General

What is EuroPython?

EuroPython was the first major Python programming language community conference ever organized by volunteers. It started 2002 in Charleroi, Belgium, which attracted over 200 attendees.

It now is the largest European Python conference with around 1200+ participants every year, the second largest Python conference world-wide and a meeting reference for all European programmers, students and companies interested in the Python programming language.

How can I help with the conference organization?

Please have a look at our workgroup page and sign up: http://www.europython-society.org/workgroups

How can I get to Edinburgh?

We have collected information about Edinburgh and how to get there on our Edinburgh page.

Important: Please note that if you are from outside Europe you may need a VISA to enter the UK and attend the conference. Please check this before buying your tickets!

In case you still need help please contact helpdesk@europython.eu

I love what you’re doing. How can I sponsor this great event?

You will find all the information needed at our sponsor page.

If you need any extra information please contact us sending an email to sponsoring@europython.eu

I want to book my flight/hotel. Could you give me an idea of what the schedule will look like?

The schedule has not been finalized yet. We will first have a call for proposals, then a talk voting phase and then announce the final schedule in May. As always, we will announce the details on our blog.

However, we can already provide you with the overall structure for the conference from July 23 - 29:

• Monday & Tuesday, July 23 & 24: Trainings, Beginners' Day and other workshops; registration desk opens
• Wednesday - Friday, July 25-27: Conference talks, keynotes & exhibition
• Saturday & Sunday, July 28 & 29: Sprints

All three parts will be hosted in the EICC. Please note that we will not serve breakfast and only a light lunch.

Unlike in previous years, attending training sessions will require buying a separate ticket. The conference ticket will include the main conference days, the Beginners’ Day workshop (provided we can organize one) and the sprints. A light lunch and coffee breaks will also be provided as part of the ticket.

Tickets

When will ticket sales start ?

We started on 2018-05-31.

What will the ticket prices look like?

We are aiming at keeping the ticket prices at similar levels as for EP2017, with only a moderate increase due to the higher costs in Edinburgh.

Please see our blog post on the topic for details:

• EuroPython 2018: Ticket Sales Update

For EP2018, we will again have an early bird ticket sales day, followed by a phase of regular ticket price sales and a late bird period starting around two months before the conference.

As always, we will make announcements on our EuroPython Blog.

Please note that we will have separate tickets for trainings this year. The trainings will not be included in the main conference ticket price. The training tickets will give you access to all trainings offered on the two training days before the main conference days, with training seats offered on a first-come-first-served basis.

Will you have a financial aid program for EP2018 ?

Yes, we have setup a finaid program similar to the one we had in 2017. Please see EP2018 Financial Aid for details.

How soon should I book hotel and flight?

The Fringe Festival starts in the week after the conference, please book your hotel early.

Since hotel space is running out quickly, we have arranged a number of rooms to remain available until a few weeks before the conference with the Edinburgh Convention Center. You can book these via their custom EuroPython 2018 booking site (we are not affiliated with them, but we thought that having a few rooms left for late birds is a good idea).

Please note that we will not serve breakfast and only a light lunch.

Are you going to offer hotel discounts?

No, not discounts, but we have a room block allocation from the Convention Center in Edinburgh to make sure you can get hotels for the conference. More details will be announced as we receive them from the center.

How can I buy my ticket?

Once we start selling tickets, you will be able to purchase them from our registration page.

We have three different tickets available:

• student (only available for students, PhDs, postdocs and pupils; please bring your student card or postdoc infos)

• personal (for people enjoying Python from home, e.g. hobbyist or freelancer)

• business (for people using Python to make a living, ie. a company pays your ticket)

We would like to encourage you to pick a ticket types that reasonably fits your personal situation. Some examples:

• If a company is paying for your ticket and you need a proper VAT receipt with correct company address, please get a business tickets. The personal tickets do not have any company name field, so those won't work as VAT receipts which permit VAT refunds by companies.
• If you are using Python as a hobby or as freelancer working from home and don't need a VAT receipt, the personal ticket is for you.
• If you are a student, postdoc or still attending school, we have the highly subsidized student ticket for you.

Finally, if you would like to support EuroPython, please consider getting a higher priced ticket. We assure you that your contribution will be put to good use. Thank you!

