cost range from 6 to 7.50 € each (w/o taxes)
• Team shirts serve an important function: Their job is not
making us look good – but making us stand out!

18. The small things
• Take care of insurance („Veranstaltungsversicherung“)
• Have room for 12 boxes of material (t-shirts, lanyards…)
• Make sure that the toilets are cleaned by Sunday
morning
• Tell the water company not to come before 17:00 on
Sunday to collect the empty bottles
• Remember to bring wardrobe numbers, pens, tape and
what not
• Prepare print-outs, print the print-outs, bring the print-outs
• Setup the session grid according to physical location of
rooms

19. Friday
• Drive a truckload of stuff to Adlershof
• Briefing by tech people at 15:00
• Setup venue at 16:30
• Hand out badges at the Warm-up Party

20. Saturday
• Bring remaining badges
• Be there at 8:00
• First thing in the morning: Start the coffee machine!
• Setup Registration/Reception with stuff
• Attach garbage bags to lamp posts outside
• Doors open at 9:00
• Move people into auditorium at 9:30 (9:45 latest)
• Opening session should start at 9:45 (10:00 latest)
• Deal with situations throughout the day
• Before leaving: Plug the microphones into the charger!

21. Sunday
• Be there at 8:30
• First thing in the morning: Start the coffee machine!
• Opening session should start at 9:45 (10:00 latest)
• Deal with situations throughout the day
• After the last session: Rearrange the rooms and clean
blackboards, collect garbage, give away remaining
juice packs to security people, pack up all stuff
• Team Dinner!
• Take Monday off!

22. Tools: Overview
Works Sort of Doesn’t work
Meeting in person
once a month
(starting in January)
Trello Using a Wiki
Hackathon-style
work meetings
Making checklists
(and actually use
them next year)
Working remote
Slack for preparation Call-in via Skype or
phone during team
meetings
iMessage during the
camp (Fri, Sat, Sun)
Doodle

23. Tools: Slack

24. Tools: Trello 2016 👍

25. Tools: Trello 2017 👎

26. Tools: iMessage

27. General tips
• Everything must scale for 500+ people
‣ Multiple food stations
‣ Caterers should provide food which can be handed out
quickly (10 sec per person or 60 sec make a difference)
• Everything must be prepared in our spare time
‣ This means evenings + weekends
Volunteers example: One hour of answering e-mails in the evening, every
two to three days, over the course of multiple weeks. Other work packages
of similar intense, e.g. sponsors. Not to mention two-hour team meetings
every few weeks over the course of five months (and these are just for
status updates; the work needs to be done between those meetings).
‣ We think twice before we try new things, especially if
they mean more work

28. The Team 2017
Website: Thomas Otto
Alumni: Thomas Küber, Volker Gersabeck, Silke Berz, Silvan T. Golega
Henning
Grote
Luzi
Beyer
Ludwig
Gatzke
Stefan
Freimark
Tom
Allison
Marie
Combes
Clive K.
Lavery
Dee
Scarano
Debbie
Blume

29. team@uxcampeurope.org
Questions?

30. Communication 1
During the talk we forgot to mention that there’s a
bunch of comms besides sponsors and volunteers.
Inbound:
• General inquiries
• Feedback during and after the camp (Facebook,
Slack, e-mail)

31. Communication 2
Outbound – multiple newsletters to be sent with MailChimp:
1. February/March: Announcing the new camp
To be sent once we’ve green light from the university for the venue. Contents: Precise date for
event, but no date for ticket release yet, call for sponsors, call for volunteers (volunteer tickets
only available until regular ticket release)
2. March/April: Announcing ticket release date
To be sent once we have collected sufficient sponsor money to provide a basic camp
experience. Contents: Date for ticket release (upcoming Saturday/Sunday at 11:00 – make
sure it’s not a weekend with switch to summer time), no more volunteer tickets available,
sponsors get extra tickets, accommodation alert if supply of hotel rooms is tight
3. May: Final info (only to be sent to ticket holders)
To be sent between 2-4 weeks prior to the camp. Contents: Important times and locations, link
to tips for session holders, what to bring, satellite events, mention sponsors and ticket lotteries
(if there are any), last-minute information in case of traffic fails (strike, construction work)
4. After the camp: Recap (only to be sent to ticket holders)
To be sent between a few days and a few weeks after the camp. Contents: Thank you for a
wonderful weekend, dates of other upcoming UX barcamps and partner conferences, thanks
to sponsors, please tag your slides/photos/videos with #uxce17

32. team@uxcampeurope.org
Questions?