Venue Chair¶

The Venue Chair leads the Venue Committee: the venue relationship, A/V, catering, evening events, alcohol compliance, swag, badges, signage, the registration desk, and volunteers.

Responsibilities¶

Pre-Event¶

Manage the venue relationship (Austin Central Public Library, Special Event Center) and contract logistics. Access is 6:00 AM to 7:00 PM Friday through Sunday; there is no Thursday access, so setup happens Friday morning in parallel with tutorials.
Start A/V vendor outreach about Month -7, request the quote about Month -5.5, and expect the deposit about 3 months out. See ../runbooks/av.md.
Set the ticket timeline and stand up Pretix with demographic questions: early bird opens December 1 and closes mid-January. See ../runbooks/registration.md.
Run catering: ideation docs with headcount assumptions about 11 weeks out, quotes 8-10 weeks out, deposits (roughly half of totals) about 6.5 weeks out, final orders about 4.5 weeks out. Build the catering plan sheet with per-day blocks and a "who's getting what" shopping tab with an owner per item. See ../runbooks/catering.md.
Plan the evening events: the Friday invite-only appreciation dinner (speakers, sponsors, organizers, Friends of PyTexas, about 50-75) and the Saturday network event (about 150). See ../runbooks/network-event.md.
Own alcohol compliance: TABC permit plus a hired licensed peace officer (two budgeted). Start months early; the officer hire can take a month of bounced emails, and TABC approval is slow enough that a permit submitted a few weeks out may still be in review the day before the event.
Run swag ordering: quotes about 8 weeks out, first order (patches, stickers, pins) about 6.5 weeks out, shirts ordered immediately after pre-orders close about 5 weeks out, everything ordered and approved by 2.5 weeks out. Do not let the print vendor alter the logo. See ../runbooks/swag.md.
Order badges through ConferenceBadges.com earlier than feels necessary; the order tends to slip into the final two weeks.
Order linens from American Party Rental (reuse last year's invoice); the library provides furniture but no linens.
Print signage the final week: about 6 standing signs and 5-10 single-page signs, mapped on the Miro board with Community. Check whether the library has sign holders.
Collect dietary restrictions well before the final week; gathering them in the last days leaves no time to adjust orders.
Recruit volunteers and build the day-of staffing plan, including registration desk shifts and shirt-table coverage. See ../runbooks/volunteers.md.
Pursue a hotel room block early and give it an owner; it gets raised repeatedly and stalls without one.

Day of Event¶

Run the registration desk: three-station flow (intake form scan, badge pickup, shirt pickup by poker chip), 2 on check-in laptops, 1-2 on badges, everything set by 8:00 exactly. Keep blank badges and a label printer for late registrants.
Run food service around the run of show: coffee pickup, delivery windows, setup and teardown at breaks, and supply runs (Costco and HEB) as the restock mechanism.
Keep the shirt table staffed and the distribution system working; stand up a waitlist form if sizes run short.
Photograph venue property at load-in and load-out to avoid disputes; ask the library for reserved organizer parking.
Apply the leftover-food policy decided in advance: give leftovers to library staff.

Post Event¶

Return rentals and reconcile vendor invoices with Finance.
Count leftovers to calibrate next year's orders (diet sodas, sparkling water, and fruit are the hits; muffins and kolaches get over-ordered).
Thank the venue staff and log venue lessons in the retro.

Relevant Runbooks¶

Past Volunteer Chairs¶

Volunteers ran as a separate chair role in 2022-2023 before folding into Venue.

Year	Name
2022	Mason Egger
2023	Mason Egger