Dear OsmoDevCon attendees,
this sounds a bit like a joke, but unfortunately it isn't.
At a construction site about 600m away from the OsmoDevCon venue (IN-Berlin), an unexploded bomb from second world war was found. This bomb is going to be defused this Friday, which is exactly the first day of OsmoDevCon.
For our international guests: This is not a very uncommon event. Even 73 years after the war, many German cities still have plenty of unexploded bombs in the ground, which are uncovered during construction work. It's usually not a big deal and the success ratio of defusing them is extremely high.
However, of course, for safety reasons, police is evacuating a radius of 800m around the bomb site, which means *we are unable to use our intended venue this Friday!*
You can find a map with the preliminary evacuation zone at: https://www.morgenpost.de/bin/bmo-214049359.jpg
As you can see, not only is the OsmoDevCon venue at Lehrter Str. 53 affected, but also various nearby hotels, such as * A&O Hostel * Motel One Berlin * Jugendgaestehaus Berlin
So if you are staying at any one of those locations, be prepared that from Friday 9am onwards you will not be able to reach or enter those hotels.
To make things worse, Berlin central station (Hauptbahnhof) is inside the evacuation zone, too. It is expacted that all public transport, as well as regional and long distance trains are halted during the evacuation period.
We're looking for an alternative venue on Friday and will keep you posted. If we can find one, this means we'd be at IN-Berlin only Sat, Sun and Mon, but would be at that different venue on Friday.
German Police has announced to publish more details later today, on which we'll also keep you posted.
Regards, Harald
Some updates:
* we will be at a different venue (only on Friday), but are still working out where exactly
* Motel One is definitely in the evacuation zone from 9am until (expected) 2pm. However, they are also unable to clean the rooms, so any new rooms on Friday will be only available from (expected) 6pm onwards.
* Public transport at and around central station will come to a complete halt, with implications on public transport + traffic across downtown Berlin
Dear OsmoDevCon attendees,
here's the current update:
== Venue on Friday ==
The venue on Friday (only on Friday!) will be:
CCC (Chaos Computer Club) Berlin e.V. Marienstr. 11 10117 Berlin
CCC Berlin can be found in the rear building on ground floor. You can find some more (German) information about the venue at https://berlin.ccc.de/wiki/Hauptseite
The local and regional train station "Friedrichstr" is very close to the event venue. A variety of trains, S-Bahn as well as U-Bahn (underground) are interconnecting at Friedrichstr.
Please note you must use the exit "Schiffbauerdamm", which you can reach exclusively from the western end of the top-most rail tracks of S3/S5/S7/S9, as it is the only exit that gets you to the northern shore of the river Spree. All other exits of the station will not get you where you need to be!.
Saturday, Sunday and Monday we will be at IN-Berlin, just like originally planned.
== Motel One ==
We received information that Motel One will be closed *all day*, i.e. if you booked a room there, it will not be possible to check in that day. They only open again on Saturday. The hotel has apparently been told that the evacuation expects to continue until 6pm, not only 2pm, leaving them no time to clean the rooms and process check-in of hotel guests anymore that day.
== Other Hotels ==
The situation is likely identical for other hotels in the evacuation zone, so if you stay in that zone, please contact your hotel and get the most up-to-date information
Regards, Harald
Some updates on the public transport situation tomorrow (Friday):
== Long distance trains ==
* Until 10am, trains stop at Berlin Hauptbahnhof * From 10am until the operation is finished (no expected time) all train traffic at Haupbbahnhof is halted
https://www.bahn.de/p/view/service/aktuell/index.shtml
== Public Transport (S-Bahn) ==
* S3/S5/S7/S9 in east->west direction are operating services until Friedrichstr (which is by coincidence the very station you need to use to get to the Friday Venue, CCC Berlin e.V.)
http://www.s-bahn-berlin.de/bauinformationen/details/bombenentschaerfung-nah...
Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow!
Regards, Harald
Test, please ignore
-
Harald Welte -
Keith -
Philipp Maier