Request for Proposals
to Host ICANN Meetings
Posted: 31 July 2002
Request for Proposals to Host ICANN Meetings
Each year ICANN holds three meetings in different regions around the world. These meetings constitute an essential part of ICANN's global consensus-development and outreach efforts. The ICANN Meetings Committee sets the regions in which ICANN will hold its meetings. Proposals are then solicited from organizations interested in hosting the ICANN meeting. The meetings will then evaluate the proposals and select the host for each meeting. Regional support for a particular proposal is an important consideration. ICANN would prefer to have one proposal from a region where possible.
The specification below details the elements of an ICANN meeting and the responsibilities of the hosting organization. If the hosts are going to provide anything above the minimum level required by the specification, please state these additional services.
The Committee will consider all elements of a proposal in making its decision. It is required that the meetings be held in the main meeting hotel. This will minimize time and expenses spent on local transportation. Under exceptional circumstances, ICANN will consider a separate meeting and hotel location if no alternative is available.
Elements such as convenience to international airports, personal safety of meeting participants, meeting space, network infrastructure, and ability of local hosts to meet their financial responsibilities will be considered by the Meetings Committee in making its selection. Local hosts must document in their proposal how their financial obligations will be funded.
Proposals may be submitted by e-mail to meeting@icann.org. Organizations wishing to submit paper copies of their proposals (which is recommended) should contact ICANN at meeting@icann.org to obtain details regarding where those copies should be sent..
- Typical Schedule
- Basic Requirements that Local Hosts Must Meet
- Financial Responsibilities
- Cancellation
Day 1 – Meeting of ICANN Constituency Groups
Day 2 – Names Council and General Assembly Meeting of Domain Name Supporting Organization (DNSO)
Day 3 – ICANN Public Forum
Day 4 – ICANN Board Meeting
The schedule listed above is subject to change. The local organizers must provide meeting rooms for the ICANN meetings on these days. Supporting organizations may choose to meet on days before or after the main ICANN meeting. If there are costs associated with providing meeting rooms on days other than Day 1 through 4, the organization requesting the room will be responsible for the costs.
If the organizers plan to hold a reception during the ICANN meeting, it must be scheduled on Day 1. However, due to the demands placed on the Board of Directors during the meeting, ICANN cannot guarantee that the Directors will be available to attend the reception. Issues relating to the involvement of ICANN Directors in social events must be negotiated with the ICANN staff in advance of the meeting.
Basic Requirements that Local Hosts Must Meet
Successful proposals will contain detailed information about how the local hosts will address the following elements:
- Meeting Rooms
Main Meeting Room
This room will house both the ICANN Public Forum and the ICANN Board Meeting. It may also be used for prior meetings such as the Names Council and other large meetings.
The room is required to be in full operational readiness at least 36 hours prior to the ICANN Public Forum.
Size of room: The room must be able to accommodate a minimum of 300 persons theatre style, with a central aisle at least 6 feet (1.8 meters) wide, and still have a space large enough at the front of the room to accommodate the stage and technical areas for the board meeting. The stage and technical area is approximately 40 feet (12.2 meters)wide and 24 feet (7.3 meters) deep.
The ceiling must be at least 12 feet (3.7 meters) high.
For technical setup the main room can be divided into two areas. Audience Area and Stage Area. The drawings included in this document are available as Visio and PDF documents, which allow more detailed study and can be downloaded from:
Main Stage Area
The Stage Area includes the following equipment distributed as shown in the diagram:
- Power sockets (and necessary extensions): 50
- 10/100Mb Internet connections (and cabling): 24
- Desk Microphones: 10
- Standing Microphones: 2
- 19” monitors: 16
- 15” Dual VGA input flat screen TFT: 1
- VGA splitter/amps (10 port) : 2
- VGA extension Cables: 20 * 15’
- VGA Projectors: 2
- 12ft + Projection screens: 2
- Tables (5’ * 18”): 8
- Tables (5’ * 30”): 2
- Podium/Lectern: 1
- Chairs: 26
- Telephone 1
- HP4100N Laser printer (or equivalent): 1
Audience Area
Power and Internet connectivity spread amongst the audience for at least 50 connections.
Additional DNSO-Related Rooms
The DNSO holds a day of constituency meetings, typically 2 days prior to the ICANN Public Assembly. The local host will be responsible for the allocation of the meeting rooms to the individual groups.
Each constituency meeting room must be capable of holding the specified number of persons mentioned in the table below and having projection equipment and screens at the front of the room.
Constituency/Group Name Number of Persons Country Code Top Level Domains 100 Registrars 100 gTLD Registries 25 Non Commercial 50 Business 50 Intellectual Property 50 ISP 25 Address Supporting Organization 50 GAC Meeting Room
The Governmental Advisory Committee requires a room with the capacity to seat 50 persons around a table with an additional 50 persons around behind those persons. There must be room to place a VGA/Video projector and screen at one end of the room.
