DAY OF!
Hello, Attendees! WordCamp NYC is finally here, and there’s some information we need to give you.
1) Where to go. On Saturday, come to the venue, the Vertical Campus of Baruch College. The address for Google maps is 55 Lexington Ave, but you’ll need to enter on E. 25th St., where the building is labeled “One Bernard Baruch Way.”
2) Check in. You will check in Saturday morning between 8-9am. When you come in that door on 25th, bear left, away from the security turnstiles. Registration is in the Multipurpose room, just through the door near the box office on the left. This is where you’ll pick up your name badge. There will be tables broken out alphabetically; you’ll go to the one for the first letter of your last name. After you’ve checked in, you’ll use your badge to go through security and head upstairs for sessions. There will be 600+ people trying to pick up their badges, so please don’t expect to arrive at 8:55 and be upstairs in time for the 9am session start. If you want to catch the beginning of the event, come early to get through registration.
3) Sunday afternoon location. On Sunday afternoon we’ll move to Mason Hall, which is down the street at 17 Lexington Avenue.
4) Shirts. If you get lost, look for the people wearing the WordCamp NYC shirts: they are volunteers. If you registered before November 4, you should be given your shirt when you pick up your badge. If you registered after Nov 4, we may need to mail it to you after the event. You’ll find out when you check in.
5) Tracks. You will be able to attend sessions from any track, and seats will be on a first-come, first-served basis. The only exception to this is the Newbie track. Because this is a workshop rather than presentations, if you registered for the Newbie track you will need to remain with the Newbie track all morning. If you did not register for the Newbie track you cannot attend the Newbie workshop, as there are pre-set accounts involved.
6) Lunch. Lunch will be provided on Saturday. It will be set up in the multipurpose room, but you should pick up your lunch and then either go outside or take your food back to one of our session rooms to allow everyone to get their food quickly. Please leave the vegetarian, vegan, and kosher food for those people who requested it, so that they will have enough.
7) Drinks. There is no official afterparty, but there is a bar up the street that can hold almost everyone. Since most bars in the neighborhood are very small, if you want to socialize with the people you’ve met throughout the day, we recommend going to Tonic East on 3rd Ave at E 29th St. when WordCamp ends at 6pm. They’ve offered to give WordCamp attendees their “game night” special drink prices from 6-8pm, so you can save a little money if you go there. http://www.toniceast.com/media/tonic.html
8) There will be regular classes and other events going on at Baruch while we are there, so please be respectful of this and try to keep the noise level down, and don’t clog the hallways and elevators; stick to the areas where our rooms are located.
9) There will be very limited wifi available. There are limited access points, and each can only support 25-40 people. It is *imperative* that no one try to stream audio or video, or download torrents, over the event wifi. This will knock other people off, and will interfere with the speakers’ ability to conduct their sessions. If you think you’ll want to access the internet on your laptop, please bring your own EVDO card. There are a number of freestanding internet-connected computers throughout the building we’re in, so if you just need to check your email now and then, please use these and leave your laptop at home. Truthfully, the point of going to a WordCamp is to meet people face to face and interact with them, not to hang out online. Try cutting the cord for a day and help us ensure the wifi is usable for those who need it for accessibility purposes or pre-planned Newbie track activities.
10) We’re buying a handful of flip cameras and gorillapods to get video of the sessions, but we need some people to volunteer to point and shoot so that we have video to post to wordpress.tv after the event. If you’re willing/able (and/or want to bring your own better camera and record sessions), please let us know. To volunteer, please ID which sessions you’re planning to attend based on the schedule on the web site and leave a note in the comments here.
I think that’s it! See you Saturday!
Although I am not attending, as much as I wanted to. I am available tomorrow (Sunday) to shoot videos. If I can be of help, please let me know 🙂
Alex.