LUGFest III
LUGFest III Wrap-up
by Orv Beach, SCLUG member-at-large
LUGFest III has come and gone, and SCLUG has survived!
We suspected that the attendance at LUGFest III would grow over LFII, not only because Linux is growing in popularity, but also because SCLUG is getting better at PR. Gareth outdid himself with vendor work, and Ilan revealed a knack for PR work by single-handedly emailing every Linux news site about LFIII, AND calling every newspaper in the area! Many thanks also to the SCLUG members and others who put up posters everywhere! (Thanks, Michelle!). We were worried that the LUGFest would grow so much that we couldn't handle it with the space at Nortel we had. This was in spite of adding three good-sized conference rooms, thereby doubling the available room.
We started setting up Friday afternoon around 3 p.m., and were finished with tables (18 rented, 12 used), tablecloths (thanks to Gareth's mom!), power distribution, and basic LAN connectivity via 3 Baystack 450 10/100 switches, one per table row. Nortel Facilities had obligingly put tons of folding chairs out in the three conference rooms, and Doug Stanfield, a Nortel employee, but not a Linux user, had set up two PA systems for us, one in the cafeteria, and one in the UCLA Conference room. This is the second LUGFest Doug has helped us out with, and he's really helped us make them successes.
Saturday morning I got up early, and went to at Carl's on Tapo Canyon for a breakfast burrito. When I finished, I walked out to my car, grabbed a LUGFest sign and the hammer, and proceeded it into the lawn in front of Carl's which conveniently faces the eastbound offramp of the 118 freeway. I proceed underneath the freeway and pounded another one (with Tux pointing down Tapo Canyon towards Nortel). I then drove down Tapo Canyon to Guardian St. I stopped to tape another LF sign on the reflector sign on the median (Tux again pointing to the left). I was approached by a gentlemen who turned out to be Dave from Cobalt Networks, who had driven up from San Diego and arrived quite a bit earlier than he expected (it was only about 9:00 a.m.!)
Dave followed me up into the Nortel parking lot and we parked behind the building. We went in, where I discovered Kara Pritchard from Linuxgruven and John Terpstra from TurboLinux waiting. The security guard had obligingly let them in.
We had told the demo'ers that the building would be open by 10 a.m. and to be ready to go by 11:30. But everyone arrived early and by about 10:45, just about everyone who was participating had arrived, was set up, and ready to go! Other than a couple minor networking problems initially, everything went fine. (Confession: Friday night after testing everything, yours truly had disconnected a LAN cable to move it out of the way so the cart wouldn't crush it, and forgot to hook it up Saturday morning. Secondly, every time Mike Hughes brings his Airport hub into the building, he forgets to turn its DHCP server off. After we shot him, things went fine).
By noon we had perhaps 75 people on-site. More people were steadily arriving and grabbing lots of the freebie literature we had available at the entrance. The crowd was building!
At 12:30, we announced the keynote speech, and 45-50 people trooped down to hear the wisdom of Emmett Plant. But before they got to hear his wisdom, they got to hear his accordian. Emmett and his sidekick Joey launched into a rousing accordian duet of Steppenwolf's "Born To Be Wild", with lyrics suitably hacked for Linux users. At that time, Doug had the volume cranked up into the 4 PA speakers, two inside the conference room, one outside each door. It had to be heard to be believed! When they started playing, Gareth, who was setting next to me in the back of the room, buried his head in his hands and mumbled "What WAS I thinking?" But the keynote turned out fine; Emmett in his apparently usual circuitous style, cautioned the crowd to avoid saying "Windows Sucks!", because that doesn't make Linux any better. Our focus should be on participating on making Linux better, and more popular, by either coding, testing new software, providing feedback to coders, etc.
After the keynote speech had finished, we went out to the main room and found that the crowd had swelled considerably. It's hard estimating crowds, but we guess that the crowd averaged about 125-150 all afternoon long, with a total attendance of between 300 and 400.
All during the afternoon, Mike Hughes and his buddies ably manned the cafeteria PA system, running periodic raffles of goodies donated by vendors. The raffles were very popular, and the LUG raised enough money to offset the expenses of the LUGFest, which is a Good Thing. Most of the talks were well attended, some more than others. Most vendors had good traffic all afternoon past their tables, and the Loki guys had fun murdering everything/one they saw on their screens. The Loki games, and Bob and Jeff's TV in Linux "simulcasts" probably drew the most foot traffic.
Summary of LUGFest III compared to LFII:
Almost double the number of demos. Number of vendors up slightly. Speakers - 8, some giving two talks (none at LFII) Attendance - between 50 and 100% more, depending on who you ask. Crowding was not a problem because at any given time, about 30 percent of the crowd was out of the cafeteria in talks down the hall. So for LFIV we can plan on using Nortel, unless someone comes up with a place more central in Southern California, and wants to take over the planning and execution... Buehler? Buehler? Buehler?....
I closed down the LUGFest at 6 p.m. with the PA system, thanking all the vendors, demo'ers, speakers, and attendees for making LFIII a rousing sucess. It must have been; the vendors all asked "When's the next one?". Our stock answer: "We'll get back to you on that...
Thanks to all that helped plan and participated in LUGFest III!
Orv