Wikimania 2005 city

One of the world's most important conference and literature cities, where the world's largest Book Fair (Frankfurter Buchmesse) takes place annually. Goethe was born in Frankfurt!
Multicultural city: Around 170,000 people from more than 180 different nationalities (mostly Turkish, Italian, Former Yugoslavian) live here (overall population of nearly 650,000). Wikipedians with special dietary requirements (halal, kosher, vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO...) will be happy. Contact the local Wikipedians to get the information in advance.
Central European location
The second biggest European hub airport (Frankfurt International Airport) which guarantees cheap flights from other continents
Second airport nearby (Airport Frankfurt Hahn) which provides low-cost flights from many European airports [1]. Cheap bus transfer to Frankfurt central station (12 €, 1:45 hours).
Germany's busiest railway station (Frankfurt central station) with 1 700 trains and 250 000 visitors daily. Direct international connections e.g. to Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam, Budapest, Vienna or Zurich using ICE or EC and Milan or Prague by night trains.
Good transit system. Congress Ticket offers unlimited travel on Frankfurt´s public transport system (all RMV lines within the city districts incl. Frankfurt Airport, 2nd class) for only € 3.75 per day.
The Congress-Museum Ticket provides free admission to 26 museums and cultural institutions throughout Frankfurt for only € 1 per day.
Wikimedia has an existing legal body in Germany (Wikimedia Deutschland)
Language: Germans don't necessarily speak English particularly well. However, they would be happy to practice talking with you. Some people also speak French. Frankfurt is one of the most international cities in Germany.

Location/Accommodation

Haus der Jugend (Youth Hostel)

Conference and accommodation in one location. Experience shows that this is the best way to build a real-life community.
Located in the centre of Frankfurt, on the banks of the river Main with a view of the skyscrapers and the old city. Many sights close by: the major museums on the banks of the river Main, the town hall Römer, St. Paul's Church, the cathedral, the "Goethe's House". And the romantic apple-wine district "Old-Sachsenhausen" (with many nice pubs) starts next door. Reachable with public transport from the airport and from the central train station within 30 minutes.
Conference rooms - Used in the past especially by international non-profits.
- Large conference hall (350 m²) for up to 400 people (€ 420 per day)
- Medium conference hall (175 m²) for up to 200 people (€ 215 per day)
- Small conference hall (112 m²) for up to 80 people
- Seven smaller conference rooms from 15 to 50 people
- We may cancel our reservation until three months before the event without any cost, so we can reserve both the large and the medium halls now and decide later which one we need.
Cheap accommodation - The Haus der Jugend is both a youth hostel and a hotel with about 430 beds in total. Prices for Juniors (up to 26 years) including breakfast:
- Youth hostel: € 16
- Guest House 4-bed-room: € 20
- Guest House Double-room: € 25
- Guest House Single-room € 30
- Surcharge for Seniors € 4, for private bathroom € 5
- online booking
Warm buffet (optional) for € 4,80 for lunch and dinner.
Conference halls and at least 200 beds are still available during August and September (July has not been requested yet), except between 21st August 2005 and 24th August 2005. If the convention takes place in September 2005, the first half would be better. In the second half of September, a trade fair takes place in Frankfurt and hotels (since not everyone wants to stay in the Youth Hostel) are usually full and/or expensive.
Website (multilingual): http://www.jugendherberge-frankfurt.de/
Some snapshot photos of the Youth Hostel

Sample Airfares

20-25 July, from New York, $671 (price as of 25 September 2004 on Orbitz by Jimbo)
Very cheap fares from London Stansted to Frankfurt-Hahn - £22.10 GBP with Ryanair in November 2004 (can't yet book ahead to summer 2005).

Note that Ryan Air fly to Frankfurt-Hanh "HHN", not Frankfurt Am Main "FRA" LoopZilla 20:55, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Local helpers

Wenn Ihr in der Nähe wohnt und grundsätzlich Interesse hättet, ein wenig bei der Vorbereitung und/oder Durchführung der Konferenz zu helfen, tragt Euch bitte hier ein.

