I was only there for buzzwords, not the foss backstage event. The lounge format was congenial, but I feel like it put Apache off in a corner. It seemed like Apache folk were comfortable to stay there rather than wander the event and connect outside of our small corner.
One thing that I have done in previous events to bring crowds in is to find out which of our team could play and stock a booth with some guitars (and mandolins) and schedule times for jam sessions. Works better acoustic and you have to be very careful with security for the instruments, but it brings people in. Some people come to listen. Some to play. I typically print up some fun folk songs that people can sight-read or fake. The atmosphere is very nice. Obviously, you need to get people who can play to volunteer (Bertrand?). Another thing that can be awesome is book signings. O'Reilly does it by having a very limited number allowed in line. At MapR, we typically have 200-300 books on hand. Either way, the point is not the books. The point is to talk to everybody in line, both as you sign, but even more as the people are in line. This is hard to pull off well and it requires a line boss to get corral the volunteers into actually working the line. The level of effort is high, but the impact can be huge if you really want to draw. On Mon, Jun 18, 2018 at 10:10 AM Bertrand Delacretaz <bdelacre...@apache.org> wrote: > Hi, > > Sharan asked for feedback, here's my random thoughts: > > I liked the lounge format better than a booth, it was a nice quiet > place during the conference. > > The free ice cream was very popular, we should just have had a big > "courtesy of the ASF" sign on top of it. The small ice cream size was > perfect IMO. > > I don't think we applied the "you need to talk to us to get ice cream" > rule, and it wouldn't have been practical IMO given the place's > layout. But it wasn't a problem, IMO. > > Thanks to all involved in making this happen! > > -Bertrand > > --------------------------------------------------------------------- > To unsubscribe, e-mail: dev-unsubscr...@community.apache.org > For additional commands, e-mail: dev-h...@community.apache.org > >
