Is There Any Possibility to Increase Slots of the Tickets
No, we are over filled
We are more interested to attend. Can you consider increasing slot? like 3 or 5.
Since we are having overfilled tickets , Booking third Conference hall to have community tables. also confirmed Mics systems and Extra TV considering visibility problem in the second hall
Considering the high demand for tickets we have expanded our venue capacity by a bit to accommodate more people. We will be opening 30 general tickets (300rs) for ChennaiFOSS 2.0 today at 7PM. Tickets are available on first come first serve basis and we will not be able to provide any more tickets after that.
Ticket transfers are still open up till 5th april, 12PM. Students wanting to attend the conference can either get a transfer ticket from another student or purchase a general one since we do not have more student passes.
Edit: Sold out in 25 minutes 
Introspective Report
Sharing my thoughts on the conference on here, will compile and post the feedback from forms/other channels here sometime later this week.
The good
- Probably the best FOSS United event I have attended in terms of talks and content. Reaching out (read - repeatedly bothering) to people who you know will give a great talk is very crucial, no matter how many CFPs we get.
- We had a good chunk of hardware related content.
- Complete budget report is yet to be published, but if our calculations are correct we did not have to use the 30k INR fund that FOSS United provides to each conference. We were able to cover the costs for the event with sponsorships (The Commit Company, FR8) and ticket costs.
- Major reason for this is the food cost, since the event happened in an IT park, we coordinated with a kiosk in their food court for arranging lunch for the participants. This removed any transport/packaging costs that we would have had to pay to an external vendor. This was also environment friendly since the food court serves food in reusable plates that participants return after eating.
- The venue sponsors ( Jay and Ryan from FR8) helped us a lot to coordinate things with the IT park and make necessary arrangements.
- We expected around 250 people and ended up having 300 participants.
- The other sustainability measures taken at the conference also helped us reduce waste.
- 2 talks by women speakers and one women panelist.
The Bad
- The location is not very easily accessible by public transport.
- Chennai is very hot right now, we should move to a different month next year.
- The panel discussion could have been better planned.
- The volunteers were not briefed and trained well for the tasks they were assigned.
- Lots of noise in the hall since the tables were placed at the back.
- The audience was not very diverse.
The ugly
- We very running really late and wrapped up the conference almost an hour late.
- The tea break supposed to happen in the morning during check-ins was delayed, which messed up the schedule (since we then had to do it in between the talks). We also had to cancel the evening tea break since I forgot to place that order.
- Lots of problems at the security gate since a lot of people came in without buying tickets, and the list we had sent was also incomplete.
Another Observation @ansh
- The venue had poor WiFi connectivity, which was a downside of the experience.
No wifi connection**
Participant Feedback
How satisfied are you with the event on a scale of 1-5?
Average satisfaction level ≈ 4.46
Will you be interested in attending future events, such as FOSS meetups?
100% of participants voted yes.
Did you like the food at the conference?
96.30% of the people liked the food.
Did you find ample time and opportunity to network with participants?
88% yes
How satisfied are you with the location and timing of the event on a scale of 1-5?
Average ≈ 4.33
Suggestions and Thoughts on the event
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The meetup was great but some minor improvements would make it more insightful and attract a wider audience. My suggestion would be to have more talks about the philosophy that underpins the FOSS movement and focus more on the fundamental ideas which holds the community together. The technical talks could have had more explanation on what it was about before they started the talk in order to make sure the audience understand the reason behind it. I think devoting time talking about various FOSS tools is only useful in so far as the audience understands how the tools are related to the much wider ideas behind FOSS. The FOSS community would have much to gain from explaining their values because it consolidates the ethos of open source. This is not a negative view on the speakers but just an improvement that I thought would be helpful.
