On Saturday we hosted a CentOS booth at the linux.conf.au openday http://linux.conf.au/programme/open-day
All in all it was a very successful day. I had Rob Shaw along with me to help. We gave away about 120 CentOS 5.1 i386 install DVDs and over 100 CentOS stickers. We ran out of DVDs after about 2 hours but had plenty of stickers left over.
All of the people we spoke to were very positive about CentOS, many already use it, others were looking to try it and others were just testing the Linux waters and might give it a try.
We had a 40" LCD display so we ended up putting our table against the back wall with the LCD on that. We could then stand in front of the table and engage with the visitors as they walked past. I think this worked much better than most of the other booths where the people sat behind the table and had to wait until a visitor would stop and talk to them.
We did not have anything interesting to show on the LCD but even when it was turned off it seemed to draw a crowd. We ended up with the CentOS 5.1 release notes page from the wiki.
We also had a notebook for people to play with if they wanted to see what CentOS was like.
I have uploaded the artwork that I used to the wiki: - a stamp for the DVDs. This worked a treat - a poster. This looked good but was too small beside the TV - the stickers. These were printed on matte paper and a little bit small, but they were OK.
The Gentoo booth beside us had a large (~ 1m x 1m) vinyl gentoo banner which they mail around the world. Perhaps this would be a good model for a CentOS banner.
Thanks to everyone who helped with the organising of the open day and lending of equipment for the day. Special thanks to: - Steve Walsh for getting things in motion - Rob Shaw for manning the booth - Kon Mouzakis for the loan of the LCD screen - Richard Newbigin for transport - Nicu B for the 3D look logo
John.