Bitcoin Forum

Me, molecular and Mitchell (worldly) weighed up the various options for the location of the next conference. Me arguing for London, and molecular for Berlin. Eventually we agreed that London is probably best. However not everyone is convinced. Hopefully we can get some community involvement in the decision making here.

- 7 out of 11 of potential notable speakers I have lined up live in London. They are far more likely to attend a London conference but would not take a plane ride because it isn't worth their time. I don't want to give their names away to keep it a pleasant surprise :) From running the UK exchange Intersango, we've had a lot of contact with high up financial types in particular.

- My press contacts are largely in London: BBC, Guardian, Independent, Channel4 news, Wired, Wall Street Journal.

- London is better connected internationally than Berlin.

- We held an after conference survey. 10 voted for London, 6 for Berlin, 5 for Prague. 4 others abstained. 70% of the respondents actually attended this conference.

- I am in London.

- 2 months ago I held the London Bitcoin Meetup (http://wiki.london.hackspace.org.uk/view/Project:Bitcoin/Bitcoin_Weekend_2011) at the London Hack Space. The space was small so we limited the event to 30 people, and denied 10 people on the waiting list. 40 people turned up anyway.

- London is expensive (50 EUR per night for hotel). However from speaking with a couple hotels so far, they were willing to negotiate a group deal. I also have friends in London and the London Hack Space who could donate sleeping bag space.

- Many of our previous speakers came from London: Amir Taaki (me), David Birch, Simon Dixon, Jason Chia, Max Keiser. We also had a nice turnout from UK participants although I agree that the attendance in Prague was much higher among Germans.

Together I think these points make a compelling case for London.

yossarian is going to respond below so please read his message too. :)

Thanks for opening the thread and putting this up for discussion.

Berlin is the best choice for the conference. Here's why:

Even if the speakers have to travel, Berlin offers them more than just the conference. It's one of the most attractive cities in Europe right now, so I doubt they would regret coming over. There's also good speakers to be found outside of London, and somehow most of the speakers also made it to Prague this year. ;) This is especially true for the speakers I am aware of right now.

The conference is aimed at a European audience, and Berlin is just as reachable and well connected as London. It is also more central in a European sense, which cuts down on the average travel time.

Berlin is cheap. There's no need for group deals or sleeping bag places (which could be found anyways) because it offers a wide variety of accomodation for all sorts of attendees. This is also true for actual conference costs regarding the venue, catering etc.

I gotta admit I didn't make a survey. I also fail to see the relevance. There's definitely a base of interested people, there's c-base as a hacker space, there's the chaos communication congress which attracts thousands of attendees each year, there's room77 and the local bitcoin meet-up.

Press contacts are good, but don't automatically account for news coverage. However, regarding German and international media, Berlin doesn't lack any of these. All the big German newspapers and television are based in Berlin, and some of the people organising the conference locally have been working in television, PR and marketing professionally.

I'd appreciate everybody's input as well. :D I'll expand the list of pro's later. :D

ll attend even if you do it in antarctica :)  prague was awesome

London sounds good to me! I'll hopefully be able to attend now! :)

When were you planning to have it ?

I believe the BitCon 2012 in San Antonio, Texas is March 17/ 18 so it might be good to keep away from those dates.

London would get my vote, though I have always wanted to visit Berlin !   :-)

+1 to London

Berlin

  I wont bother to give my stupid, American reasons why. But it's an image thing mostly. I am not sure if Europeans or those from other countries would share the same sentiment.

I believe late September 2012 would be a good time. But I guess this is open to discussion as well. ;)

@genjix: Seems like opening a poll would be a good idea. Even though this won't provide any hard data, it might add some additional input to consider.

Where ever it is, I will come this time :)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z93ZXZT

Berlin, because it is much cooler.

I vote Berlin. For a lot of Europeans I think Berlin is easier to reach. There also seems to be a rather active German userbase, which would be easily included.

Here is my 2btc:

Berlin:
Seems to be a much stronger community, Germans outnumbered brits by 6 to 1 in Prague.  
Room77 is in berlin, I think holding a conference here would have lasting effects on the adoption of btc in the physical world particularly in this neighborhood .
Its much easier and cheaper (and cooler) for participants. (no offence to london)



London:
Financial hub, for a global currency its got a lot more credibility than Berlin. (no offence to berlin)
Speakers predominantly came from london which is a very big advantage.
Whoever turns out to be the guy footing the bill for the next one, paying for keynotes flights and accommodation was a significant cost.
Secret weapon is in london:  The last conference would have been impossible without Amirs input.  He is on btc fulltime and the fact he is in London would be enough to make the next one successful also.  

