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Program
How program works is (and should be) very much up to the Program Chair. What I'm going to describe here is a mixture of the general structure that I've applied when I've run it, and some specific things that have worked well (or not). The "I" in this page, at least at this time, is Benno Rice coming off the back of doing PyCon AU 2025. You should not feel chained to what is written here, and I've attempted to explain the "why" as much as the "what" so that you can try to get good outcomes out of whatever process suits you.
The goal of the Program Chair is to put together a collection of content that is informative, entertaining, and thought-provoking for the Python Community in Australia. What defines "the Python Community in Australia" is 100% vibes-based but presumably, since you're now the Program Chair, you've got a sense of what that vibe is. We want that group of people to have a good time at PyCon AU and while the Director and the rest of the Core Team are making sure there's a place for that to happen and that people are going to show up, the goal of the Program Chair is to arrange the presentations that they're going to see.
We've been using PreTalx for a while. It's worked well for us and fits will with the workflow we use, described below in the section on the CfP. We generally pay for the use of the hosted version and various people know the author/operator Tobi/rixx and can introduce you if you need to ask technical questions or get bugs dealt with. We've made heavy use of Google Sheets for Thunderdome and post-CfP tracking of things like waitlists and backup speakers. Any replacement tools should be considered in terms of how they fit the process you want to use.
The "traditional" PyCon AU program format consists of a day of specialist tracks, followed by two days of main conference. Specialist Tracks are where one of the venue rooms is given over to a group of people from a specific interest area and they will select the program for that room for that day. The Program Chair has veto power over what goes on in the track but I've never had to exercise it. The number of specialist tracks is generally the same as the number of presentation rooms being used for the main conference although depending on the venue it could vary, the main goal is to allow for some highly area-specific content selected by people who know that area well.
The "traditional" format also has lightning talks as the last hour of each main conference day. These are 5 minute talks that attendees will propose on the day, to be presented that day. More on them below.
The rest of this document assumes you're following something close to this structure. You don't have to, but I'd encourage you to remember The Goal. Likewise if this format doesn't seem to be meeting The Goal any more, it should absolutely be changed.
- Determine Specialist Tracks (must be done before CfP can open)
- Call for Proposals (must be complete 4 or more months prior to conference open)
- Finding and Locking In Keynotes (should be done as soon as practical)
- Recruiting Reviewers (can be done during CfP)
- Proposal Review (allow 2-3 weeks, starting ~1 week after CfP close)
- Thunderdome (allow one day, ideally)
- Schedule Construction (should be ready ~3 months out from conference, will change)
- Lightning Talks (working out who's selecting, and who's hosting)
- Pre-Conference (everything between initial schedule release and conference open)
- Conference (on-the-ground cat herding)
The number of specialist tracks you have will generally be the same as the number of main conference rooms you have since they'll generally be using the same rooms. Once you know how many specialist tracks you're running (we've had 3 and 4 in the conferences I've been Program Chair for) you need to then work out who's running them.