Microphones placed one per two or three persons at the table and sound amplification equipment to suit.
Specific technical details are to be decided in discussion with GAC. The GAC normally pays for any equipment required above and beyond the room, seating, tables, and video projection equipment.
Staff Work Room
The staff requires a working environment from which to organize and facilitate the meeting. The room needs to be fully operational at least 72 hours before the ICANN Public Forum and remain operational for 24 hours after the close of the ICANN Board Meeting.
This room needs to contain the following:
- A worktable and chairs capable of comfortably seating at least 15 persons.
- A facsimile machine (fax) connected to a line capable of sending and receiving international faxes.
- A separate telephone connected to a line capable of making and receiving international phone calls.
- A copying machine capable of large volume copying and sorting. The Copier must also be capable of duplex copying (double sided).
- A HP4100N Laser printer (or equivalent) connected to the network. AppleTalk ability is a preferable.
- All equipment must have English language user instructions.
- Adequate toners and paper for the fax, copier and printer.
- Fully functional network connectivity with at least 14additional 10Mb or 10/100Mb ports available on the desk and 802.11b wireless connectivity in the room. For each port there must be a 10-foot Cat5 cable available.
- Adequate power and power points: At least 14, available on or near the main table for powering laptops.
- An additional table for the placement of refreshments.
- A small refrigerator (filled with Diet Coke and water where possible; ICANN is responsible for the cost of the beverages.)
Board Work Room
The Board requires a working area separate from the staff work room. The room needs to be fully operational at least 48 hours before the ICANN Public Assembly and remain operational for 6 hours after the close of the ICANN Board Meeting. Where possible, this room must be proximate to the staff room.
This room shall contain the following:
- A worktable and chairs capable of comfortably seating at least 10 persons.
- Fully functional network connectivity with at least 10 additional 10Mb or 10/100Mb ports available on the desk and 802.11b wireless connectivity in the room. For each port there shall be a 10-foot Cat5 cable available.
- At least 1 terminal installed with an English language version of Windows 98, 2000 or XP, Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint and an SSH capable client such as PuTTy. This shall be placed on a separate side table.
- Adequate power and power points: At least 14, available on or near the main table for powering laptops.
- A telephone suitable for conference style conversations and capable of making and receiving international phone calls. Preferred model is a Polycom Sound Station or equivalent.
Technical Room
A small room for placement of servers etc. where the local technical staff can work is required.
Press Facilities
A small room must be available to the press for them to work in a quiet environment.
This room shall contain the following:
- A worktable and chairs capable of comfortably seating at least 6 persons.
- A telephone connected to a line capable of making outgoing local phone calls.
- Fully functional network connectivity with at least 6 additional 10Mb or 10/100Mb ports available on the desk and 802.11b wireless connectivity in the room. For each port there shall be a 10-foot Cat5 cable available.
- Adequate power and power points: At least 10, available on or near the main table for powering laptops.
Terminal Facilities
A room, or area, capable of housing terminals for public use.
- Fully functional network connectivity with at least 8 PCs installed with an English language version of Windows 98, 2000 or XP and an SSH capable client such as PuTTy.
- At least 14 additional 10Mb or 10/100Mb ports available and 802.11b wireless connectivity in the room. For each port there must be 10-foot Cat5 cable available.
- Adequate power and power points: At least 14 must be available for powering laptops in addition to those in use by the PCs.
- This may also be the best location for a technical help desk.
Due to the nature of the conference and its attendees the Network infrastructure is a critical aspect of the planning. Attendees must be able to send and receive both encrypted and unencrypted data freely.
External bandwidth must be in the form of dedicated circuits of at least 2Mb/s capacity and must include redundant paths. Preference may be given to proposals that contain higher capacity and more detailed redundancy planning.
- Services: As most attendees are reliant on the use of a network during the meeting the following services are required.
- Addressing and DHCP: At least a /23 (512 addresses) of IPv4 address space must be made available for use during the conference. The addresses must be routable on their own and/or as part of a larger routable block from the upstream provider.
- All addressing of attendees hosts must, where possible, be accomplished through DHCP.
- A small range of IP addresses must remain available to make static assignments to servers, printers and any special cases as necessary.
- SMTP: An SMTP server is required to allow the participants to send email. Email relay must be allowed from the IP address range(s) of the conference and any IP address ranges further specified by the ICANN staff.
- DNS: At least two recursive DNS servers must be available. At least one of these must be in or topologically close to the conference network.
- Wireless (802.11b): Wireless in the form 802.11b connectivity must be available in the main meeting hall, the staff room, the board room and the terminal area.
- Routers/Gateways: The conference routers/gateways must be configured with a minimum of filters so as not to affect tunneling software used by the participants. Only filters that are required to protect the network must be in place. ICANN reserves the right to approve or disprove any filters used at the conference. Please describe any known filtering that will occur at the meeting in your proposal.
