Hosting meetups can be as simple as 1-2 hours of content + networking no matter what style you decide (speaker to audience, study groups, lightning talks, etc.).
Hosting a Cloud Native Community Day is a great way to practice for a KCD. A Cloud Native Community Day can be like a large meetup where:
- You have a one half (1/2) of a day of content - so 4 hours of multiple speakers.
- You acquire sponsorships.
- You provide breaks with beverages and/or food.
- Your event must be free to attend like a meetup if these are hosted within your chapter. Some have created qualification standards in case your capacity is limited.
- You still host it on community.cncf.io so CNCF can see you have had practice at an event larger than a meetup, and CNCF can gauge if your community is ready for a KCD based on attendance.
- These can be hosted as often as you would like with a reccomendation being no more than once per quarter.
- There is no limit to the number of attendees.
- NOTE: Hosting a Cloud Native Community Day is not a requirement for hosting a KCD.
- The KCDs are supported by CNCF with more benefits/perks, and go through an official application and planning process.
- These are 1 to 2 day events like a summit, and often times can host multiple tracks and keynotes.
- KCDs can charge a fee for their tickets.
- KCDs get an accreditation from CNCF for hosting an event.
- There are requirements to assure CNCF quality standards.
- KCD have a limit of 500 attendees.
- KCDs in the same city (and sometimes small country) can only be hosted once per year.
- Learn more at https://www.cncf.io/kcds/
If the event is not named exactly "Cloud Native Community Day", most likely it is not.
Events like "Cloud Native {CITY_NAME}", "Cloud Native Day {CITY_NAME}", "Kubehuddle {CITI_NAME}" are independent from the CNCF, even if they might be organized by CNCF Ambassadors or member companies. CNCF does not govern those events, and the formats are managed by the respective organizers of the events.