[OpenGeoscience] AGU/EGU: Townhalls vs staffed booth

["Peter Löwe"]

Dear Helena,

I'm totally with you that a staffed OSGeo booth at AGU or EGU would be preferable to a Townhall. This would require additional resources. I can only speak for the EGU event, but in the last five years, the only continuity we were able to achieve were the annual OSGeo Townhalls. Short courses were attempted many times, but were only held on a few occasions. One reason for this is, that OSGeo folks (until now) attend the conferences primarily in their roles as scientists/researchers. The announcement, if ones abstracts have been accepted is made in early Spring (for EGU), while the commitment for a staffed booth would have to be announced to the organizers during summer in the year before.
For EGU, I guestimate the costs for a staffed booth to be twice what we're paying for the Townhall event (things are MUCH cheaper in Vienna than at AGU), so this should be feasible from a financial perspective. However, we need dedicated staff for the booth. If we manage to develop a sustainable plan for this before April, the EGU organizers could be approached during the EGU GA. 

Any ideas to wing such an effort at AGU would be welcome.

Best,
Peter

<peter.loewe at gmx.de>