European meetup - post your ideas here

[Gamerphile]

Time to stop being jalousie on the NA guys and start working
*** UPDATE ****

Currently location site is swaying between a German location and Amsterdam but we need a local crew for ether so if you are up for the task get in the thread!

We also need vendors and manufactures - please post if you got wishes or ideas.

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My ideas:

Take a friend, relative or your significant other with you - a great way to expose others to Head-Fi and potentially get new members. Audiophile's, electronic people, gamers and computerphiles etc. are prime targets

Vendor and industry turn op. I can personally always get something new from Sennheiser yet to come to marked or know who can loan me. But we want everyone in the industry related to come - more the merrier. Very long term goal would be to have the pull to get Grado, Headroom and other NA company's from over the pond to show up. Which company's do you know or wish to see?


apatN
I think the most important thing for an international meet is the journey people will have to take. It has to be a big, easy to reach city. I do like your ideas though.
What about involving some of head-fi's sponsors like Meier Audio for example?

More to come....

[krmathis]

My first thoughts/ideas..

1. Location:
Looking at the European map is seems like the northern parts of Germany stick out as being ideal. Since its middle of Europe and the traveling distance for most of us will be about the same, regardless if we fly in from Norway, Sweden, Finland, Poland, UK, Italy, Spain, ...
Both Berlin and Hamburg seems like strong candidates to me, since:
* They both have larger international airports.
* Direct flights to/from most larger European cities.
* Acceptable price level.
* Big cities, probably making it easier to get vendors (and others) to attend.
* Likely to have several local Head-Fi'ers.

2. Then there are of course lots more to discuss/perform:
* Date for the event.
* Organizing committee (probably both local and non-local Head-Fi'ers).
* Estimate how many who may attend.
* Find and reserve a suitable room for the meeting.
* Find and reserve hotel rooms.
* Contact vendors.
* All the rest...


At least its a start...

[apatN]

Interesting enough. I am pretty excited about a European meet. I too was thinking of Germany in the form of Berlin. Paris is also quite easy to reach for Dutch head-fiers.

[Duggeh]

Distance is a false economy. There are more important considerations than raw distance. Flights to certain destinations are more ready and often cheaper even if they're slightly further (and on the European scale, these distance changes [Berlin/Paris/London for example] are far smaller than say, NYC vs LAX).

Wherever the meet takes place, you've got to have associated functional English as a factor because thats the language everybody will be communicating to each other in.

One gets the impression that there are more British members than there are from other countries (perhaps an inevitable side effect of this being an English-language forum). London in this regard seems logical as a destination.

[MASantos]

I second London as a good option.

It's one of the cheapest destinations in terms of flight price(although accommodation can be somewhat expensive), probably has the biggest HFers crowd, and pubs, one must not forget the pubs!

[smallcaps]

Amsterdam fits most of your requirements. price wise its cheaper then london (i have lived in both cities for an excess of 3 years each), english can be used everywhere and it is very friendly and safe. not to mention there are many other interesting activities that could be had...

[smallcaps]

oh and the airport is very close to the city!

[smallcaps]

berlin by the way does not have a large international airport. they have 2 very small and inadequate airports. i also spent a year in berlin and flying out of there international was a headache. if in germany then Frankfurt, Dusseldorf or Munich.

[krmathis]

London is fine for me.
I have always looked at London as an expensive place to stay (hotels and like), but guess its not that bad.

Originally Posted by smallcaps

berlin by the way does not have a large international airport. they have 2 very small and inadequate airports.

I stand corrected.
Tegel is quite large, while Schönefeld is quite small. Guess neither of them qualify as a large International airport.

[smallcaps]

hummmm... still iffy about london. pluses include language, international ports of entry and the city. minuses include congestion and very bad public transport, the airports are generally nightmarish and cost of visiting is high. still, it should matter where most of the eu head-fiers are located, as we would need some pretty good organization and as many people to help on location as we can get.

regarding paris: paris is the convention capital of the world, singapore being a close second. it should have the infrastructure to facilitate a big meet-up. the only problem may be the language.

[mark2410]

how about edinburgh?

not very central i know but on the plus points its got tons of conference facilities, lots of hotels that are reasonable outside the festival and hogmannay. has decent public transport and is a reasonably small city so people should find it easy to get around

also its rather pretty

[smallcaps]

i do love love love my whisky and whiskey!

[Duggeh]

You'll want to go to Ireland for one of those then.

[Gamerphile]

Originally Posted by apatN

Interesting enough. I am pretty excited about a European meet. I too was thinking of Germany in the form of Berlin. Paris is also quite easy to reach for Dutch head-fiers.

Yeah... Thought the only problem with Germany could be local head-fiers... Thought it say its a tie between Scandinavia, UK and Germany(+neighbors) member wise and I agree on Germany logistically and such is best for most - many would even be able to drive there.

[Gamerphile]

.. hmmm.. forgot to update... well as my last post may tell you I think of London as a good one too (Never actually been there in fact)... Convention size it doesn't matter - we are never going to be more than 200 people tops so we "just" need a small space if we get so many vendors that we need to do it more official.

Ohh and for the heck of it Copenhagen has been a host to many meets I've been at - with england as the other location frequently used. But that was with a much larger part of Scandinavians than middle/south Europeans..