Conference Chair¶

The Conference Chair leads the conference organizing effort and is held by the Foundation President. The Chair runs the planning cycle, keeps the five committee leads unblocked, and owns the record of the year.

Responsibilities¶

Pre-Event¶

Run the kickoff meeting at Month -8 (mid-August): assign committee leads via round-robin volunteer mapping, set the year's goals (sell-out date, profit target, meeting discipline), and set the CFP open date (October 1) as the cycle's first hard deadline.
Stand up the year's Important Documents at kickoff: minutes doc, Drive folder, budget sheet, and retro doc. The retro doc exists from day one and accumulates all year.
Host recurring planning meetings with a 45-minute target and a hard 1-hour cutoff. Committees report in fixed order (Chair, Speaker, Finance, Marketing, Venue, Community), each lead gives a 5-minute update, and every action item gets an owner.
Split large topics (opportunity grant review, catering) into special sessions instead of stretching the regular meeting.
Keep a standing Upcoming Deadlines block in the minutes with hard payment dates; rolling-template minutes lose action items without it, and small tasks stay "next week's problem" for weeks.
Run next-year planning inside the current cycle: sign next year's venue contract right after the conference, conflict-check dates about 11 weeks out against the Austin events spreadsheet, pay the deposit about 9 weeks out, and start theme and logo work. See ../runbooks/next-year-planning.md.
Own the run of show: keep a pitch-slot draft before sponsorships are sold so pitch slots can be written into contracts, and build the final grid about 2 weeks out. The grid tends to slip to the last few days; hold the two-week target. See ../runbooks/run-of-show.md.
Act as the escalation point when a committee is blocked or a vendor goes quiet.
Onboard any new committee lead against the prior year's folders and the last two retros. See ../runbooks/onboarding-new-lead.md.

Day of Event¶

Arrive at venue open (6:00 AM) and act as day-of lead.
Emcee opening and closing remarks, announcements, and door prize drawings; delegate as desired.
Work the run of show and unblock whoever is stuck. Standing retro advice: do not panic at the conference chair until at least day two.

Post Event¶

Launch the post-event survey on the last day of the conference.
Hold the retro meeting within two weeks; the retro doc has been filling all year.
Close out the conference year: confirm next year's contract and dates are locked, archive the Drive folder, and hand working docs to the next cycle's leads.

Relevant Runbooks¶

Past Conference Chairs¶

Year	Name
2019	Dustin Ingram
2020	Dustin Ingram
2021	-
2022	Mason Egger
2023	Mason Egger
2024	Mason Egger
2025	Mason Egger