Looks like we might get to have KiCon again this year! Not at CERN () this year but it does look like California is getting ahead of the COVID levels and has good plans going forward to reduce them further and keep them low.
With that, we are planning to hold KiCon 2021 in the LA area over a weekend in September. Wayne and a number of the lead dev team will be in attendance as will a number of folks from our community. Weād like to get a (very preliminary) idea of how many of the forum would be interested in attending!
One quick note: venue requirements mean that you will need to be fully vaccinated to attend
I will definitely be there!
I might go, depending on other things
Not this year
0voters
Also, we havenāt forgotten about our other users! Weāre still hoping to bring KiCon to Europe in future years. We are also exploring ideas for an Asia-based conference as well (in case youād like to help out here!). Our global userbase is our biggest strength and weāre looking to be where you are!
In the āExploring ideasā register, I would suggest Kyoto for an asia-based conference. Preferably not in summer. Great concentration of touristic spots which would make sense if you donāt have a lot of time (youāre talking about a weekend). And there might be ways to cooperate with local prefecture organization and / or universities, possibly sponsorship of local companies.
Awesome! I put down that Iād definitely be there, but the Canadian border being somewhat closed may make that tricky. I might be in LA for work right around that time anyways though, so who knows!
Please allow some more discussion about the number of visitors: Recently there was a (useless) discussion of the number of Kicad users in the dev list probably to compare with sold licenses of commercial ecad. For this reason it would be interesting how many vistors were at the previous conventions and I did not see such numbers before. If this are not kept in secret, please mention here in addition to the expected survey. Probably all visitors can be assumed as āactiveā users. A further hint could be the numbers of forum users with minimum one annual contribution over last 2-3 years. Numbers of downloads probably not represent active users. For the FOSS properties of Kicad many downloads go to people who try their first pcb what will fail in same manner as somebody tries to build a house by download of an architectural desktop
Not a fan of the built in tracking but thatās what I have access to. I like the software that breaks out unique visits, time visited, landing page, referring page, etc.
I wish I could go, just for the cultural experience of meeting folks from this Forum - or creating a mental image of the kind of people who use (and develop) KiCAD. I would have been in Chicago, except I was living hand-to-mouth among the working poor at the time.
That is tempting! Our youngest says heāll be getting married, and throwing a big reception in Washington state about that time. Iād love to ride the train from there to LA. Unfortunately, my wife (of 47 yrs) is an Alzheimer patient, so she is never far from wherever you find me. Talk about being hobbled by a āball-and-chainā! (Yes, I am willingly connected!) But I donāt suppose KiCon 2021 will offer elder-care (or child-care).
Weāre targeting late September right now. However (and this is a big caveat), LA county just started to recommend masks indoors again for everyone in response to the increased prevalence of the delta strain. Right now, that isnāt preventing a conference of vaccinated individuals. But as we learn more, this may change quickly. Iām working with our venue to determine what we can do to make this safe for everyone.
Bad news on this front. LA county just went back to manadatory masking as our case rates are spiking. While we are still technically able to continue planning for this conference, it looks likely that vaccination rates are not going to be high enough locally to safely support a group gathering.
I understand that this will be disheartening news to many of you (as it is to us as well). I hope you all stay safe and get your jabs. Weāre in this together and weāll get through it together as well.
) this year but it does look like California is getting ahead of the COVID levels and has good plans going forward to reduce them further and keep them low.
