Neutral plugfest hosting

During the BIG-EU discussion regarding next year's European plugfest, Britta noted that we have a host for the plugfest but that (of course) the plugfest will be conducted offsite. That got me reflecting on this year's plugfest which was held onsite at ABB, and I realized that although the plugfest was held within an ABB facility, it was structured within such a neutral, contained environment that concerns of "privacy" never arose. For just one example, the only ABB employees we saw in the plugfest were those directly involved -- no sales, marketing or uninvolved R&D folks were there.

I know from Alerton's experience some years ago that hosting an offsite plugfest can be quite expensive. If we could learn the lessons from ABB's hosting, I think we could reduce the cost of future plugfests, in both Europe and North America.