It's that time of the year again! \o/

After careful deliberation we’ve decided to keep to our usual schedule and meet in Berlin on the weekend of 11th - 14th October, 2024! We know this isn’t the ideal date for everyone so we may still look to change this in future years.

One important difference to previous years: this time we have booked the place for three nights (Friday, Saturday, Sunday) rather than just two. This means a higher cost, but it also means we will definitely be able to stay later on Sunday and won't possibly have to leave by 10am. It also means that you'll be able to use both Sunday and Monday for return travel, which might make it a little easier to find good options!

For those who have been before, we’ve already booked the same place we usually do, but the upstairs apartment this time, which has the same amount of beds but does have better communal space options. We’ve also been looking into larger places that would offer us more space, but this is tricky as there are not many big apartments available within our usual budget range, so we will have to see what is possible after sign ups. If you happen to know of any alternative accommodation options, please do let the mods know! (And it doesn't necessarily need to be in Berlin, either! As long as it's decently reachable with public transport, it's worth looking into!)

As in previous years, the meetup won’t have a flat attendance fee. We calculate the contributions based on your means, so don’t worry about not being able to afford it! And if you need extra funds to be able to attend (for travel expenses, for instance), don’t hesitate to let us know - we budget in such a way that it’s possible for europodfriends to fund your journey as well. It’s important to us to facilitate everyone’s attendance to the best of our ability.

Food & drink - in 2023 we covered 2 meals plus groceries for breakfasts and snacks for everyone out of the epf budget. We would like to be able to do that again, but that depends on how much people are able to contribute and how much costs go up between now and the meet.

And, most importantly, here’s the survey you need to fill out if you want to join us! The survey will close on 31st January 2024.

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For those who’ve never been to an in-person EPF meetup, or who would like a little refresher, here’s roughly what we did the last times and what we’ll likely be doing next year as well:

Friday is mostly for everyone arriving, greeting each other, hanging out, and making name badges. Very ambitious people might already be podficcing that evening, but since not everyone may have arrived yet, we don’t schedule anything specific for that day.

Saturday morning there’s a meeting where everyone introduces themselves “formally” with names and pronouns. This is also when we do pitch ‘n’ pod - in short, everyone who wants to gets a few minutes to talk about a fandom and a fic in that fandom they want to podfic at the meetup, and afterwards everyone can sign up to the podfics they want to be a part of and the recording gets going. Saturday evening might be another scheduled event organised by attendees - in past years we’ve had a video call with Podfication, a game of “Guess That Voice” or Podficcers Against Humanity, and watch parties, for example - but that part is up to y’all: if you want to organise something, get in touch so we can figure out the scheduling and planning!

Sunday morning we’ve usually done a big, fun multivoice with everyone participating, and that would certainly be fun to do again - 2018 we did Earth Is Space Australia (and Chuck Norris Isn’t A Man With A Beard. He’s A Beard With A Man), 2019 we did I Has a Sweet Potato, and 2023 we did SMOF and What’s in the Dark. After that, people start leaving as their travel plans call for.

Throughout the three days, there’s a lot of podficcing happening at all hours of day and night - the EPF collections on AO3 should give you some idea!

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Like in the past few years, we will mostly be updating you via email, but we’ll also try to crosspost to Dreamwidth, Twitter, tumblr, Pillowfort, and Mastodon, life and time permitting. If you want to make sure to stay up to date, comment here, contact us via DMs on any of the usual social medias, Discord, or email us at europodfriends at gmail to be added to the mailing list!

It’s rapidly nearing the end of the year, which for your mods means it’s time to start thinking about next year’s europodfriends meetup.

We’ve decided that for 2022, we would like to try to do an in-person meetup again. This means that we will once again be meeting up to hang out in Berlin on the weekend of October 14th - 16th, 2022. For those who have been there before, hopefully we’ll be able to rent the same place we usually do, but we shall see!

Considering the pandemic is still far from being over, we have decided that in order to attend you will need to provide proof you’re vaccinated against COVID-19 as well as have a current negative COVID test.

As in previous years, the meetup won’t have a flat attendance fee. We calculate the contributions based on your means, so don’t worry about not being able to afford it! And if you need extra funds to be able to attend at all (for travel expenses, for instance), don’t hesitate to let us know - we budget in such a way that it’s possible for europodfriends to fund your journey as well. It’s important to us to facilitate everyone’s attendance to the best of our ability.

Regarding food & drink, in 2019 we provided that for everyone out of the epf budget. We would like to be able to do that again, but that somewhat depends on how much people are able to contribute - we know that the pandemic has hit a lot of us hard!

Though we have yet to update these documents for the current meetup (which we'll do when we determine attendance numbers and decide on a venue), the 2019 Accessibility Information and the 2020 Code of Conduct should give you some idea of the kind of things we care about for the meetup.

And before I forget - here’s the survey you need to fill out if you (might) want to join us next year!

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For those of you who’ve never been to EPF, or to an in-person meetup, or who would like a little refresher, here’s roughly what we did the last times and what we’ll likely be doing next year as well:

Friday is mostly for everyone arriving and greeting each other and hanging out and making name badges. Very ambitious people might already be podficcing that evening, but since not everyone will have arrived yet, we don’t schedule anything specific for that day.

Saturday morning there’s a meeting where everyone introduces themselves “formally” with names and pronouns. This is also when we do pitch ‘n’ pod - in short, everyone who wants to gets a few minutes to talk about a fandom and a fic in that fandom that they want to podfic at the meetup, and then afterwards everyone can sign up to the podfics they want to be a part of. Saturday evening might be another scheduled event organised by attendees - in past years we’ve had a video call with Podfication, or a game of “Guess That Voice”, or watch parties, for example - but that part is up to y’all: if you want to organise something, get in touch so we can figure out the scheduling and planning!

Sunday morning we’ve done a big, fun multivoice with everyone participating the last two times, and that would certainly be fun to do again - 2018 we did Earth Is Space Australia (and Chuck Norris Isn’t A Man With A Beard. He’s A Beard With A Man) and 2019 we did I Has a Sweet Potato. After that people start leaving again as their travel plans call for. And all throughout all three days, there’s a lot of podficcing happening at all hours of day and night - the EPF collections on AO3 should give you some idea!

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We know that by virtue of going back to an in-person meetup, some of you who joined us in 2020 will not be able to come hang out with us again, which really sucks! Unfortunately we don’t have the capacity to organize a virtual meetup in addition to the in-person one, and past years show that none of us really spend a lot of time online during the weekend, so having that run parallel wouldn’t work either. However, if anyone wants to start their own virtual podfic meetup, get in touch with us! We’re happy to share our experiences with running EPF 2020 as well as do lots of promo.

Like in the past few years, we will mostly be updating you via email, but we’ll also try to crosspost to Dreamwidth, twitter, and tumblr, life and time permitting. If you want to make sure to stay up to date, contact us via DMs on any of the usual social medias or email us at europodfriends at gmail to be added to the mailing list!

We're currently at the stage of planning our budget. If you would like to come, please fill out this form to let us know about your budget. Don't worry if you can't afford it/would need help to be able to afford the trip - we have options for that as well!

We realize this is quite early for a lot of people, so don't worry if you can't commit to staying in the Europodfriends accommodation yet - you'll still be able to attend if you find your own, separate accommodation!

We'll be closing the budget survey on the 8th of March, so make sure to fill it out until then! If you can't commit yet for sure but would like to keep abreast of things, you can follow us at here, europodfriends, or europodfriends. Alternatively, you can PM me your email address and I will add you to our mailing list!

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us and we will do our best to answer!