Exhibition Pack

''' This page is in DRAFT, awaiting Marketing Committee approval. '''

=Overview=

The OSGeo Foundation supports local communities to promote OSGeo by providing exhibition material for use at conferences and related events. Budget permitting, the OSGeo Foundation will provide funding for a "Regional Starter Kit" of core non-consumable exhibition pack items to any local chapter who plans to promote OSGeo at a conferences and asks for a "Regional Starter Kit".

This page lists what is provided, what is funded and how to get hold of it. This page should be read in conjunction with the Conference Setup Guide.

=Getting a Regional Starter Kit=

TBD: This process is still to be approved by the OSGeo Marketing Committee:

The recommended process for getting a "Regional Starter Kit" is to start a conversation with the OSGeo Marketing Email List. As part of this conversation we'd be expecting to cover:
 * Which conference(s) you wish to exhibit at, and who is intending to organize an OSGeo stand or booth at these conferences.
 * How you have, or plan to negotiate with conference organisors to have a stand allocated to OSGeo. Ideally this booth will be allocated to OSGeo for free, as OSGeo is of great interest to many geospatial delegates, and OSGeo is a non-profit without budget to purchase such a stand.
 * OSGeo doesn't currently cover costs of consumable items. Discuss whether and how you plan to source consumable items for the booth. A local volunteer, or organisation might be able to print these in house, or you might be able to find a local sponsor.
 * That your local chapter doesn't already have a "Regional Starter Kit".
 * You will then be asked to put together a quote for the items in the "Regional Starter Kit". This typically will be around $US500.
 * The Marketing Committee will check there are sufficient funds, then will vote to confirm allocation of funds. The OSGeo Treasurer is expected to vote and has veto on allocation of funds.
 * The Marketing Committee Chair will then email approval for the purchase the items to both OSGeo Treasurer and the person/people requesting funds. Make sure you retain receipts.
 * Send the receipts to the OSGeo Treasurer to be reimbursed (up to the approved funds).

=Photos of Exhibition Booths= http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/File:OSCON2009_boothstaff.JPG

=Exhibition Pack= The contents of an exhibition pack, along with rough costs are listed in the spreadsheet here: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pu9014gybzreYKdV8-WQ_SA

Elaboration of the contents are explained below:

Regional Starter Kit
The "Regional Starter Kit" includes the non-consumables items for an Exhibition Booth, and each Regional OSGeo chapter is entitled to one "Starter Kit", funded by OSGeo.

It includes:


 * Retractable banner
 * Shirts
 * Portable Literature Stand
 * Black Table Cloth

Locally Provided Non-Consumables
These are non-consumable items which should be able to be sourced locally:
 * Demonstration Computer
 * Large monitor or projector
 * Table
 * Chairs
 * Power board
 * Table cloth (optional)
 * OSGeo table skirt

Core Consumable Items
The following are items which need replacing at each conference, and as such are not currently covered by the OSGeo Marketing budget. These include:


 * Overview Brochure
 * OSGeo-Live DVD or USB

Extra Consumable Costs

 * Conference attendee registration
 * Booth registration

=Branding= Local sponsors are encouraged to include advertise their OSGeo related services at the conference booth. In particular, they may wish to set up a banner, or add their own fliers. This local advertising will not be paid for by OSGeo. Ratio of branding should be proportional to who pays.

The starter kit contains items that can be carried between conferences. Each Local Organizing Committee or regional group is entitled to a starter kit. It contains: OSGeo The Open Source Geospatial Foundation * Robust, Feature Rich, Open Source Software * Open Mapping Data * Educational Programs
 * 1) An OSGeo retractable banner stand, approx 1 meter wide, 2 meters tall, with (proposed) text:


 * 1) A portable literature stand or some tabletop stands
 * 2) An OSGeo table cloth
 * 3) Business Shirts with OSGeo logo over the pocket for stand attendants. (Business shirts present a professional image, we have grown past the "hackers in garages" stage.)

Desirable additions to the starter kit
This is asking a lot. Various projects have been trying to compile lists of case studies and projects using their products for ages. We should have quite a few around by now. By compiling them all into proper prose and screen shots, we could bind them up into a loose leaf folder. People are always interested to know who's using this stuff, and while we can point them to web sites or give them examples we know about, I feel it would be much more powerful to walk them through a couple examples in the folder, and give them a chair while they browse the rest. See Case Studies for a start on this but also the Journal which has many.
 * A case study folder:
 * A poster showing a block diagram of the Open Source geospatial stack.

Essential Consumables

 * 1) A two sided A4 brochure saying what OSGeo is, and listing all the OSGeo projects, with a paragraph summarising each project.
 * 2) [LiveDVD]s
 * 3) Bay Area, California $2.00 ea for 500 qt and greater

Desirable Consumables

 * 1) An A4 flier for each project (these get outdated quite quickly).

Unfunded Consumables
Local presenters might want to hand out extra gadgets or promotional material.


 * USB Sticks
 * Shirt Pins

Locally Supplied

 * A demonstration computer, ideally with a [LiveDVD] installed into its own partition. (The LiveDVD is slow if running off the DVD).
 * A large monitor or projector.
 * Table
 * Chairs

Branding
Local sponsors are encouraged to include advertise their OSGeo related services at the conference booth. In particular, they may wish to set up a banners, or add their own fliers. This local advertising will not be paid for by OSGeo. Ratio of branding should be proportional to who pays.

Banners and fliers paid for by international OSGeo will be branded with international sponsors. (How this is presented is still to be decided).

=Subset for events with no booths= When OSGeo can promote itself in an event where there are not any booths, the following items can be carried:


 * 1) An OSGeo retractable banner stand.
 * 2) Consumables for inserting into the material pack provided for attendees (depending on the expected number of them):
 * * A two sided A4 flier saying what OSGeo is, and listing all the OSGeo projects, with a paragraph summarising each project.
 * * LiveDVDs

Cost Summary
This is a work-in-progress to estimate how much a package will cost.