Afterthoughts on a FOSS4G conference

So. FOSS4G Europe 2024. With a week gone by since the end of the event, I think this is a perfect time to reflect back on this fairly emotional, something that I’ve poured my heart in, thingy. In a way I feel it’s like a relationship that has come to an end - you’ve invested so much of your energy and efforts in it, but now it’s over and all you’re left with are memories and the experience of going through it and the shared moments. But the whole process of gearing up has been a such an exciting time, an amazing experience. FOSS4G Europe 2024 is over but I have nothing but good thoughts and emotions within me when I think back.

FOSS4G is an event-series that annually brings together software developers and users, spatial data formats and standards gurus, open communities enthusiasts, business-owners, specialists and decision makers from all walks of professions who deal with spatial in their work.

Sounds too much of a bullshit-bingo? In a way it does, but that was one of the introduction sentences we used for describing the event for people who know nothing about it. The uninitiated if you will. We are an open group of people, and we welcome everybody who wants to see this amazing community grow. And grow not only in numbers but also in regards to the quality of human interactions, established knowledge, and new ideas and practices.

This whole thing has been almost a year-and-a-half ride for me. Well, actually two years. Because it all started in Firenze back in the end of August 2022. Or to be precise then in reality already in 2019, in Bucharest when during a BoF session for the OSGeo European chapter a question was raised about a possible FOSS4G Europe 2020 (because global 2020 was supposed to be in North America), and just “by accident” (not really) I proposed (or maybe very strongly supported, cannot remember exactly) a FOSS4GE in Latvia, with Peteris chairing the event.

Happily gearing up for the Valmiera event some things happened half way through (COVID) so with organizing we got as far as stickers (of course!), t-shirts (very rare, might even say - collectable items now), academic track proceedings, and a saddness in our hearts about a cancelled event.

Two years later, in Firenze I ended up meeting this wonderful community, my friends again, face-to-face, sharing their time and devotion for free and opensource in geospatial and love for open communities, and I felt like in love for the first time again…

Post-Firenze I had a month-long roadtrip in Italy and an idea started forming in my head that I really want to bring us together, in my hometown, Tartu. After a chat with Peteris, and a feedback round from the rest of Valmiera LOC members, the ground was set. We were going to aim for 2024 when Tartu is also hosting the European Capital of Culture events - Tartu2024. And I remember really wanting the event to be hosted very close to the midsummer festivities - Jaanipäev - the time of most light, and possibly, the best weather. The only sad thing being that thanks to 2024 being a leap-year we cannot start exactly after Jaanipäev because 24 June is a Monday. And 24 is a public holiday… but so what, we do it a week later, from 1 July onward. Which weather-wise proved an iffy-choice: no rain, sunny and warm days exactly for the week FOSS4GE did not happen. But I guess it was a refreshment for people from other parts of Europe which have been overheating.

Back home end of September 2022, then one heel-break plus a month and a half in a cast with crutches later, together with Evelyn and Alex from the Tartu University Landscape Geoinformatics Lab we set out to write a proposal around New Year’s 2022/2023 to host FOSS4G Europe 2024 in Tartu. The preparatory work also included approaching the OSGeo Conference Committee to ask for the call for venue to be opened.

The FOSS4GEs have never been historically very numerous in participant counts compared to the global ones, which for many years have seen numbers 1K+ in-person participants. The only outlier being Como FOSS4GE 2015 with 400 people and registration closed due to safety concerns. But that’s Italy, everybody wants to go to Italy, right? And considering the global FOSS4G is taking place in Belem, Brazil in 2024 and with a choice of either going a tiny bit south of the Equator or coming to Estonia (leaving the impact of travelling long distances to the side for the time being), it seemed kind of obvious that we should not be expecting a very numerous attendance: 250 being optimal, up to 350 being this-will-never-happen (Paris 2017 was ~320), and with less than 150 we’d have to rethink the amenities we could offer.

But everything went absolutely differently. The max capacity we had planned was reached very suddenly one day before the Early Bird ticket sales, so we had to close the ticket shop and open the waiting list.

But here we are. And I hope that we were able to provide you with a FOSS4G-experience to remember still years later.

If it was your first time I hope you got the sensation of wanting to be part of this amazing mix of software, data, standards, formats, licensing issues, and freedoms. But most importantly - the people who make up this vibrant community. And if it was not your first time - I hope we managed to live up to your expectations.

And I hope you liked the location and want to come back here one day for work, vacation or a longer workation.