Participants was the hardest thing to get commitment from last time and there is overwhelming advantages of Berlin here.  As this is the 2nd time around maybe it will be easier.  The first piece of the puzzle is attracting speakers, London has a big advantage here.  

I dont think San Antonio dates need to be taken into account when organising this one but its probably too soon to clash with their dates anyway.

There is even a restaurant in Berlin that accepts Bitcoin. Makes sense to me. Also I have never actually been to Berlin, but visited London earlier this year. So I would be very likely to attend if it were in Berlin.

Yes, that's room77 worldly mentioned

My vote: 2012 Berlin, 2013 London

I will be at either London our Berlin- Do you have dates or a specific time period? I think you should do it early spring or when its an off season but still warm (Germany and UK in cold wether is terrible)
London is also easier for Gareth, our CTO and founder of BitInstant, who lives in Wales.

Need more speakers?

I'd vote London but either works.

i think thats not really a pro argument for berlin. berlin has a metro population of 4.5mio, london over 13mio, plus berlin is far away for most germans. to reach more people in germany you have to choose something more central, like frankfurt.  thats <2 hours by train/car for ca. 30-40mio germans and paris is only 4hours by train.

if its either london or berlin, london sounds better, mostly because the organization and speakers are already there. rather have a small decent conference than a big disappointing one.

Wherever it's held.. can someone please put some focus on *timely* video  releases (or even just summaries/transcripts) for people who can't attend?

Video of presentations should be available within days.. not weeks/months.

I really think it's a squandered opportunity.
Lack of video and/or transcripts of keynote speeches is likely to reduce media/blogger interest in follow-up reporting on the event.
'Old news', even if novel, is well.. 'old'.
One of the key principles of journalism is timeliness - so if the conference appears as an information black hole for many days or weeks afterwards it's a lost opportunity to get any additional media commentary.

It also means the majority of the community is somewhat cut-off from discussing and considering the hot topics at the time, when they're fresh in the minds of attendees. Some potential for collaboration and momentum-building is surely lost.

Of course - if you really want to be up to speed and connect with the bitcoin world-shakers, you probably have to get to these things, but let's strive for a bit more  connectedness in what is after all a global digital currency.

Definitely. We might actually have a sponsor who specializes on video-streaming and IT infrastructure and will hopefully help us get the word and video out faster. :D


"The organization" is in Berlin as well, Bitcoin is not centralized and neither is the community. ;) I still don't really understand why it's important where some potential speakers live. If London is that well connected, they can travel to Berlin just as fast.

Personally, I don't mind any of the three options. I was already at the London Bitcoin Meetup as well as in Prague. I've been to Berlin before on other occasions and I'm also fluent in English, German and Czech ;).

Maybe if I find enough time I might be able to have a presentation too, about economics of Bitcoin, I've been researching it intensively.

London may be better because of more popular language used there.

Wow, you are planning new conference already :)

It's not like you'd had to be able to speak Czech to attend the conference in Prague ;)

One fact I liked about Prague was that pretty much everyone had to exchange some money for CSK - which illustrated one of the great advantages of Bitcoin. This would actually be an argument for London over Berlin...

I'm looking forward to the day where we don't need to have local fiat money in order to attend a Bitcoin conference.

Yankee has very kindly spoke on my behalf in saying London would be easier for myself to get to and i'll back that up.

Having put my bias in writing, London is indeed a much greater financial centre than berlin, not to mention the lack of language barriers etc.

berlin is full of younger people, many from abroad. all of them speak english. at least, you won't be lost ... :)

edit: PS: and for me as a non native speaker, i sometimes have real problems understanding british native speaker. the simpler humble international english is much easier to understand.

Gareth's right, London is a much bigger financial hub then Berlin is.

I can make some great investor and banker meetings in London as well as get some good speakers in the financial industry to come down.

-C

London - it's the Olympics 2012, it will be buzzing (or if it comes after then just picking up the litter)

Berlin has without doubt  by far the largest Bitcoin community in Europe. Alone because of the potential participiants who live here it would make absolute sense to choose Berlin.

Berlin is dead cheap, London is bloody expensive (I've just been there again last week and couldn't believe my restaurant bills ;)). This accounts for accomodation, cabs, food, drinks, conference space ... not to mention cigarettes  :'(!