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Instead of serving snacks at a particular time, please make it accessible whenever someone needs it. Some people might feel hungry earlier or after the break time is over. I know that this would increase complexity in terms of quantity, but hey, we solve way bigger problems, we’re geeks, I’m sure we can figure this out. During the break time, I went to the restroom and when I returned, there was a long queue for the snack. I was hungry, but I didn’t want to stand in a long queue for the snack, I figured I could use the waiting time to check out other stalls (project tables). Of course, we started late, I understand that it is very normal to run late on schedules while organizing events. But I think we could have done a better job in planning the schedule of the event, anticipating delays, and taking them into account while planning itself, so that such delays, even when there were surprises / unexpected delays could be handled without having to cut down on Q&As, talks, especially the panel discussion. I felt that the panel discussion was the actual highlight of the event, it was interesting, but we didn’t have enough time for it to run smoothly, and even I had to leave in the middle (like 5 mins before it ended).
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There’s something I’m sad about:
I know human error is common and is understandable. I ordered an ‘M’ size Tee, and the volunteer also asked me to confirm the same, but then they gave me an ‘S’. :*(
I should’ve checked it before shoving it in my backpack, but I didn’t. I don’t wanna blame the volunteer or beat myself up for being careless, in the end, it turned out to be okay, and fits me fine. I mean it’s not perfect, but wearable. Maybe ask (remind) the attendees to verify their sizes before leaving next time?
Nonetheless, it was a fantastic event. Kudos to the organizing committee. -
In my point need some collectibles about the Custom (Android ROM)
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Good and awesome job Chennai Foss team. Thanks to metamonkeys for introducing me to this open source forum
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Its very wonderful experience.
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Please introduce many Open-Source applications and its usage.
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When seeking help, some volunteers lack event details. Ensure recruited volunteers know all basics.
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Organizers didn’t actively interact with participants to make them feel welcome. Better to have Q/A during the panel discussion.
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Thank you ChennaiFOSS team for an insightful, useful and awareness-increasing conference!
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The content shared was awesome but tect related and developers can understand the technical thing’s but for normal people the get knowledge
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nice conference bu we want to more from all over the tamilnadu projects and developers
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The short time provided for each speaker. I believe that most of them had content more than their given time
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The constant chatter at the back and at the protect table made listening to the talks a little difficult.
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It was great
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Location could have been somewhere Central in City or near a metro. Easy for travel. Other than commute to the location I liked the event.
Pictures from ChennaiFOSS 2.0
Some Suggestions by Ear.
- FOSS Conference Could Have been Free, Tshirt prices where to high
- Tvs can be placed in both sides
- Community Tables can be kept in different place
ChennaiFOSS 2.0 Expense Report
| Budget - ChennaiFOSS 2.0 | |||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income | Expense | ||||||||||
| Source | Count | Rate | Amount | Item | Category | Estimated Amount | Actual Amount | ||||
| FOSS United Fund | 1 | 0 | 0 | AV + Venue setup | Venue | 8500 | 8500 | ||||
| T-shirt Sale | 40 | 500 | 20000 | Food - Lunch and Snacks | Food | 60000 | 47,958 | ||||
| Ticket sales - Student | 120 | 150 | 18000 | Recording, Photography and Livestreaming | Production | - | - | ||||
| Ticket sales - Professional | 170 | 300 | 51000 | Banner, Poster, Stage and Signage | Brandind and Swag | 1000 | 1416 | ||||
| The commit Company | 1 | 30000 | 30000 | misc | Misc - On Event | 1000 | 390 | ||||
| Total | 119000 | T-shirt | Brandind and Swag | 21065 | |||||||
| Stickers | Brandind and Swag | 5000 | 2496 | ||||||||
| Plants | Misc - On Event | 600 | 600 | ||||||||
| Total | 76100 | 82425 | |||||||||
| P/L | 36575 |
Some Suggestions by Ear.
- Could have been in a more big place
- Better sounding speakers in all sides
- Seperate place for community
- Always available snack/food (Always as in time and not unlimited)
- Better and fixed volunteering