The tickets are sold in three batches:

• early-bird (the first 200 tickets),

• standard (usually until about a month before the conference)

• on-desk (after standard tickets end; these can also be bought at the registration desk)

Make sure you get your tickets as soon as you can to save some money to spend on the excellent food, beer and whisky in Edinburgh ;-)

Which payment options do you support?

Our website supports these two payment options:

• Credit cards (via Stripe)
   
• Disabled: Paypal account and bank transfers (via Paypal)
  
  Unfortunately, we had to switch off Paypal as payment processor, because they don't allow us to transfer the money out of our account to our bank without paying huge charges.

Please note that we do not support other payment options such as bank transfers directly to our accounts or purchase orders.

You can also use our website for purchasing on-desk tickets during the conference at the registration desk.

While the above two options usually work fine, we have had a few reports about failures when trying to purchase tickets from abroad. We list them here to inform you of such known issues:

• We have had some reports from people in France having problems with their VISA cards. Some banks apparently have fraud prevention filters in place which prevent Stripe payment. Please try Paypal instead in such cases.
• We have had some reports from people trying to use Paypal and having the payment process fail without any good explanation. In some cases, these are apparently regulatory restrictions for overseas payments to non-profits, e.g. for Singapore. Please get in touch with Paypal to find out. Credit card purchases using Stripe usually work fine as an alternative.

Do I need to send any documentation proving my student status?

No, because we trust you :-)

You don’t need to send or upload any documentation during the registration and payment process, but the organizer may ask for your student card when picking up the badge during on-site check-in.

I need to verify the VAT information for the conference organisation. Where can I find the address and VAT-ID?

The EuroPython Society is invoicing for the tickets. Since the conference is held in the UK, we have to charge UK VAT on the tickets. For this purpose, we are registered in the UK for VAT under the UK VAT ID GB 297620469 with address: EuroPython Society, Unit 2, Block C, Arena Business Park, Poole, Dorset BH17 7FN.

Sponsors are invoiced directly by the EuroPython Society in Sweden. Please see the EPS About Page for details.

I'm buying business tickets and I think I don't have to pay the VAT.

We're sorry but European regulations (as well as our tax advisor) define that conferences are taxable in the country where the conference takes place, so the EU VAT reverse charging mechanism cannot be applied. However companies can easily apply for a VAT refund.

I bought my ticket early, but I cannot attend. What can I do?

You can send an email to refunds@europython.eu and let us know. We will fully refund your ticket costs except the administrative (bank, online payments services, etc) costs until June 24th 24:00 CEST.

Please note that we will be processing refunds mostly after the conference, since we will be too busy with other things before and during the conference.

I helped organize the EuroPython 2018 conference as EuroPython WG member. Do you have special rates for volunteers ?

For volunteers who have invested a significant amount of time into organizing the conference will get refunds on tickets or compensations for the their travel/accommodation expenses.

The refunds depend on the amount of work done and based on the budget the finance workgroup (WG) can set aside for this. Please contact the WG chair of your workgroup for more details.

How do I know my t-shirt size?

Please check the vendor pages:

Women's cut: Sol's Imperial T-Shirt

I've bought more than one ticket and now I want to assign it to a friend but the website does not allow me. How should I proceed?

When assigning tickets to others, please make sure that:

a) the other person has already created a user account on our website, and

b) you have the email address the person used for registering with the system.

In some cases, people register with multiple email addresses. Please make sure you are using the correct email address, so that ticket and other details such as talk submission are associated with the same account.

I have bought a ticket and turned my profile public, but I'm still not listed on the Who's coming page. What can I do?

You probably have not yet assigned the ticket to yourself. Log in to the site and then proceed to the ticket page. Clicking on the edit links should allow you to enter the details for each ticket you bought.

The Who is coming page only shows tickets from people who have turned their profile public and have been assigned to a purchased conference ticket.

Someone emailed/phoned me trying to sell cheap tickets/accommodation. Was that you?

Unfortunately, over the years, a few scammers have started using information from our website to contact people and try to fool them into buying e.g. cheap plane tickets, hotel rooms or even conference tickets.

Please note that we will normally not email or phone attendees or sponsors directly offering discounts in form of coupons, unless we have already established a prior relationship with them. If you hvae doubts, please contact our helpdesk@europython.eu before proceeding to get confirmation that the requests are legitimate. Sponsors can contact sponsoring@europython.eu directly.

