On 2011-12-01 12:19:09 (+0100), Henne Vogelsang  wrote:
> On 01.12.2011 00:07, Richard Brown wrote:
> > I'm volunteering to co-ordinate an openSUSE stand at FOSDEM this February
> Cool :)
> 
> > Even if you're not coming this year, I especially welcome advice and
> > guidance from FOSDEM veterans. What worked in previous years?
> * Bring the Touchsmarts, people like to grope things.
> * Bring 12.1 DVDs, stickers and folders, people like to snatch things.
> * Bring Beer and T-Shirts, sell them for 1€ and give the proceeds to
>   the university. They will love you. (Pascal knows whom to give it to)
> * Have 2 guys, you can rely on at any time, to be on the booth. People
>   like to wander off into the awesome program. One minute it might seem
>   that you have a gazillion people on the booth and the next one it's
>   deserted because RMS speaks.

True, but I'd even plan a bit more than 2 people if possible.

Thing is, there will probably be around 400 sessions during the
weekend, with more than 20 in parallel at all times and, hence,
it's very likely that people will want to see a few talks as
well. Ideally, have people check the schedule once it's
available, find their "must see" talks, and make a schedule.
Only gotcha: the schedule will be published really late (that's
inherent to the way FOSDEM works, projects arrange their own
schedule for the devrooms).

Henne, as you won't be able to be there (*sad* :(), will someone
else take care of travelling with the openSUSE stand and
touchsmarts and stuff from Nürnberg to Brussels, as usual ?
Are you coordinating on the Nürnberg side of things, or is
someone else ? If so, whom ? :)

> * Try as hard as possible to avoid that people leave their shit on
>   the booth. The corridors are narrow, the boths are small, there are
>   more and more people each year. If they all leave their Jackets,
>   laptops and bags on your booth there is no room to operate anymore.

Well actually, we (FOSDEM) will move the stands to a different
location, into a new building, which means that the corridors
won't be narrow :)
It won't be a lonely spot either, as there are several
interesting devrooms in that building, as well as one of the
main track rooms.

> > what do I need to know?
> 
> * You get two tables and a couple of chairs in a windy corridor

No windy corridor :)

> * It's friggn cold and drafty

Not any more :)

> * Don't try to plan anything, it's chaotic.

Yeah, it's definitely a *very* busy place, with insane amounts
of people going around, and most of them will be people who
already contribute to FOSS projects, so they're more likely to
ask what's specific about openSUSE as compared to others, how the
community is working/like, about OBS, openQA, etc... -- rather
than "oh, what's this Linux thing ?" ;)

> * Have Pascals number on speed dial. He's the man.

I'll broadcast it around to a few people who will go to FOSDEM
in due time. Generally speaking, exchange phone numbers before
going there, because you don't just randomly run into the people
you want to see, it's too much crowd for that :)

> * Get drunk as early as possible :-)

Be *very* careful at the beer event on Friday, or with belgian
beer in general, and I'm not kidding, it's really strong stuff.

Actually, I rather had in mind that we (openSUSE people going to
FOSDEM) will coordinate to go some place for food on Friday
evening, before going to the beer event and then possibly some
quieter place too. I can take care of arranging things, but I
will need to know how many people will show up.
And we'll prolly do the same for Saturday evening too.
(No one is forced to, just a proposal :))

I'll send an email to the project list in due time (mid
January).

> > what do I need to avoid?
> * Belgian "Beer". At any cost.

Well, definitely consume with great care, it's not the kind of
coloured water they sell in Germany ;)
I recommend Tripel Karmeliet, Delirium Tremens, Kwak, ... :D

Oh, and if you haven't booked a hotel yet, definitely do that
ASAP. Due to the large amount of people, and Brussels being a
tourist and business hot spot anyway, several hotels are already
booked out.
For low budgets, one option that works surprisingly well is
couch surfing: http://couchsurfing.org
As of which hotel to pick, it's not that important as the venue
is a little bit off the historic center and you'll have to
travel by public transport or cab anyway (not an issue,
explained at http://fosdem.org/2012/transportation)

If there are any questions, don't hesitate to get in touch with
me, by email or on IRC (I'm "yaloki" there).

cheers
-- 
  -o) Pascal Bleser
  /\\ http://opensuse.org -- we haz green
 _\_v http://fosdem.org   -- we haz conf