Berlin already has some real world Bitcoin business going on. BTC-payment is already established at a couple of places, including the local hackspace (C-base), one or another bar / restaurant and even a (gay) sauna club, so one can actually go out and eat and drink for Bitcoins. If things go right there will be an actual "Bitcoin-Kiez*" established in a couple of months, meaning an area where many bars and shops accept BTC so you can go out shopping for BTC as well. An upcomming international BTC-conference would support this effort and the local Bitcoin-Kiez* would be a great experience for participants and would also be a great demonstration for the media and show that there are other things than drugs and porn available for BTC and that it actually works and is being used by someone. London on the other hand is a desert when it comes to BTC-retail (zero businesses as of last week as far as I could find out).

Regarding media-contacts: we do have them here too and please consider that the only journalist who showed up in Prague came from Berlin, which resulted in a rather big article in the biggest-selling German magazine. Media interest here is increasing (I alone know of more coverage comming up beginning of the new year) and a BTC-conference in Berlin would have full attention of the media and definately get quite some coverage.

Yes, London is the biggest banking-place in Europe but that is the kind of banking where BTC precisely does not want to go.

Last but not least:
Berlin will still be part of Europe next year, the Londoners are not so sure about that (sorry, could not resist  ;)).

I'd say first we take Berlin!

Joe


* "Kiez" is Berliner slang meaning as much as neighbourhood area.

The biggest dissappointments in Prague were the speakers from the financial industry. Well, besides the lawyer.

I think Bitcoin needs enthusiasts, developers, coders, merchants and creative people to succeed further, not precisely bankers.

To be honest, I believe the longer it takes for the banks to be fully aware of crypto currencies, the better for Bitcoin. What advantage do you exactly see in people from the old financial world getting involved and what could they tell us that would be interesting for the BTC-community?

Joe

I agree. Berlin or London either is fine.

We should be focusing on the conference, not the location!

Berlin is more easily accessible than London for non-EU citizens like me. My French titre de séjour grants me passage through Germany and the entire Schengen zone, but not UK. I would need to go through immigration, and others may even need visas, which are a big barrier IMHO.

I haven't read all the argumentation for both cities, but you should pay attention on costs. I found it really cool that we could stay on that nice hotel for that price. I don't expect the same level of prices neither in London nor in Berlin, but if Berlin is indeed cheaper than London, I'd say that's another strong point in favor of Berlin.

I vote for Berlin (very pleasant city with friendly people).
Plus I understand from Rick Falkvinge that the Pirate Pirate made close to 10% on local elections recently.

I voted for Berlin, because of prices. And I can even come on bike :-). But I'll attend in London as well, of course.

Berlin is awesome, let's do it there.

Anyone have any idea on dates?


I wanna be more involved in this one, especially on the tech side. I'll even volunteer to video every speech, keynote and session in HD and upload it to our blog every night.
If someone is a good writer, we can work together and do some sort of commentary.

I can probably figure out a way to Livestream it as well, as long as the venue has decent internet speeds.

London for me :)

We were talking about that here and we thought that end of september would be a good time, as there is still some nice weather and warm evenings to stay outdoors after spending a day in an air-conditioned conference hall.


If it happens in Berlin you can be sure someone will come back to your offer ;). I would volunteer for the commentary writing, but not alone, as you have to really stay concentrated listening to a lecture if you want to write a useful comment right after that in 5 mins.

The conference venues in Berlin do all have sufficient and stable internet connectivity, other than in Prague where that part sucked. So do the hackspaces and bars / restaurants that would come into question. They're all used to hoards of nerds flooding their places at Chaos Congresses or other geek events taking place here :).

Joe

Excellent excellent excellent!! Please keep me in the loop!

Irrelevant Warning

I want Washington DC

Hong Kong would be nice too. Sadly it's not quite in Europe.

I have a preference for Berlin, but I'll go to London as well.

Looking forward to it!

Was der Bauer net kennt, frisst er net (http://dict.leo.org/forum/viewUnsolvedquery.php?idThread=185538&idForum=1&lp=ende&lang=de).  ;D

Berlin for me because it's closer and I am one of ze Germans. (London is a great place to visit of course, but it doesn't necessarily have to be in a context of a Bitcoin conference.)

Excellent point. :D

However, it is important to find a consensus on the location before any in-depth preparations start. I also strongly hope that everybody interested in supporting the conference will do so no matter what city turns out to be the prefered location. This is especially true for getting speakers and media contacts. This will be a community effort, and everybody's input and help is appreciated.