Accommodation

Ok, I’ve booked the conference. Where can I stay?

There are a lot of nice hotels in Edinburgh. The conference is at the height of tourist season  though, so please book your hotel as soon as possible! We have already prepared a accommodation page with a few options.

If you need help, contact us by writing to the helpdesk@europython.eu!

Edinburgh

Where can I buy SIM cards?

You will be able to buy pre-paid SIM cards in many local shops in Edinburgh to save on roaming charges. For people coming from EU countries, we recommend checking with your provider. Roaming charges within the EU should be reasonable or free.

Visas

I need a visa to go to Scotland. Could you please write me an invitation letter?

If you require an invitation letter please check our VISA page for details. You will have to fill in a form and the letter will be provided you by email.

Talks, Training Sessions, Posters

I would like to present an interesting topic. Which formats do you have available?

We will have standard conference talks, training sessions, help desks and poster sessions. The formats are explained on our Call for Proposals page.

How can I give a talk at EuroPython?

We will issue a Call for Proposals (CFP) when we’re ready to receive talk submissions. Please watch our blog for updates.

Once the CFP is open, you can propose your talk by logging in to the website and going to the CFP page.

Talks will then be voted on by the attendees. A subset will also be selected by the program workgroup members to give less mainstream topics a chance and to enhance the speaker diversity, if needed (please help us not needing this).

How can I add another speaker to my proposal?

• submit a dummy proposal and 
• send an email with the other speaker's email and dummy proposal title to program@europython.eu.

Can I rely on Internet during my talk?

The conference venue's wifi should be able to handle the large number of devices we expect at the conference. However, as experience shows, relying on Internet during talks is a risky game, so advise to have a backup plan available to be able to give the talk without Internet connection.

We will try to have cabled Internet available at speaker desks, but cannot promise anything at this time.

Do I need video adapters for my talk?

We will have HDMI to VGA and mini-DisplayPort to VGA adapters available in each room, but it's always a good idea to bring your own.

If you are speaking, please test your notebook and adapter with the projector in the room where your talk is scheduled on the day before you give your talk. For speakers giving their talk on Monday, please test your notebooks in one of the breaks before the talks.

Please also check our tips for speakers page.

Do I have to print my poster?

Yes. We are not offering poster printing service, only the panels to attach them to.

What size should be the posters?

Posters should be portrait DIN A0 sized: 84.1cm wide x 118.9cm high.

Where will be the poster session?

The area of the poster session will be the exhibition hall, so there will be more people around doing other things.

There won't tables in front of each poster.

I have submitted a talk, but would like to make some edits. How does that work?

Please log in to the website and navigate to your public profile (click on the button "View your public profile"). At the bottom of the page you should see a list of talk you have submitted. Clicking on these links will take you to the talk page where you can edit the talk description.

Will I get a discount if I get selected as speaker?

Yes, we will make the following refunds available for speakers:

• Talk, poster, panel organizer, interactive session organizer: 25% refund on your ticket

• Training: 100% refund on your ticket

We will send out coupons to all speakers of accepted talks and other session types.

For those of you who have purchased tickets before the schedule is announced and thus cannot use the coupons, we will be refunding the corresponding amount after the conference upon request.

Please provide us with your details so we can issues the refunds by sending the details to our refunds@europython.eu email address or come to the conference desk to have the details stored in our spreadsheet.

Refund coupons which are not used and speaker refunds for already bought tickets which are not requested until one week after the conference (Aug 5), will be put to good use and automatically go into the financial aid budget for next year's conference.

Must I sign the video recording and publishing agreement?

To simplify the organization, we ask all speakers and trainers to accept the video recording and publishing of their session. We are aiming to have all talks and similar sessions recorded. Training will not be recorded.

Lightning Talks

A lightning talk (LT) is a short presenatation which must not be longer than five minute.
To sign up for a lightning talk please put your name and topic on the white board close to the registation desk.
Signing up is first-come-first-serve basis. The queue is reset every day in the morning.
You may talk about / present about (almost) everything with certain boundaries:

• no promotion for products or companies, no call for 'we are hiring' (but you may name your employer).
• confernence announcements are limited to one minute only
• one LT per person per conference policy: everyone who has not given a LT at this year's conference, yet, is ahead of you in the queue
• keep it short, the shorter the presenations - the more people can give a talk