As Megan mentioned in her blog post, The Association’s mission is to unite the community to build and promote Drupal and DrupalCon remains an important way to achieve this mission. Unfortunately, our DrupalCon team is smaller due to staff reductions and we needed to adjust our work accordingly. To decide on what to eliminate, we took a critical look at what services the Association can continue to provide with minimal impact to the mission critical event elements that help move the Project forward.

DrupalCon has traditionally supported our contribution journey, helping developers and other contributors level up their skill to not only build better sites, but to also learn how to contribute code to core or through modules. We will continue providing the programing elements to support our contributors.

Over the years, these events have attracted some people whose  organizations aren't Drupal service providers. They've been organizations who chose, or considered, Drupal for their own systems. Going forward, we want to focus more on welcoming these newcomers and make sure they connect with content that serves their needs, for example: how to expand their use of Drupal and find new ways to solve their business solutions, find agencies and new technologies to include in their solutions, and connect with their peers. We already began this work through Summits and we are looking into other programs for them in the future.

Yet, while we will sustain our programming and even expand upon it, we do need to eliminate some of our workload. As a team, and with Megan and the board of directors, we looked at all of our work with a few lenses - what can we streamline, what can other remaining staff pick up and run with, what do we need to reduce or eliminate. We tried to prioritize the things that were mission critical to the project, would be noticeable to a community members' event experience, and do as many cuts behind-the-scenes as possible.

Things that we have decided to eliminate:

• Hotel welcome letter - If you've stayed at one of the partner hotels at a DrupalCon, you may have noticed the welcome letter from the Drupal Association. We will not be producing these letters going forward.
• Extended Sprints hosted lunches - I know this one may be disappointing, but it's time consuming for staff to manage, particularly on site during the Con and has a direct expense associated with it. Having no formal ticketing or RSVP system made planning the appropriate amount of food (with a myriad of unknown dietary needs) rather challenging and occasionally left stomachs grumbling if dietary needs weren't met.
• Re-bidding vendors each year - We have cultivated a list of reliable & cost-effective vendors for various production supplies that offer competitive pricing. Rather than seeking additional bids for each Con, and then picking the ones we used last time, we will renew previous contracts when feasible, a good working relationship is established, and the value is less than $25,000 USD. (behind-the-scenes)

Things that we have decided to decrease or reduce:

• Scholarship reimbursement procedure has changed - In the past we have assisted recipients in making appropriate accommodations - hotel arrangements on our staff block, working with a travel agent to procure flights, etc. Moving forward, recipients will book / arrange for their own travel and accommodations and will submit expenses to the Drupal Association for reimbursement.
• Scholarship funds will be reduced - We have reduced the grants / scholarship budget from 20,000€ to 10,000€. We made this reduction as a part of our cost savings effort.
• BOF boards will be pre-printed - We will have a cut-off date and print sessions directly onto signage. You would be surprised how much time it takes on site to get those boards lined up and written out. We will reserve the slots that weren’t booked by the cut-off date as well as additional timeslots for on-site sign-ups.
• Visa letters will not be mailed - we will no longer print and mail visa letters unless specifically requested to. The PDF that is emailed to the attendee is sufficient for the majority of visa applications. Special requests will be honored.
• Customer service will be distributed - Whereas in the past we had one primary team member focused on customer service, we are now taking a team approach to this. Submissions to our Contact Us form are now being split amongst staff and on site registration support will now happen from a variety of staff members. (behind the scenes)
• DrupalCon website theming has shifted - While the Drupal Association engineering team continues to maintain events.Drupal.org, we no longer have staff resources to build new features, nor to implement the custom themes we use to represent the character of our host cities. Instead, we have updated our contracts with our contracted DrupalCon design firms so that they will provide the sub-themes for upcoming events. (behind the scenes)

Our goal throughout this process was to make DrupalCon continue to be as seamless of an experience for you as possible. While we believe we've done a solid first pass at turning the behemoth amount of work into a realistic workload for the remaining team, there may continue to be minor tweaks as we run through our first Con with our new team format.

As we rebound from the re-organization, we look forward to enhancing what DrupalCon provides. We have a host of ideas, and are eager to dig in with this new framework to see what all we can accomplish with the assistance of the community.

If you are interested in getting involved with DrupalCons, here are 7 easy ways you can contribute:

1. Stay at a partner hotel
   This lowers event costs, which keeps ticket prices lower. Hotels want your business and we are able to negotiate special rates and accommodations for the group with group purchasing power. When we fill up our hotel block - the hotels "comp" hotel room nights for the Association - dropping our production expenses notably. For instance in New Orleans, we earned 122 free hotel room nights.
2. Thank a sponsor, talk to them on site
   Sponsorships greatly subsidize the costs of DrupalCon. Go out of your way to tell a sponsor thank you, ask them about why sponsoring DrupalCon was important to them. Check them out in the exhibit hall, they've got more going on than just t-shirts… ...although they do make great t-shirts!
3. Thank the speakers and program team
   They are volunteering a substantial amount of their time to speaking at DrupalCon, or selecting sessions for DrupalCon - it is no small feat. They are driven to contribute to the community and help everyone become super Drupalers by sharing their knowledge.
4. Buy a ticket
   Rather self-explanatory, but DrupalCon conference, training, and summit ticket sales are vital to the sustainability of future DrupalCon events.
5. Spread the word, invite someone
   Tell your co-workers, maybe a counterpart at a client or customer, speak at a local meet-up, tweet it out - that DrupalCon is the place to go for Drupal education and training. 92% of people believe recommendations from friends and family, use your influence to impact an event you care about.
6. Volunteer on site
   In the weeks before the Con we ask for people who are interested in volunteering on site to step up. There are a host of ways, from helping stuff name badges, to watching sessions and counting attendees, to being a sprint mentor. There is a volunteer role to fit all types of interests.
7. Complete the surveys!
   After the Con we always email out a survey, please complete them with your feedback. We read every response and use it to make decisions for future Cons.

About Rachel

Rachel Friesen (RachFrieee) joined the Drupal Association in April of 2014, and is the Events Manager. She leads the events team that produces DrupalCons across the globe. You probably have seen her running around a DrupalCon talking into a walkie talkie or at the Closing Session.

When not wrangling events, Rachel can be found running and biking around Portland, OR, USA.