I would vote for Berlin due to three main reasons, already mentioned by some people before me:
1) Berlin has a way larger Bitcoin Community. From what it looks like there are more German than UK bitcoin users at least judging by Prague
2) For most continental Europeans, Berlin is easier to reach and easier to pay
3) UK is tough due to visa problems. Quite some of my friends are Russians. They can move freely within Schengen but not to the UK. Thus, it might be a problem for some people to get to London

As in regard to media coverage - if it is really happening in Berlin I should be able to help in this respect. I only have contact to German media, though.

That's not really "freely" because they will still need Schengen visa, which is not so easy to get.
Hong Kong or Vietnam would be nice.

Berlin +1
(definitely I can't take part at a conference in London)

I may be able to make it to Berlin.  I won't go to one in London (not for a few years at least)

alright Berlin!

Let's make it happen  8)

What about Munich?

True - I was talking for all foreigners who already are in continental Europe. Plus - at least according to my friends it is easier to get Schengen Visa than UK VIsa - never tried it myself, though, so it's just hearsay.

European Bitcoin Conference. However you can donate some coins of your blocked botnet accounts on Deepbit to me and I vote for Hong Kong.....

+1 Berlin

If it is held in London again, can we please get some restaurant to accept bitcoin?  I would go out of my way to eat there all the time.

My vote for Berlin.

why not make this thread a poll

@Genjix started one here: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/Z93ZXZT

Would prefer London for obvious reasons (for me) but Berlin is doable.

+1 Berlin

I happened to be so broke in November I couldn't even pay for a trip to Prague at the time. And I live and work in Berlin, which is more expensive than Prague. Considering costs in London, I'd love to go there again but I'm afraid I couldn't afford it.

Berlin!

My vote goes to Berlin. Cheaper, cooler, more central and inside schengen.

I haven't done an official count, but it looks like there's more votes for Berlin than London…

Tee hee hee.

I doubt the conference would end up in Munich this time, but maybe we could plan a Munich minting cut party. Plenty of time to think about this, and maybe a good topic for the next Munich meetup. :)

I'm also in favor of Berlin, I have quite a few people I could visit there anyways. :P

from this thread (and my unofficial counting):

Berlin: 24
London: 10

I would especially not go to London due to the Olympic games this year - everything will be much more expensive (Taxis ~20%, hotels 100-400% [source (http://www.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/konjunktur/sommerspiele-2012-briten-fuerchten-olympia-delle-im-tourismus-11583405.html)]).

Didnt even think about that point, Berlin even now more then ever!

Berlin!  Berlin!  Berlin!

You won't regret it.  Berlin is a wonderful city!  It is young and full of life and culture, and also history.  And it is cheap.  And it is not going to be on it's head and full of security theatre due to some sports event, which probably many Londoners would like to get away from as well.

Is there new information about the conference, maybe an approximate date?

Wherever it is, keep in mind that Bitcoin Magazine/BitTalk.TV would like to be there to cover everything. Don't pick some place that I can't bring myself and my crew for under $20,000 and keep in mind that press doesn't usually pay for entry to places they are publicizing for free.

I vote Berlin because people follow Bitcoin and Bitcoin follows people so the choice should be made strictly on cost. This is not a trade show or exhibition like the one we're planning at the DCAO where people off the street will be going, so it doesn't really matter where it is.

Yeah, we're going to make an announcement soon after we confirm the venue. We're shooting for either September or December.

Sounds great! Berlin I hope? I estimate an 80% probability of me attending if it's in Berlin, compared to 25% for London.

I will very likely attend this conference, especially if it is in Berlin. Missed the last one but I won't miss this.

Great to hear that there's progress - just let us know if you need any help!

Maybe we can witness the block 210.000 apocalypse live in December ;)

Forget Berlin.

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-4P6yH505P9s/TqXnavYP8ZI/AAAAAAAABBk/nC1SdFgaZsg/s1600/NCOTB_KREUZBERG.jpg

Never been to Berlin.  Could be an opportunity :)

+1 Berlin

more friendly, more laid back, less crowded, affordable and spacious accommodation, plane connections slightly worse than in London, train connections a lot better.

Not that I don't like London, but it's not the best setting in the world for conferences.

Reasonings in the OP make sense.
However:

- London has Heathrow. *blargh* *ptui* *eek* *gasp*
- If you wanna drink a beer or book a hotel, you'd better be... a brit, or rich.

