Great stuff Csaba! I have been a fan of balloons for sometime too!
If you go to my blog (http://jonharveyassociates.blogspot.com/) you will see a photo of an X balloon that escaped. A group was formed to discuss how to bring it down. I suggested sending up the O balloon as well in the hope of attracting a passing giant who wanted to play tic-tac-toe / noughts & crosses. However the group decided the best idea was to find the lightest person in the group, tie all the other balloons to that individual and send them skywards to bring down the rogue balloon. (For information - and in all seriousness - if a balloon escapes - the way to get it down is to send up another balloon with some masking tape attached sticky side up, on the top of it. You can then attach it to the 'free' balloon and winch them both back to earth. I learnt this trick from a cleaner in Belfast City Hall who saved the council there a whole heap of money that was about to be spent on hiring scaffolding) Very best wishes Jon -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Csaba Lengyel Sent: 09 August 2010 16:49 To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: Opening circle without seats Dear all, Finally we had the opening circle without chairs! I let you know what we experienced: We only marked the inner circle around the empty space in the middle and 4 corridors using masking tape (it gave us a nice byzantine cross :) and it worked quite OK. (The only difficulty was when we called the participants again in the circle, they came but didn't sit down, so we had to ask them to sit down.) I acted as the microphone stand on the edge of the inner circle, having the people queuing in an outward direction so that they didn't block others' vision. Errr... Not exactly a microphone stand, because sound was worse with the pre-arranged microphones than without, so we abandoned them (we managed to shout all the day long, you can imagine...) The balloons to mark the breakout places worked well, I think it's a great solution for anything hall like place. On the other hand, based on Michael's remarks we didn't use the balloons to hang the charts, we simply put them on the wall. Altogether the event went pretty well, thank you again for all the help from all of you! Csaba -----Original Message----- From: OSLIST [mailto:osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu] On Behalf Of Michael M Pannwitz Sent: Sunday, July 18, 2010 8:42 PM To: osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu Subject: Re: Opening circle without seats Dear Csaba, when you get into the vicinity of 300 participants and somewhere between 75 and 100 issues and have only one day and want folks to get into their breakout sessions without too much delay you might do what HO always does, be the microphone stand...I tried that with the 2108 and we were all surprised how quickly it went. Your guess at 75 issues (3 times X 25 breakoutspaces) might be a little on the low end. I always like to have a little reserve...which is easy with the balloons because participants just grab one and create their space. The balloons need to be tested! Floating signs is nice because the signs turn and move a bit all the time and because they are sort of out of the way taking up a bit of the space above people. But we were surprised how large the balloons had to be and how many we needed to obtain a stable float. You need high-quality balloons that will hold the gas well...we found a supplier in Berlin and got a whole bunch of balloons and some large bottles of Helium gas and experimented, actually it was fun and it turned out that we learned a lot about this simple technology. For the breakout sessions small balloons will do since they themselves carry the number of the breakout spaces...little cotton bags filled with sand will keep the balloons grounded. We actually transported the Helium bottles from Berlin to Wuerzburg in a station waggon...its about a 7 hour drive. I know you will enjoy the event!! Greetings from Berlin mmp Csaba Lengyel schrieb: > Dear Michael, Phelim, Peggy, Lisa and Barry, > > Thank you very much for your valuable insights related to my issue. I have > to realise againn that OSLIST is such a great community! > > Summing up the learnings: > - we will try to use masking tape (if allowed) to mark at least the inner > and outer circle of the sitting area + marking corridors for entry into > the circle (if not allowed we'll simply use Barry's suggestion - using > some objects/volunteers to mark the outer and inner circle > and "instructing" the first few people arriving at the venue how we will > sit) > - we'll consult the sponsors if there are people with specific mobility > issues and if yes, we arrange some facilities for them (Lisa, thank you > for this consideration). > - for announcments we will use a microphone stand at the edge of the > circle (something like the Berlin WOSonOS setup) > > You also gave me sports hall specific ideas (to tell the truth I haven't > had the chance to see the venue - also have to admit I was a bit afraid, > once I had a bad experience with sports hall as a potential venue, it was > so unconvenient for setting up the OS environment, we have to change it), > they are also very useful: > - big issue is placement of the agenda wall and the memos (I hope there is > some solution for this - I will let you know :-) > - the balloons for marking the breakout places and hanging the texts is a > great idea (thank you Michael - BTW, how did you get the helium tanks? :- ) > > Also I'm quite visual, so the photos, and videos were very useful for me > (Peggy, Phelim, Michael special thanks to you :), also the auditorium > setup of Phelim is brilliantly innovative - I would have probably run away > having looked at the place...) > > The event will take place in 2 weeks time - well... a bit close, but we > have just been asked to facilitate the event, so we have to live with it. > We won't see the place before next weekend (it's in a quite remote city), > but I will ask for good photos asap (now it's quite clear we might have a > lot of issues to solve...) > > I hope we can manage it :) > > Also one last question, taking into consideration that we will have 300 > very active students for one full day of OS (let's say with 3 breakout > sessions), how many berakout places would you calculate? (My first guess > is 20-25.) > > Many thanks again from a (finally) little cooler ans windy but still sunny > Budapest afternoon, > > Csaba > > > > * > * > ========================================================== > osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu > ------------------------------ > To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, > view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: > http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html > > To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: > http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist > -- Michael M Pannwitz, boscop eg Draisweg 1, 12209 Berlin, Germany ++49-30-772 8000 mmpa...@boscop.org www.boscop.org Check out the Open Space World Map presently showing 396 resident Open Space Workers in 69 countries working in a total of 141 countries worldwide Have a look: www.openspaceworldmap.org * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist * * ========================================================== osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu ------------------------------ To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options, view the archives of osl...@listserv.boisestate.edu: http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html To learn about OpenSpaceEmailLists and OSLIST FAQs: http://www.openspaceworld.org/oslist