- Monitoring of traffic must be restricted to that necessary for network maintenance and diagnostics.
- Staffing: The local hosts shall provide adequate qualified staffing for the setup, running and teardown of the network infrastructure.
- Travel Requirements
Accessibility to international airports and convenience of travel to and from the meeting is will be considered by the Meetings Committee when selecting a location for the meeting. Information on number and frequency of international flights must be provided, along with specific schedules when practicable.
The Proposal must indicate any restrictions on any individuals traveling from specific countries. It is important that any participant who is financial able to attend an ICANN meeting obtain required documentation from the host country. Where problems exist, the local hosts must indicate how these difficulties will be addressed to ensure the widest participation possible. Local hosts must indicate the assistance, which will be provided to those who do not have access to the host country’s consulates.
Local hosts must be prepared to assist meeting participants with local customs issues. Many participants will be traveling with electronic equipment. Additional equipment may need to be shipped to the meeting. Assistance must be provided to participants so the costs and delays with customs are minimized.
- Accommodations
Accommodations must be available for 500 participants in a range of prices and close by to the meeting venue. The main hotel, must be reasonably priced. While this is difficult to define precisely, as costs vary from city to city, past hotels have ranged from US$129.00 to $199.00. Less expensive accommodation options, within a reasonable distance from the main meeting site, must be available for participants traveling on limited budgets. A minimum of 35 rooms must be available for ICANN to hold as a block for staff and directors. This must be in the main hotel. A description of the facilities of the hotel, including restaurants and their hours of operation, must be included in the proposal. Non-smoking rooms must be available for guests; it is preferable for rooms to have RJ11 data jacks.
- Registration
The local hosts will provide a registration desk, staffed by a minimum of three people to provide registration packets and information to the participants. The Registration desk must be staffed on all 4 days of the ICANN meeting from 0800 to 1700. It is desirable to have more than 3 people available in the mornings on Day 1 and Day 2. ICANN staff will provide the registration website and the actual name tags. Where possible, the local host must provide the holders for the nametags and the hangers.
- Security
The personal safety of the participants in the ICANN meeting will be considered when selecting the meeting location. Steps that the local organizers plan to take to assure the safety of the participants must be detailed in the proposal. The equipment, which is used for the ICANN meeting, also needs to be secured. New locks may be required on rooms containing computer equipment. 24-hour security may also be required in certain locations to assure the owners of the equipment that it will be protected from theft and vandalism.
- Sponsorship
Local hosts must solicit local sponsors to meet their financial responsibilities. They must, however, submit the names of their sponsors to ICANN to ensure that the mission and activities of sponsors does not conflict with ICANN policies. Additional sponsorship to offset meeting expenses may be available through ICANN. ICANN will assist where possible.
Sponsorship acknowledgment will be prominently displayed at the venue as well as on the host website. Designated space will be provided for sponsors to distribute company materials, depending upon the amount of their sponsorship. Since this meeting is not a tradeshow, an organization that is not a sponsor will not be permitted to distribute commercial materials in the meeting area itself outside of the designated space. ICANN reserves the right not to accept sponsorships from organizations whose missions and activities conflict with ICANN policies.
- Website
Local hosts will provide a website which will be linked to the ICANN meeting site. ICANN reserves the right to review and request deletion of any posting, which does not conform, to ICANN policies. The local website should provide information for travelers, such as currency rates, weather, local transportation.
- Outreach
ICANN encourages participation of the local Internet community in the ICANN meetings. Please detail your plans to achieve regional outreach to the local community to encourage attendance at the ICANN meeting.
- Location Costs: The hosts are responsible for all room and equipment
costs that are specified within this RFP. Those requesting such changes
must finance extra rooms or extension/change of room times. In the
case of the DNSO constituencies this specifically refers to those
requiring more than one day of meetings or extensive audio/visual
equipment.
- Catering: With the exception of catering to the staff room and specific
requests by third parties, catering costs are the responsibility of
the local host. Minimum required catering is two coffee breaks on
full meeting days and one on the day of the board meeting. Participants
are generally left to provide for their own breakfasts, lunches and
evening meals. Catering to the staff rooms are financed and organized
directly by the ICANN staff.
Some third parties may have specific catering requests. In these cases the organization and financing must be arranged directly between the third party and the local provider of those services.
ICANN must have a veto on any such services that may conflict with the requirements of the main meeting.
- Travel & Accomodation: All participants, or their respective sponsors, are responsible for arranging and financing their own travel and accommodations.
To date, an ICANN meeting has never been cancelled. Cancellation costs and penalties for cancellation for any meeting costs including the meeting location and hotels should be detailed in the proposal. Should the circumstances arise where ICANN Board cancels the meeting, ICANN will be responsible only for cancellation costs, which are detailed in the proposal.
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