Notes

Some things to note for future events. I might come back to this at some later time that’s why I’m writing it down as a bulleted list, not prose text :)

• Preparations always take time, especially so when waiting for feedback from other people (who do it in their free time). And this is ok. It’s absolutely ok. Always plan with buffers (you know in the style of “group photo will be at 19:30” and the photo really goes down half an hour later). Moving a huge crowd from deadline to deadline (be it proposals, changing rooms or venues) takes time and often we all (at least me) like to leave things on the last moment. Start early which will leave you time to accomodate extensions so they will not interfere with the rest of the schedule.
• Providing workshop leaders with a gratis pass - this is the least you can do for the work they put into the preparation and execution of the workshops. And remember, the workshops are a very important part of the whole event revenue.
• But at the same time things (i.e. life) happen, there’s always going to be occasions where confirmed workshop leaders will not be able to participate, also after whole bunch of tickets sold. It’s good to plan ahead how to deal with that. There’s no good and just rule with it and it needs to be dealt case-by-case.
• Capacity planning: there’s no definite rule for anticipating the number of participants. I think this will be very hard to estimate in any case, there’s so many forces at play here. The suggestion is to still go for the optimal, but do have a contingency plan for what-ifs. Also for over-the-top interest, which is something we could have invested more time in.
• Capping the number of Early Bird tickets available? I think we should have done it because as we stand we had a total of 6 regular birds in the crowd (out of the total 437). And shopping for regular rate tickets is actually a way for some companies/institutions to support the event financially.
• What about community member (private person) vs corporate ticket differing rates? I’ve seen it used for some community-driven-events before and it could be something that we could explore.
• Provided lunches in the venue. The original idea was to not do those (in order to keep participant ticket prices lower), but there’s no way we would have managed to guide lunchbreaks to local cafes and restaurants without having a 4h lunchreak or similar.
• Also provided lunches help to keep the participants together in the venue. And networking is a very important aspect of a FOSS4G.
• Alternating food (solid - soup - poke bowl) over the days is a good idea as it offers variety.
• When planning for carnivore/vegan variety keep in mind that carnivores will be eating vegan things too. So whatever the food preferences you ask beforehand, use the Tambov constant to get better numbers. It will definitely be bigger than you are expecting.
• Oh but what about vegan-only lunches? I think this is something that we could think about.
• Try to invest into using re-usable kitchen-ware (plates, glasses). It might cost a tiny bit more but makes a difference. By the way, did you understand that those plastic plates and glasses were re-usable? I guess not everybody, because over the lunching days I ended up pulling a couple of plates and soup-bowls out of the garbage bins around the venue to take them to the expo area big yellow dumpsters :)
• Also glass bottles. In Estonia, glass and plastic bottles and tin cans are collected separately from general waste (you get money for returning them). If that is also the case in your country, please let the participants know. Not everybody is used to it. So you will not need to go rummaging through trashcans at the Ice-Breaker as I did :D
• Conference swag. I think it was a good choice of letting people do only pre-orders (for t-shirts and such), not ordering enormous amounts beforehand only to have to dispose of them afterwards. I feel we as a community are still not absolutely ready for “take-only-what-you-need” but I think this was a step in the correct direction and would like to see this tradition continued.
• Starting Friday morning with a coffee-break, and later. The feedback we got for that was very supportive. With the Social Bytes on Thursday evening (and some of us getting to sleep only after 5AM :D) I think it’s painful for both presenters and participants to be at their sharpest already at 9:00. Although one thing - we could have planned an organized morning activity (swimming? running?) for the “early birds” too. Something to consider for next times.
• A regional FOSS4G is an excellent opportunity to engage “first-timers”: first time participating, first time presenting. It’s a perfect way to draw new people into the community activities and raise interest.
• But don’t forget the FOSS4G “hardware” too. They are the part of the community that helps to introduce and uphold the FOSS4G spirit we have grown accustomed to, the “something” that drew us to this amazing group of people in the first place. In Tartu we had a very good, approximately 50/50 mix for this.
• It has been absolutely amazing to communicate with so many of you via e-mail over the past year or so. About the proposals for workshops and presentations, about sponsorship opportunities. It takes quite a bit time for the effort but at the same time this has been such a rewarding experience.
• And I think most importantly: be honest and open about your expectations, deadlines, anything you would expect from participants. Although we stick together, we are still individuals, all with our own interests and understandings of how things work. If you don’t say what’s on your mind then others will not know that, they should not be guessing.

