Southeast Linuxfest

This last weekend was the Southeast Linuxfest in Spartanburg, SC. All I can say is that if you missed it, you missed a great time which was had by all.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I am the treasurer for the foundation that supports the festival, but based on the comments, emails, and tweets; everyone had a blast.

We will begin planning the event for 2011 in a couple of weeks. All of the board members, and coordinators need a couple of weeks break after the event. The last couple of weeks have been crazy, but it was worth it.

Our preliminary attendance for the event was 742 people. This represents a significant growth from last year. This is the second year of the festival, and we had some growing pains. Our overconfidence was partly our undoing. I can say that the difference maker for the event was our volunteers. I can not say enough nice things about them. They put in some long hours, but remarked that it was worth it.

Our sponsors were really cool. I had a chance to talk to a number of them, and they were enjoying the event. I was very busy during the event so I did not get a chance to meet with all of them. Next year I will make it a priority to visit them all.

We had a number of kids working at the event including my 9 year old son who were great. They worked the registration desk, sold raffle tickets, and were runners bringing drinks (soda/water) to vendors. They also were tasked with handing out swag. Universally, everyone at the event thought they were polite, and helpful. BZ to the kids.

We will be publishing all the talks as we get the videos edited. We did the same thing last year, and it was very popular.