Day zero

I packed up the car with one desktop PC running Edgy, one 20″ LCD panel, two laptops (in bags) and a box of assorted cables and sundries. I knew Nik would be there already so I ensured I had his mobile number so we could arrange the meet up and hand-over of my exhibitors pass (which lets me into the (un)loading bay). I printed out directions to olympia and had a relatively early night.

Day one

Got up in plenty of time to drive the 40 or so miles to London. It was half term so traffic was less than I expected, and ended up not being a bad journey. Arrived nice and early at Olympia, pulled over, called Nik and arranged to meet at Gate G where he handed me a pass to get me into the loading bay. A few minutes to unpack and then put the car in the (stupidly priced) car park.

A brief stroll (via the cash machine for money to buy polo-shirts / coffee / fluffy penguins etc) back to the stand and we started unpacking and setting up. The table was just about large enough for two small laptops and some CDs. Not really big enough for much more, in fact my 20″ LCD was a bit of a squeeze. Luckily I have a wireless keyboard and mouse with my desktop so it’s easy to move them out of the way when the space is required.

There was only really room for one person to stay within the stand itself as the rest of the space was taken up by boxes of T-shirts, two chairs, one table, one PC and a rubbish bag. So most of the time we actually spent standing outside the confines of our stand. Not sure if this pissed other people off. It certainly made our stand look busy. Many of us wore the fantastic black Ubuntu polo shirts Nik had brought along to sell. It made for a very professional looking stand with a bunch of geeks in a kind of casual uniform.

Once the doors opened we were pretty much under constant “attack” for the whole day. Some examples of questions asked that spring to mind:-

Is my printer supported?
How do I know if my laptop (that I have with me) will work with Ubuntu?
What is a good book about Ubuntu?
Is there a Linux equivalent of “product_x” I use under Windows?
Can I run Windows software?
How can I update my machine when I only have dialup net access?
I hear kernel version 3 is coming, will we see it soon?
Will the next version of Kubuntu have version 3.5 or 4?
We’d like to make a custom Ubuntu CD, how do we do that?
Is there a good book that explains how the kernel works?
What does XGL/AIGLX Compiz/Beryl look like?
How do I install that 3D stuff?
How can I configure my computer to use WPA-PSK on my wireless network with Ubuntu?
Please can you fix this laptop?

I found that there were so many people and it was such fun that I completely neglected lunch. This is quite a big deal – if you know me, you’ll understand!

Jono organised a Ubuntu-UK meeting which started at the booth, but it was soon apparent that we were taking quite a bit of space so we retired downstairs to the dungeon to spread out. Nik Butler has typed up the notes. Looks like the work I’ve done in the past to get screencasting nailed might pay off. I understand the Ubuntu-UK team are looking to develop some tutorial type screencasts. Yay! My area!

At the end of the day we packed up some of the personal effects and put them back in cars, then trotted over to the Hand and Flower for a few bevvies and some chat. Shortly later a curry house was identified and 8 of us walked into Mr India looking to masticate some delicious Asian morsels. Round the table was a tired Alan Pope, pissed Tony Whitmore, an exasperated Laura Cowen, a loud Nik Butler, a quiet Neil Ferguson, an interesting Stuart Parkington, and two blokes from Neils work whose names I can’t remember.

Tony and Laura had arranged to kip over at my place (Clare and the kids having been shipped off to her parents [for other reasons]), so we left a little early and made our way home via many many garages until we found one that was open and sold milk and bread. We relaxed in front of a couple of episodes of Family Guy then slept well before the early start for the second day.

Day two

I cooked up a hearty breakfast for the three of us designed to fulfil the two necessary requirements of a) filling our tummies and b) hardening our arteries. We set off a little late due to my inability to time the cooking of 5 things. We arrived at Olympia in time to setup before the throng arrived however.

The second day was different in terms of visitors. Day one was pretty intense with many people asking a lot of questions, but with a huge number of people just passing through, picking up a CD on the way. Day two had less people but more lengthy discussions and more questions from each person. Scott James Remnant gets the popey award for endurance answering a torrent of questions from one guy for over an hour.

Ohmygod! Scott using *my* computer! I can’t ever sell or wash it now!

The second day was clearly too much for poor Tony. Look what it did to him.

Lessons learned

Two computers on the stand handy
Having net access would be great, but wasn’t really required
Having a local Ubuntu repository on a disk proved useful when people asked to see some software which wasn’t already installed on one of the machines
Plenty of CDs needed because whilst most people just want one of each, sometimes people wander by and grab a handful (hello Canonical and members of various UK LUGs )
Numerous people expect to be able to get CDs of the as-yet unreleased version of Ubuntu.
We didn’t have anything showing the URL or contact details. I resorted to writing the URL on the back of peoples visitor passes, because I figured they’d have them with them until at least they left the building.
Lots of people want to just grab a CD and don’t need to ask any questions
Many people want to know “what’s new in the new release”
Running a stand at LWE is probably a hell of a lot more fun than attending as a regular visitor.

Best bits:

Our stand
The people who came to our stand to ask questions
Having respected and friendly Ubuntu developers like Scott James Remnant and Matthew Garrett come to our stand and answer questions
Having Canonical refer technical questions over to us

Worst bits: