Booth Duty

We often have the opportunity to be present at various conferences. Sometimes, we even have an Apache booth at the conference.

Please see child pages of this one for currently planned events

Organizing the Booth

The organizer of the booth has a few specific tasks to take care of. It's nothing difficult, but may require you to be at the conference earlier or later than expected

Obtain permission and a space at the conference

Before we can begin organizing, we have to make sure we've got a place to be. Work with conference organizers to secure a spot in the booth area. Some conferences have forms for requesting this while other conferences handle things through email and less formal means.

Many conferences also charge for such space. As a non-for-profit with our own financial needs, we generally do not have budget to pay for a both at conferences, but may conferences do offer discounts for non-for-profits. Be sure all of these details are fleshed out beforehand.

Also consider preparing some flyers to pass out. You can get them here on the wiki: ASF Information Brochure

Receive any materials (banners, swag, etc) for the booth

Depending on what materials you have already, you may want to just check a bag. You can also opt to have things shipped. It's a good idea to reach out to comdev to find what swag is available to be handed out.

If you would like to have banners and materials shipped, you should talk to <someone> and <do something>

Currently, booth banners are held by <someone> and <someone>

Be there early to set up the both and late to tear the booth down

This is straight forward. Work with conference organizers to know when you should set the booth up and what times the booth needs to be staffed. Also know when the events will wrap up and when tear-down should be. If you have stand-up banners or other items that may impede traffic flow, ask the organizers if these are appropriate (for traffic flow/safety reasons/space constraints).

Organize people for booth duty

Develop a schedule for booth duty. Unless you plan to spend the entire time at the conference hanging out at the ASF booth, you will probably want to identify a few people to assist with this.

A helpful strategy to deal with this is to create a shared calendar, doodle poll, wiki page, thread on comdev or some easy way to gauge when people are available/willing to staff the booth. It may also be a good idea to exchange cell/numbers the day of in case someone cannot be present.

Staffing the Booth

This is the fun part! Hang out and do what you love to do - talk about the Apache Software Foundation! Engage with conference-goers, share stickers, pass out swag and so on.

It's a good idea to be familiar with some of the talking points for booth duty such as high level information about the foundation what kind of projects we have and where to get started at Apache

Many booths want "something" for the swag they hand out such as scanning your badge (to get your email address... to SPAM you). We don't do that, but don't hesitate to ask people stopping by if they'd like to know more about the project they just grabbed a sticker for.