ICANN staff are in Paris to gauge the French Capital's bid to host an ICANN meeting in 2008. A chance to look more closely at how ICANN meeting venues are selected.
ICANN's Diane Schroeder and Michael Evans meet representatives of the French government, the local ISOC chapter, ICANN-accredited registrar INDOM and French registry AFNIC during their Paris evaluation.
Evaluators look at all aspects of a potential host venue: the convention center itself (which needs to provide enough space for the main "public forum" room and the many workshop and side rooms needed during a meeting), nearby hotels (there needs to be some cheap options so that those international participants who are on tight budgets do not find themselves "priced-out" of the meeting), transportation (host venues that are main international hubs or sit close to one make meeting participants lives easier), main infrastructure (phone and Internet access needs to be reliable and easy), etc.
A report is then prepared and presented to the ICANN board's meeting committee. The committee is currently chaired by Susan Crawford. Roberto Gaetano, Demi Getschko and David Wodelet also sit on the committee.
Once all candidate venues have been evaluated and the meeting committee has had a chance to review their reports, it makes a final recommendation to the ICANN board. Since the meetings committee was set up in 2001, the board has never gone against its recommendations.
No time
Evaluators must race against time to clinch a potential host city, especially when it's as busy as Paris. During their visit, Diane Schroeder and Michael Evans were told by one potential convention center venue that they were already so heavily booked for next year that they could only hold a June 2008 option for ICANN for a few more days!
With ICANN meetings now running over one thousand attendees, the sheer size and number of rooms needed makes securing the right venue that much more difficult. So decisions about where the ICANN meeting should take place must be taken as quickly as possible.
After Paris, Diane and Michael will fly to Serbia to evaluate the other candidate for the June 2008 meeting, Belgrade. They will then file their reports with the committee in the hope of getting a final recommendation before the end of August.
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