[Asis-l] Call for Interest in Hosting ISMIR 2004-06

[Don Byrd]

CALL FOR INTEREST IN HOSTING ISMIR 2004-06

The "ISMIR" series of annual International Conferences on Music 
Information Retrieval was started in 2000, and in just three years, 
it has grown tremendously both in contents and attendance (for more 
details, see the history of ISMIR on the web site 
http://www.ismir.net/). In accordance with a decision to alternate 
locations between the Americas (North, Central, or South America) and 
elsewhere, ISMIR 2003 will be held next fall in the United States 
(see http://ismir2003.ismir.net/).

While a formal call for hosting future conferences (2004 and later) 
will come out later this year, we would like potential hosts to start 
thinking about the idea.  So, if you are associated with an 
institution outside of the Americas, please consider hosting ISMIR 
2004 or 2006; if you are in the Americas, consider 2005.

Should you and your institution be interested in arranging the 
conference in 2004, 2005, or 2006, please read the appendices, below, 
which give essential information about hosting ISMIR: some 
approximate figures for previous conference costs and a list of 
requirements that candidate hosts will need to consider and address 
in their applications.

Interested persons should send e-mail to Don Byrd 
<donbyrd at indiana.edu>. We're excited about the future of ISMIR and of 
the entire music-IR world, and we look forward to hearing your 
thoughts on how we can work with you!

--Don Byrd and Kjell Lemstrom, on behalf of the ISMIR Steering Committee


APPENDIX A: COSTS

The 2000 and 2001 meetings lasted 2-1/2 days, the 2002 meeting a full 
3 days.  All three included posters as well as regular papers; the 
2002 meeting added panels, tutorials and exhibits (with parallel 
tutorials and panels, and some parallelism in the paper sessions), as 
well as official published proceedings.  In 2000, 88 people attended 
(including conference staff); in 2001, nearly 100; and in 2002, over 
180.

ISMIR 2000 cost about $40,000 to put on, of which an NSF grant paid 
about $30,000, and registration fees most of the rest. The hotel rate 
was about $97 a night, including taxes.

ISMIR 2001 cost about $37,000 to put on (including student travel 
awards and organizing committee and invited speaker travel), of which 
an NSF grant funded approximately $27,000 and registration fees the 
rest. The hotel rates were about $84-$114, including taxes.

Putting on ISMIR 2002 cost about 88,000 Euros (and 1 Euro 
approximately = $1). An NSF grant paid about $40,000 for travel 
expenses for U.S. participants. The hotel rates were about 105 Euros 
a night, including taxes. For details of ISMIR 2002, please see the 
conference web site, http://ismir2002.ircam.fr/.

Information about ISMIR 2003 costs is not available yet. Hotel and 
registration rates, however, will be publicized on the conference web 
site (http://ismir2003.ismir.net/).

Note that all the above figures are direct costs, and they do _not_ 
include salaries for the organization staff. Typically, a significant 
portion of the budget has gone to pay travel for invited speakers 
from all over the world as well as student stipends. In 2001 and 
2002, we had fewer invited speakers than in 2000, but awarded many 
stipends for travel and so on (ISMIR 2000 had no stipends). Of 
course, if future ISMIRs attract more people than previous ones, they 
may cost correspondingly more to put on, but increased registration 
fees should more than make up for that.


APPENDIX B: LIST OF REQUIREMENTS

The Steering Committee is planning to follow essentially the same 
procedure for deciding the host institution as we did in the past. In 
their formal applications to host an ISMIR conference, interested 
institutions will be asked to agree to reserve a large number of 
rooms:

(a) in a suitable venue (hotel or other) for a meeting of 3 to 4 days;
(b) at a reasonable rate (see comment below); and
(c) at an appropriate time--probably in October--that doesn't 
conflict with other important meetings.

They will also have to:

(d) agree to reserve an adequate number of meeting rooms for the 
activities that can accommodate a large enough number of people and, 
unless these rooms are very close to the conference hotel, to 
organize good transport between the two.
(e) describe resources (funds, people, infrastructure, links to 
industry, special fund possibilities, etc.) they can draw on to plan 
and organize the meeting.
(f) list persons from their organization who attended previous 
ISMIRs. Continuity is important; an institution that had no one at a 
previous conference is at a major disadvantage.

We generally consider a "reasonable rate" to be a rate not much above 
the previous year's. However, it looks like the rate in 2003 will be 
around $150, which is much higher than in 2002. This seems to be 
unavoidable because hotels in the Baltimore area are all expensive. 
Therefore, for 2004, we may expect a rate that's _lower_ than the 
2003 rate and not much above the 2002 rate.

Note that some arrangements must be done many months in advance, for 
example, reserving a large number of rooms in a hotel.  We intend to 
announce the site of the ISMIR 2004 conference during the course of 
ISMIR 2003.  The deadline for formal applications is likely to be 
mid-September 2003 at the latest.