Audacity Unconference 2014

Dates and Location
AU14 will run from Friday 11th to Saturday 12th July 2014 at UCLan (University of Central Lancashire) in Preston, England.

We have had a lot of interest on our survey and whilst we will no longer be monitoring it, we will leave it open for a little while longer.

Booking
You can now book on our Eventbrite page for either the Friday, Saturday or both days. The cost is £25 per day. Numbers are limited to 115 but we are releasing places slowly so if we appear to be 'full', please email our administrator Colette CMSanders@uclan.ac.uk and she may be able to release a ticket for you.

Accommodation
Local hotels: There are several local hotels, including the Legacy Preston International and the Premier Inn.

Student halls: There are rooms available in a private hall (who work in conjunction with the University). All rooms are en-suite in flats containing six rooms with a communal self-catering kitchen with basic crockery and equipment. The hall is Moor Lane Hall and cost is £25.00 per night inc VAT. Bedding is provided in rooms, but beds are not made up. To take advantage of this please see the form or email our administrator Colette CMSanders@uclan.ac.uk if you have any problems with that.

What will happen?
We don't know what's going to happen, that's up to the people attending to run / host / initiate sessions!

The idea here is to give people the time and space to get together with like-minded people for a chat and maybe a soft drink / beer etc. afterwards. Have some fun!

People responded to our initial survey, but they may not all be able to attend. Here is what they said (edited a little).

Survey respondents said they may run sessions on:

 * Audacity for noobs, first lessons
 * The use of Audacity in Audio - Visual sequences
 * Radio Journalism and Audacity
 * Mixing
 * Teaching/composing with children in school with Audacity
 * How we used it in our library
 * Nyquist and what it has to offer
 * HCI of Audacity in comparison to other Audio Software
 * Music

Survey respondents said they want to attend sessions on:
(these have been grouped and ordered a little)
 * Basic User How To / Audacity for noobs, first lessons.
 * Interested in learning about basic sound cleanup/treatment for podcast/video soundtrack
 * Learn techniques, procedures, effects, equipment recommendations and why's
 * Sessions to create better podcasts and music from scratch
 * Audacity/podcasts for Post-Beginners: avoiding screw-ups, making-do (budgetwise), and any clever tricks that aren't too hard!
 * Getting to learn how the program works, how it has been working for others indifferent settings, whether there is any other like software for deaf people too
 * Using audacity in self-recording
 * Tips and features
 * Ways to use effects
 * Creating children's music
 * Benefits/uses of different file extensions
 * Best practices Professional workshops
 * Audacity workshop Advanced Audacity user plug-ins
 * Learning from professionals, stuff about plugins, talks on sound + music


 * Audacity for sixth form sound investigations - using it to calculate frequecy, wavelengths etc.
 * Using audacity to help to teach sound and waves in school
 * Uses of audacity in science experiments
 * Tutorials and workshops on how to introduce students 16-18 to audacity
 * Education - composing in elementary & secondary school. Developing teaching material.
 * Using audacity in higher education and libraries.
 * Learning how to use audacity and using the application in school linked to the EYFS and new curriculum


 * I want to make music
 * Meet other acoustic musicians and/or singer-songwriters
 * Listening to other's music / Listening to cool stuff done on Audacity
 * Voice Acting/Actors on YouTube panel
 * Demonstrating how Audacity helps me as an experimental musician
 * A band and a bar.
 * Possibly cookout/BBQ/Stove Geek session


 * Resume of the last improvements - New possible functions - New mobile compatibility - Future of Audacity
 * What is in mind development wise / Discussing improvements that could be made to Audacity
 * Discussion on improving the software
 * Listening to any technical, how to or similar talks
 * Interest in discussion about technical resources and content delivery ideas
 * Workshops (code and research), hack sessions


 * Plugins
 * Nyquist programming
 * Latency problems, VST-Plug-ins


 * Networking and Learning Everything
 * To talk about Audacity and the wonderful uses I've been able to gain from it and how I'd like to help others and how they could help me

What will you gain? Maybe some tips on using Audacity in your environment. Maybe amazing music. Maybe some useful lesson plans. Maybe a novel way to measure the speed of sound. Maybe a collaboration with another school / researcher. Maybe a chat with a developer. Maybe a chance conversation with a future collaborator. Who knows? Maybe some inspiration?

We have various spaces available for break-outs, jam sessions, etc., all the normal university stuff. Space to do stuff. What will you need?

Who's coming?
We don't know yet. As people register there will be some sort of social-media presence for us all to chat and organise ourselves.

This is available to all Audacity people, such as (in no particular order):


 * Audacity users
 * Educators
 * school teachers
 * university lecturers
 * Musicians
 * Podcasters
 * Researchers
 * reverb developers
 * whale-song researchers
 * who else is using Audacity in their research?
 * Developers
 * Forum 'elves'
 * Translators
 * etc. etc..

Anybody with an interest in Audacity, really. Help us extend/refine this list :-).

Please promote it to your various contacts.

Travel
If you are travelling from outside the UK, you might like to fly into Manchester (MAN) or London Heathrow (LHR). MAN is much closer but a train from LHR may work quicker and cheaper than an internal transfer flight. Either way you can get the train to Preston and http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/ is a good place to find out about trains. Book early (up to 3 months in advance) for the best prices.

Preston railway station to the Media Factory (our venue) is 0.7 miles and takes only 15 minutes walking.