I've been in Berlin several times for various conferences, and they were all a success and a pleasure to attend.
This is what is needed - a place where the trip to get there doesn't "punish" you and diverges you from the real aim.

+1 Berlin.

This and that!
Covers it best. Berlin has more potential for fun besides the conference (culture and costs wise) and will attract a lot more visitors. I would rather pay some BTC in the pot for paying for some speaker's flights instead of having all visitors pay five times the money they would in Berlin.
I believe the conference should be visitor-friendly. Else I could just read some whitepapers and see videos from the conference at home..

Ente

(from Berlin)

I really don't understand or appreciate the "there are lots of other things to see in town too!" arguments. Fuck everything else in town, no one is going for a sightseeing expedition of a town, they're going to a convention/conference.

Well, people can do both, you know.   Don't be so squared.

If I flew all the way from South Korea to go to a conference/convention, I'd be fucking pissed if it wasn't all-day.

+1 Berlin

Relax, dude! lol

Ente

+1 London

And here's how some other people might think: "Berlin, yeah that's not too far and I wanted to see Berlin anyway. Let's see if my girlfriend want to go for a weekend trip, I don't have to attend everything at the conference anyway so we'll have some time together to see Berlin too".

Matt, you can be at the conference all day. Come 8 o clock, I want a beer and a joint.

Same can be said for London. There's plenty to do and see in London as well.

Yes, of course, this was just a response to Matthew's "Fuck everything else in town, no one is going for a sightseeing expedition".

London is the #1 city for banking and trading in Europe, by far. If this event has decent media coverage a lot of capital could be entering the bitcoin market.

I'd say the fact that it's quite unknown here in London is an argument to have the conference here. Also, it's well connected to Asia and America.

I don't know what are the expectations for this event though. If it's going to be mostly a get-together, then probably Berlin is better as it's closer to a bigger number of current users.

Hehe. Yes well, nothing wrong with stopping to smell the roses, but I'd prefer that the roses be at the conference.

What you say about London being more of a banking capital seems true.
Will that help Bitcoin? Is Bitcoin "grown up" enough to look for contact with the old banking system? Should we ever do something in that direction at all? And finally, even if we decided to do so, what would it change? Walking in all major banks and telling them "Hey, we'll have this awesome conference in a month!"? :-)

Unfortunately I didnt attend Praque. But I imagine it is more of a get-together than a coordinated connect-to-the-banks/finance/government..

Ente

Actually "contact" with the old banking system is very needed. We need capital to switch to bitcoin.

I doubt we need capital to switch to bitcoin. But even if you feel you need looking for capital the old banking system is the wrong place to look into. There is no capital there. There is only debt. And not just debt but extremely leveraged debt!

There is a lot of people with capital close to the banking system or into it. Having cities like London well aware of bitcoin would be a massive boost. Some of the biggest news agencies in the world have their European (or global) HQs here in London as well.

The strength and actual real world usability of bitcoin largely depends right now of its exchange for fiat. Fiat rules the world right now, not acknowledging that is absurd. Implying that the bitcoin economy doesn't need capital to switch sounds delusional to me.

That said, maybe this conference won't have a big publicity impact, or is not even expected to. As I said before, if the main goal is to get the most current bitcoin users together, then Berlin makes more sense. It's closer to most bitcoin users in Europe.

It's going to have a very public impact.

Trust me.

Would this be in March or April? it would be nice to know with enough time in advance to book for cheaper.

Not before August, if I recall correctly.

To quote from Amir:

The conference is going to be in December so there will be ample time to prepare.

I'm not sure if it's the right year for going super public and carrying Bitcoin to London yet. There are still many important problems to solve and bitcoin is far from going mainstream. The media won't help much until those issues are resolved. They will write about it as some of them already have and illustrate all the shortcomings of the system esp its security issues (recent and last years hacks) and its volatility. No banker in their right mind will take it seriously, esp since it's a system whose promotion will put their job on the line in the future.

If you ask me, we are still (and should be) in an underdog position working things out, making a strategy, and forming a community. Berlin would be the right (ie cheaper) place for that. Instead of London in December 2012, make it spring 2013. No big difference.

There will be a Bitcoin tutorial and workshop in Braunschweig as part of the German computer scientists meeting. It will be mixed language (English and German).

http://bitcoin.uni-rostock.de

The results of the workshop will be published as a special issue of Future Internet.

http://www.mdpi.com/journal/ajax/events/futureinternet

Clemens Kap is probably involved. Those of you who have been to the Prague conference know him. He had this hw-device... wonder what's become of it.

+1