Vision
Organizing a large event is a difficult task. It requires specific domain expertise, time, effort, and money. By establishing clear guidelines, lowering the complexity, and providing this framework, we aim to enable the Ubuntu community to organize UbuCon events on a regular basis. We envision UbuCon events that are fun and enjoyable to host and organize.
Goals
This guide aims to define UbuCon events standards. This includes frequency of events, locations, modality, sponsorships, travel, merchandise, promotion and expectations.
Scope
UbuCon events are large scale events of 300+ attendees. Smaller events that are seeking Canonical sponsorship should not be called UbuCon. Establishing a consistent naming convention helps set expectations for attendees, speakers and sponsors.
For smaller events, other names should be considered, such as “Ubuntu Party”, “UbuMeet” or “UbuHack”.
Events Standards & Sponsorship
A maximum of one UbuCon event per continent per calendar year can be sponsored by Canonical. All events should be co-located with large events in the region, even better if the event can happen in the same place at roughly the same time of the year.
Travel Sponsorships
Speakers, booth staffers and volunteers can be sponsored using the Community Donations Funds via a CDA application (Community Donations Application). A reasonable maximum amount of sponsored travel will be provided, depending on the size of the event. As a general rule, two to four community contributors is a good number. This does not include Canonical employees.
Merchandise
Canonical will provide merchandise to the co-located event, depending on the total number of attendees of the main event, if co-located in the same venue. Event organizers will be required to request merchandise 3 months prior to the event start date via the Community Request Portal.
Merchandise in EU and Schengen area
Canonical will ship merchandise from the EU warehouse to the event’s venue directly.
Merchandise in US, Canada, Mexico
Canonical will ship merchandise from the US warehouse to the event’s venue directly.
Merchandise in other countries
Canonical will order merchandise suitable for the event size. Event organizers will need to submit a formal quote at least 3 months prior to the event for merchandise. After review from the Canonical Community Team, funds will be distributed for merchandise production.
Expectations
Planning
In order to be considered for sponsorship, any changes to UbuCon event location, sponsorship, and main event, should be agreed with at least 9 months’ notice. Events that have no major changes are also expected to confirm with the Canonical Community Team with at least 6 months notice.
Event Team
UbuCon events are owned and organized by community contributors. Canonical cannot be expected to dedicate large amounts of time to the organization, management, and coordination of the event; instead Canonical will enable the community to reach success, and support by handling sponsorship payments, and request Canonical speakers if needed.
Event promotion
All UbuCon events are expected to be announced on the Ubuntu Discourse in the events calendar, and on Foss.Events. Promotion and activity on Social Media is highly encouraged. In the case of Social Media activities, proper use of hashtags and Ubuntu accounts is also important.
Hashtag
Tag accounts
Linkedin: @canonical
Twitter/X: @ubuntu
Instagram: @ubuntu_os
Mastodon: @ubuntu@ubuntu.social
UbuCon Site
Organizers should add their event to the official Ubucon.org website and are encouraged to create a subpage for the event, if they are not using their site hosting solution.
Post event report
The organizing team from each UbuCon should publish a formal event report on the Ubuntu Discourse no later than 2 weeks post event conclusion. This report should contain a summary of the event along with photos, videos and links to recorded content if available.