Plan your local Drupal 7 release party! - A guide

Why a party?

To celebrate the release of Drupal 7! On January 7, 2011 the Drupal and open source communities will be having world wide local release parties for Drupal 7. Host or attend a party with your local groups! Everybody who is a fan of making the Web better should attend.

Welcome new users and fans of open source! Releasing Drupal 7 is a huge accomplishment and we are happy to be celebrating this milestone in our history, so let's just take some time to have fun and reflect on everything we have accomplished. With a refined and more intuitive user interface, and hundreds of enhancements under the hood, Drupal has never been more powerful. A new release of Drupal is the perfect excuse to meet up, spread the word, plan our next move and, of course, party down.

When do we party?

Celebrations should be planned for January 7, 2011—From Athens to Zurich, we have over 112 simultaneous parties on the map so far! (This may be a holiday for some local groups so schedule accordingly if that day doesn't work.)

How and where do we party?

There will be Drupal parties all over the world. If you’re looking for one to attend, check your local group page(s) or start a party near you. http://groups.drupal.org

Looking for a little inspiration? Add a little bit of pizazz to your party and light the world with Drupal. Here are a few ideas:

• Organize everyone for a big group photo, upload to Flickr, Twitter, etc, tagged: #d7rp
• Use a projector and shine the Drupal logo on the wall during your party, or show other Drupal parties happening around the world with a stream of pictures tagged: #d7rp

How do I host a party?

Just follow a few simple steps:

1. Announce

• Announce your party to: http://www.drupal7releaseparty.org and http://groups.drupal.org, on your groups page click "Create Event"
• To your local PHP group
• Twitter, using the #d7rp and #d7rp_yourcity hashtag
• Identi.ca, using the #d7rp and #d7rp_yourcity hashtag
• Meetup.com
• Upcoming.com
• Craigslist or a similar local community listing service

2. Venue

• Find a location — here are some ideas:
  • Don't spend a lot of time or money securing or renting a big venue. Your local meeting facility or a public restaurant, bar, or cafe will help to keep costs down. It will also save planning time if you avoid a major fund raising drive to rent a hotel ballroom or rent a restaurant.
  • Recreation rooms at schools, universities or community centers
  • Your company or your home
  • Contact the venue in advance, and give them your best estimate of total attendees. Ask about any restrictions, such as age limits, outside food or drinks, and make sure to communicate them to attendees
• Recruit party organizers. They should budget 5-10 hours of effort to help organize the party
• Ask local companies for support. Identify companies that are hiring Drupal talent on the groups.drupal.org/jobs section of your local group and ask them (only once!) to help sponsor the party.

3. Promote

• The Drupal 7 public relations team will promote all the parties on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, and the front page of Drupal.org. Announce your events using the channels above and local Drupalers will find out about your party.
• You and your party people can use these channels for promotion:
• Writing about it on Twitter (use #d7rp and #d7rp_yourcity)
• Identi.ca (use #d7rp and #d7rp_yourcity)
• Telling friends
• Posting updates, creating events or sending invites via social networks
• Encourage people to show off their gear, and bring Drupal themed party favors like Drupal cookies, cupcakes, beverages. Be creative! :)
• Download Drupal 7 and Attend Drupal 7 release party badges and banners will be listed here soon.

4. During event time

• Take pictures at the party and post them live to Flickr, Twitter, etc. Tag them: d7rp and #d7rp_yourcity
• Have some laptops or screens there to show off Drupal 7, and Drupal 7 release videos & pictures, and media from other parties around the world.
• Identify Drupal 7 human interest stories and notable Drupal 7 sites. Share those stories with the Drupal 7 public relations team. Contact press@drupal.org.
• Ask local Drupal 7 contributors to identify themselves. Contributors include: core developers, documentation team, markup marines, infrastructure team, test authors, patch reviewers, usability team, accessibility team, Drupal 7 contributed module and theme maintainers, translators, and anyone who's filed an issue to help with Drupal 7. Come up with a creative way to identify contributors at your party.
• Schedule some demonstrations and presentations about Drupal 7 towards the beginning of the party. Consider staffing a Drupal 7 "genius bar" so people who have Drupal 7 questions can get them answered. The community will help provide Drupal 7 support over IRC in #drupal-support on freenode for your local geniuses.

The release parties will not be centrally funded but we have a release party guide to help you participate in the global festivities. The release party does not guarantee or commit to the date of the Drupal 7 release.

Credits: Firefox community for inspiring our party guide