Mathias Schindler - living in Frankfurt (8 minutes train station, 5 minutes downtown), board member of Wikimedia Deutschland
Akl - living near Frankfurt (30 minutes to downtown) and would take a holiday for two weeks to volunteer as on-site manager; some experience in event management, board member of Wikimedia Deutschland
Melkom - living in Frankfurt (15 minutes from downtown by S-Bahn)
DaB., living in Offenbach a City quite next to Frankfurt, board member of Wikimedia Deutschland
Timmy living near Frankfurt, a little experience in event management (Sports Tournaments, Fairs)
JeLuF living in Frankfurt.
Toddy, living near Frankfurt (help in August)
Gwyndon, living near enough to Frankfurt, experience in event management, willing to act as interpreter and onsite translator for english/german/english.
Flups, living in Frankfurt, amount of help depends on office workload
muriel, i live here, i can help but only in Sept
Evangeline I live in Frankfurt, in Sachsenhausen, but must travel often. Native English speaker (American) with good French and German, and professional proofreading/editing experience. I can help most before the event; not sure I will be there in August.
flacus 11:40, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC) i live in Wiesbaden. How can I help ?
Sklaiber Living in Frankfurt
Benni Living in Frankfurt. I would like to help, but i am not shure, if i have time next summer. Life is changing fast for me these days ;-)
Martin Vogel living in Frankfurt
Cirdan living 30-40min to downtown in Limburg an der Lahn
Wing living in Mainz
C.W. live & studiy also near Frankfurt, could help
iCeFrEsH - living near Frankfurt (20km; 20 minutes by S-Bahn)
PiWa - living near Frankfurt (25 minutes by train). Think it will be no problem to help.
nowrap - living in Frankfurt nearby the fair, experienced in eventmanagement and multimedia.
Aki - working near Frankfurt (35 min by car)
Raffi living in Offenbach am Main next to Frankfurt. Some experience in event management; working for the local radiostation-network (Hessischer Rundfunk).
Nikolas Schneider - living in Frankfurt city, English and Portuguese speaker (my Portuguese is not that good anymore though)
Petra2903 Living near and working in Frankfurt, Translator and Interpreter German-English, would love to get involved
Floffm Living in Frankfurt. How can I help?
Sigi Müller Living in Frankfurt
Shneedu, Fuso, Tom pretty close 2 Frankfurt
de:Benutzer:yanro I live in Wiesbaden.I can help!
Nils living in Frankfurt & helping is my second Name.
Hijacker (blog) Probably could help before the event. I'll be away from 4-6th august, but the 7th and 8th I could eventually help.
MichaelDiederich having time and already registered helper
HaJo Gurt living in Darmstadt
Nina

Questions & answers

1. How many active Wikipedians are there in your city or region?

en:Frankfurt am Main is part of the highly populated Rhine-Main area (de:Rhein-Main-Gebiet) with around 4 to 5 million residents. Besides Frankfurt's 644.000 citizens, there are several hundred thousand commuters rushing into the city every day. For an estimateof active Wikipedians in Frankfurt and its region, we followed the list of cities listed on (de:Rhein-Main-Gebiet). According to de:Wikipedia:Die_Wikipedianer/nach_Ländern there are 48 active Wikipedians in the metropolitan area Rhine-Main. Please note: this is a very conservative count.

2. List all of the local Wikipedians who have expressed an interest in helping to organize the event?

See #Local helpers

3. List at least three local organizations or groups that have expressed an interest in sponsoring this event.

Wikipedians from Germany are in dialogue with members from the municipal authority/administration who have expressed their interest in this conference, as it fits into the local profile of the region and the city of Frankfurt. The same applies to the University of Frankfurt which is already aware of the collaborative method of Wikipedia. A third group is the local branch of the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) which is already a strong and reliable partner of Wikipedians, see 21C3. Many members of the CCC are Wikipedians as well.

4. Which places can you propose for a four-day conference, Friday to Monday (with one big hall, 300 people and several smaller rooms)?

The Youth Hostel (see above for details) is the most price-worthy place that matches these requirements. Frankfurt is an important conference city, so there are also many more and of course much bigger conference locations.

5. Can we rent it the whole time (even at night)?

The conference rooms are normally available until 23:00 (11 pm). But I spoke to the manager of the Youth Hostel, who told me that it would be possible to make an exception. For an alternative and much more attractive party location see #Social program.

6. How much would the rent be?

The conference rooms at the Youth Hostel are very cheap. See above for details.

7. How is the internet connectivity there? Is there are a network? Would we have to set it up on our own? Do you have experienced local helpers able to set up a wifi and cable network?

The Youth Hostel has no internet connectivity adequate to our needs. But Frankfurt is an important hub for European internet traffic and there are many companies that might be willing to help us and/or provide broadband connectivity and cable network. See also Question 3.

8. If we choose this place, list cheap places to stay near the conference location.

The proposed conference location itself provides cheap accommodation (Youth Hostel, see above for details).

Additionally there probably are some local Wikipedians who would host some guests.

9. Is there are place like a gym nearby which can be rented as a cheap place to sleep?

Didn't search for one, because the conference location itself provides cheap accommodation (Youth Hostel, see above for details).

10. What local academics, talent, and projects do you plan to enlist to address the participants?

Using the infrastructure of the University of Frankfurt, the University for Applied Science and local private academies, we are able to reach the local academic community. Wikipedia is already known in the local artistic community and we will be able to present a platform to interested groups who have an intersection with wikimedia projects. It should be noted that we can't enlist academics and others interested until we can confirm that the city has been chosen for the 2005 meetup.

11. List at least one problem you foresee with hosting the get-together and describe how you plan to overcome it.

problem: Sky will fall down during the get-together.

solution: Sing the wikimedia-anthem-gospel.

Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Location/Accommodation

Haus der Jugend (Youth Hostel)

Sample Airfares

Local helpers

Questions & answers

Archives