Choosing a good venue can be very difficult, but in 2010-2015, we have found that Universities make good hosts because they have auditoriums that fulfil our requirements and often have accommodation and canteens associated with them.
Conference days
Main auditorium: The main room needs to hold a bit more than the expected attendees and is used for keynotes, this room should normally take about 200 people. For earlier GUADECs, we liked this to take 500 people.
Smaller rooms: 1-3 smaller rooms are needed for talks. These rooms usually need to hold 50-100 people, depending on the number of tracks. We often use the main auditorium for one of these and schedule the more popular talks to take place in there. For earlier GUADECs, we liked these to take 150-200 people each.
Hacking/meeting areas: People like to hack, meet and talk during breaks or when they are not watching a talk. It is good to have a foyer with tables, chairs, plugs and wired internet and one room for quieter meetings (big enough for 40 people), but a number of rooms will do if there is no open space available.
Press room: Press need a quiet room where they can go to write up their reports.
Staff room: Your volunteers will need to chill. This can also be a safe place for them to lock up their valuables.
Sponsors' room: Be sure to ask sponsors if they need a room to use for storing promotional material, meetings, celebrations, etc.
It is best to set up the merchandise stand, information desk and auditoriums the day before the conference starts.
Hacking days
Ideally, we want 6-10 rooms which take 10-50 people, depending on the number of rooms.
Board meetings
The board requires a conference room for both the board and adboard meetings, usually on the two days before the conference. Rooms should be available from 09:00 to 18:00, and ideally later.