[BillingsLUG] Fwd: Montana Linux Fest - Getting the ball rolling

[Shawn A. Wilson]

Larry, Ilan, and others:

Thank you for opening the discussion on a possible Montana Linux Fest. I 
have yet to be able to attend the LFNW with the other locals so putting 
one together closer to home sounds like a wonderful idea!

I suppose the choice of venue and financing needs go hand-in-hand with 
the planned/expected size of the event. As you mention, this could be a 
one-day or a weekend deal. What sort of attendance numbers would be 
appropriate? I believe that promotion would be one difficult aspect of 
this endeavor... here in Billings our LUG is quite loosely-associated 
and meetings are often small, while the Bozeman LUG has a stronger core 
group. I think it's mainly an organizational problem in Billings as we 
often don't have a meeting topic defined until the day before or even 
day of planned meeting! Obviously strong organization would be key to 
the success of an event like this.

I like the tracks idea. Anyways, I don't appear to have much in the way 
of new ideas at the moment but I wanted to get a response out. I'm 
looking forward to more discussion on this!

Thanks,
-shawn

On 05/10/2012 03:21 PM, Larry Cafiero wrote:
> Here's the original message, Shawn -- is this the one you're talking about?
>
> Larry
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: 	Montana Linux Fest - Getting the ball rolling
> Date: 	Thu, 03 May 2012 15:45:19 -0700
> From: 	Larry Cafiero <larry at socallinuxexpo.org>
> Reply-To: 	larry at socallinuxexpo.org
> Organization: 	Southern California Linux Expo
> To: 	Ilan Rabinovitch <ilan at socallinuxexpo.org>,
> warren at sandersonline.org, dowdle at montanalinux.org, andrew at rocky.edu,
> gary at math.montana.edu, smcclain at lastbest.net, dandenson at gmail.com,
> bodhi.zazen at fedoraproject.org, shawn at lannocc.com
>
>
>
> Hey, Ilan --
>
> What follows is a report on a discussion held at Linux Fest Northwest
> last weekend with Warren Sanders, Scott Dowdle, Andrew Niemantsverdreit
> and Gary Bummer -- all included in this e-mail -- as well as Dan Denson,
> Seth McClain, Tom Mulgrew and Shawn Wilson -- also included in this
> e-mail -- who have expressed an interest on the #ubuntu-montana IRC
> channel in helping to organize the event.
>
> For those of you who don't know Ilan or me, Ilan chairs the Southern
> California Linux Expo and I work with Ilan as the publicity chair for SCALE.
>
> A couple of things off the bat:
>
> -- I'm using the term "Montana Linux Fest" as a generic term for the
> event. I don't know if that will end up being the name, and it's open to
> discussion (think acronym, folks :-)  . . . .)
>
> -- There's probably some items I may end up forgetting to mention, or
> just getting wrong because I might have misunderstood, in this e-mail
> report, so Warren, Scott, Andrew and Gary are going to have to fill in
> some of the blanks (thanks in advance, guys)
>
> In an e-mail exchange before LFNW, Scott and I arranged to meet at LFNW
> to discuss the possibility of an event in Montana, and as mentioned
> above, the five of us talked about it on Sunday. We discussed the following:
>
> VENUE: Scott, Andrew and Gary work in the scholastic realm -- Gary and
> Scott at Montana State and Andrew at Rocky Mountain College -- and we
> discussed the possibility of using campus facilities for the event. I
> believe Scott and Andrew will look into the possibilty of using
> facilities on their respective campuses. I also brought up using a large
> hotel, as we do in Los Angeles for SCALE, and that's being looked into.
> More discussion on this will follow, once more information on what's
> available is discovered (and make sure there are enough outhouses -- the
> Montanans' joke, not mine).
>
> FINANCE: Money was a big question on this, and I mentioned sponsorship
> and what SCALE might be able to provide in assistance in this respect.
> Ilan, you can probably speak to this better than I can, but I know that
> we can pitch sponsors for the event like we do for SCALE and other
> shows, and provide some help here. More discussion on this will follow.
>
> EVENT LOGISTICS: The date is up in the air, and I think that there's a
> gap between OSCON in July and Ohio Linux Fest in September, or even
> after September now that Utah Open Source Conference is drawn to a
> spring date (it's being held this weekend). There's also the possibility
> of holding it between LFNW in April/May and OSCON in July. How to put on
> the show was a larger part of the discussion. I proposed that there
> would be tracks -- for example, a Security Track, a Developer Track, a
> Education Track, etc., like we do at SCALE -- where talks along specific
> subjects would be grouped together. Also, drawing speakers was also
> discussed, and I don't believe that's a problem because many folks --
> many with a lot of experience and talent -- are willing to come to
> speak, so that may not be a big concern. Also, we talked briefly about
> whether it should be a one-day (like Texas Linux Fest) or a two-day
> (weekend) event, but I believe that more discussion on these topics
> would follow.
>
> So I guess what should happen next is that we should probably all meet,
> electronically, to discuss some of this further.
>
> OK, gentlemen, game on.
>
> Larry Cafiero
>