Scheduling notes

• Don't schedule anything before 4pm on Friday. No one will come.
• Don't schedule things after closing ceremonies. Very few people will come.
• Some people say there shouldn't be anything before opening ceremonies. I (Rachel) disagree; almost everyone wants to go to opening ceremonies, and you want almost everyone to go to opening ceremonies, for many reasons, but people arrive well before opening ceremonies and want things to do.
• Don't schedule any panels for before 10am unless they are specifically about being early.
• Don't schedule more than one panel after 10pm. Other kinds of programming may be okay, though.
• Figuring out what will be well-attended and what will be small is more an art than a science. It's very hard to know what other people's interests will be. This is one of many reasons it's important to have people with diverse interests working on programming, so you can get a better sense of how well-attended panels will be.
• I recommend using 60-minute blocks of time with 30 minute breaks in between for scheduling. 50-minute panels with 10-minute breaks are too rushed. Specifically, they don't give panelists time to get water, go to the bathroom or whatever between panels. 50 minutes is also not enough time to discuss things. I've tried 75-minute panels with 15-minute breaks, but for some panels, that's actually too long. People seem to mentally prepare themselves for 60 minutes, so with 75, they run out of things to say. With one-hour panels and half-hour breaks, panelists can easily decide to continue into the break for a bit if they want to. Some people complain that having panels start on the half-hour is confusing, but I haven't really seen any problems arise from this.