-------- Original Message -------- Subject: FOSDEM 2010 Devroom for CentOS Date: Thu, 4 Feb 2010 00:35:55 +0000 From: loki@fosdem.org Reply-To: stands@fosdem.org To: Fabian Arrotin arrfab@centos.org CC: stands@fosdem.org
Dear Fabian,
FOSDEM 2010 is just a very few days away.
We are very pleased to have you as organizer of a stand at FOSDEM. We hereby send you a few final bits of information and instructions regarding the practical arrangements. Please make sure other responsibles of your stand are informed too.
On a general note, we see you as our contact person for your stand. If you have to leave, please delegate to someone else who is at least mostly informed about what has to be done.
Address: ~~~~~~~~ The address of the venue where FOSDEM takes place is: ULB Campus Solbosch Avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt 50 1050 Bruxelles
"ULB" stands for "Université Libre de Bruxelles" (free university of Brussels), but be aware that if you take a taxi, you must at least explicitly mention "ULB" (and the Solbosch Campus), as there is a second "free university in Brussels", which is the Flemish speaking one and spells "VUB". It's just 500m away, but still ;)
If you come by car, the parking on the campus (right next to the H building) is free of charge. Make sure to not leave anything of value in a visible manner in your car. It is even safer to not leave anything of value in your car at all, and deposit it at our free vestiaire (coat hanger) service instead.
Stand clothing: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ We highly recommend you to bring a table-cloth or something alike to cover your table. The tables are pretty bare, and covering them (as well as your feet and all the things stuffed in the back) will make your stand look a lot more professional and appealing. Also, the front of the cloth is an ideal place for your logo or posters.
As an example, consider the difference: http://tmp.fosdem.org/stands/stands_cloth_bad.png http://tmp.fosdem.org/stands/stands_cloth_good.png ;)
Hacking: ~~~~~~~~ While we obviously don't have anything against people hacking on their laptops (FOSDEM is clearly a developer conference :)), you might want to avoid doing that permanently at your stand, as it doesn't really encourage people to come around and chat, which is the main purpose of having a stand at FOSDEM. And it's also kind of a waste, as there are more useful things to do with 5000 FOSS contributors around.
Speaking of waste...
Trash: ~~~~~~ The FOSDEM staff cleans up all rooms and hallways on Friday as well as after the event on Sunday evening. Please ask and remind people who man your stand to make use of the trash bags to deposit waste, rather than leaving it around.
We can provide you with plenty of large trash bags at the Infodesk.
If you feel like helping us out a bit, it would be great if you could poke 2 or 3 people to pick up remaining trash (cans, bits of paper, ...) on Saturday and Sunday and put it into the bags.
Note that bottles of drinks taken at the bar must be returned to the bar, both because they have a bottle deposit upstream, as well as for the sake of the environment.
Speaking of environment: weirdly enough, the ULB doesn't separate its trash for recycling, hence you may just put all the waste into the same bags (except for the bottles mentioned above ;)).
And while this may sound like common sense, we've had this in the past so...: please don't leave lots and lots of flyers around, as we have to pick them all up and convey them into the trash containers ourselves. It is not only a waste of paper, but also a non negligible amount of work for us.
Power plugs: ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Belgium uses power plugs with a single-phase voltage of 230 V and a frequency of 50 Hz, with sockets of type E: http://users.telenet.be/worldstandards/electricity.htm#plugs_e http://electricaloutlet.org/type-e
If you need an adapter, make sure to bring one along, as we don't have any.
Note that we only provide one power plug per stand, you're advised to bring your own extension cords.
Internet: ~~~~~~~~~ We provide an Internet link in all rooms and hallways, wireless only (B and G).
This year, we have our own network: it is connected to a 1 Gbit full duplex fibre channel uplink to Belnet (that should provide us with a pretty nifty bandwidth indeed, besides lots of fancy buzzwords).
Internet will become available around 12:00 on Saturday. As we build our own network, it is a huge amount of work, and our dedicated network team works many, many hours to provide the best possible service. Nevertheless, it is never trivial to provide proper bandwidth and coverage for such a large crowd distributed over a vast venue such as FOSDEM. Please bare with them, at least until noon on Saturday ;)
Storage: ~~~~~~~~ For stocking material overnight, we have a large room (Ferrer) that will be locked from Saturday 18:00 to Sunday 09:00. Note that there is no insurance whatsoever and we take no responsibility for stolen or damaged goods, even though there is a security team at the venue, including during the night.
That room is located next to the Infodesk in the H building, so please bring along any stuff you'd like to store there, and please tag it with the name of your project using a proper marker, to make sure it doesn't get confused with others.
Note that you can also make use of that storage space from Friday to Saturday. FOSDEM staff is on site from around noon to 22:00, but, if possible, please bring it to us after 16:00 and before 21:00.
Opening and closing times: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ You can start building up your stand from around 08:30 on, both on Saturday and Sunday.
On Sunday evening, after cleaning up, please bring your table and chairs to the upper floor of the H building (near the infodesk), it will save us quite some work :)
Lost+found: ~~~~~~~~~~~ The main Infodesk in the H building serves as the central rallying point if something gets lost or found. If you find anything (wallet, hardware, clothing, ...) lying around at your stand, please bring it over to the Infodesk (or ask someone to do it).
Conversely, if someone lost something, please direct them to the Infodesk, where it will be handled by FOSDEM staff.
If something goes wrong: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If anything goes wrong (e.g. malfunctioning Internet connectivity), please poke FOSDEM staff members at the Infodesk (either in H or in AW).
In case somebody gets hurt, or a medical problem of any sorts, please contact us urgently (see below): a team of the Belgian Red Cross is in stand-by, on-site, near the Infodesk in H.
Common sense should apply - don't try to rescue the person yourself unless you have first aid training. Instead, try to remain calm and contact us immediately (by any means as described below).
In case of a security sort of problem, although it luckily never happened, professional security staff is present on site. Contact us rapidly and we shall dispatch them to your devroom (or wherever you observe that situation), along with FOSDEM staff members.
How to contact us: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Infodesk may be reached physically (we also have a small Infodesk in the AW building, which should be manned with FOSDEM staff members most of the time), with the main location being at the upper entrance of the H building (under the large "FOSDEM" banner).
If you cannot go there and cannot ask someone to go there for practical reasons, or if the situation requires urgent intervention (such as a medical problem), you may always use your cell phone to call either - the Infodesk...: +32 2 7887474 - myself (Pascal): +32 486 071035 - Elise..........: +32 486 511450 (Elise and I form the dedicated devrooms+stands team, or at least the team dedicated to devrooms and stands ;))
If there are any remaining questions, please do contact us at stands@fosdem.org
Note that I will be on-site from Friday morning on (local time) and, hence, not able to check my emails. Hence, after Thursday 22:59 (UTC), please contact me by phone (+32 486 071035). Oh, and if you're not in Belgium or a nearby timezone, and unless it's really urgent, please check it's daytime before giving me a call ;D
In any case, we wish you a good and safe trip to Brussels, a lot of interesting discussions with a lot of equally interesting people, and.. oh well.. a lot of fun, really :)
On behalf of the FOSDEM stands team, -- -o) Pascal Bleser loki@fosdem.org http://www.fosdem.org /\ FOSDEM 2010 :: 6+7 February 2010 in Brussels __v Free and Opensource Software Developers European Meeting