Thankyous

Dear LOC members and all volunteers, your work and commitment into setting this event up is absolutely overwhelming. I have so much gratitude and love in my heart for you. You are an excellent team to work with! And with you, I would do it again. Without a blink of an eye.

And some more personal thank yous too. I don’t want the following list to be in any particular order. But… the first one really is. The most imortant for me.

• Merli and Kristi. FOSS4GE 2024 would have been impossible in the form it came together without your work and initiative. You were the absolute gems of the whole organizing team. Your attention to the smallest details and the way you handled even my stupidest ideas, filtering out and bringing to life the ones that really mattered and made a difference, was absolutely amazing. I am in awe, and feel so much in dept to you both.
• Evelyn and Alex. Thank you for picking up the idea of organizing the conf at all. I remember crutching my way to Van46 - 327 for my GIS-day 2022 presentation, and the first tentative chat we had in the hallway there about the possibility, and the enthusiasm you picked it up with. If it wasn’t for you and your work and commitment, FOSS4G Europe in Tartu would still just be a nagging could/should idea in my head.
• The whole Tartu University Landscape Geoinformatics Lab team. The enthusiasm and the work you put into preparations and execution of even the most mundane tasks were exceptional.
• All volunteers. Your knowledge and warm attitude to getting things done was the cornerstone of running FOSS4G Europe 2024 as smoothly as it went. I bow to the ground.
• Merle and EstGIS, thank you for your work with bookkeeping and handling the sponsor invoicing. Without your administrative support this lil' event would have been very different.
• Kreet. You did an excellent job with handling the expo area and B2B setup. Thank you so much for stepping up and taking on the challenge!
• Hamid, your help with contacting and communicating with the sponsors made such a difference, made the event so much more than what it could have been.
• Sidorela. Thank you so much for the time you put into managing the conference homepage. I’m sorry you could not participate, but there will be a next time.
• Valentina, Hanno. The Travel Grant Program (TGP) has become a regular thing with FOSS4Gs. It helps us to diversify the events by helping people who would not otherwise, because of financial reasons, to participate. Despite of the limited budget we had available you did an amazing job in executing the TGP. And also Vasile, your support and insights from the OSGeo conference committee side cannot be underestimated.
• Marie. You gave so much care and attention to the social media channels that we were running, thank you so much: @foss4geurope@fosstodon, @foss4ge on twitter, @foss4g-europe on Linkedin
• Miriam and Carmen. Geochicas is an absolutely amazing group of women + allies! I am so grateful for being able to be a friend and supporter. I am so grateful that Geochicas took Tartu! And Carmen, I’m so sorry you could not make it. There will be next occasions.
• Nils, Joana. Thank you so much for bringing the OGC iDays-EU to Tartu at the same time. It was an absolute pleasure to have you here.
• University of Tartu Department of Geography and the City of Tartu. Thank you for the support in securing the venue and welcoming all the participants to the town.
• All FOSS4G Europe 2024 sponsors. All of you, your commitment to support financially a community event like this makes it possible for the organizers to host it in the first place. Your contribution - however big or small - does make a difference of what the event can allow itself without digging too deep into the participants' pockets and leverages the ticket prices.
• Submission of proposals was done using pretalx. OSGeo hosts an instance at https://talks.osgeo.org. Thank you Astrid and Luca for the help setting the event up. And Luca, your presence was greatly missed, but we will meet on some other occasion.
• Registration/ticketing. We used the pretix shop over at https://pretix.eu, but potentially could also be something that OSGeo would self-host. Thank you Katja from FOSSGIS for the introduction to the system.
• Academic and general program committees. Thank you Evelyn, Marco M, Marco C, Alex, Besfort, Codrina for steering the work, you helped to put together an excellent and interesting program. And also all scientific committee and general program committee members, your insights and comments on the proposals were absolutely invaluable.
• Zetod! You absolutely lit up the Lodjakoda barge-building hall on Thursday evening Social Bytes event. You were the absolute stars of the evening! Aitüma teile!
• Every one of us who participated. We did a very good job with this event. FOSS4G is a community event, which means the organizers are there to set it up and provide the possibilities, but it’s each and every one of us participating, our actions and inactions that will determine the outcome of how good and enjoyable a FOSS4G conference will be. We did good! Thank you so much!!

I am so honored that I can call you all my friends, the most amazing community I know. With this I wipe my eyes dry and wave to you, until next time.

All my love,

t;