It is important to know who our target audience is. The following sub-chapters detail which individuals and groups we want to cater to and what they will most likely want and need.

Michal is a community member. He already knows and uses Ubuntu on his devices, maybe even on the phone, and he wants to meet his peers and learn something, from interesting talks, demonstrations, project booths etc. Michal will most likely also be interested in trying out the things he hears about in the talks, and he might be interested in commercial products based on Ubuntu.

Most of our visitors will come from this group. To tailor the event to their needs, it might be necessary to ask a sample group about their preferences long before arrangements with the location are made.

The idea of an european Ubucon will hopefully confront Michal with people from different countries who don’t speak his mother tongue. We have to make sure all the barriers are as low as possible, for example by avoiding countless “Where are you from” and “what languages do you speak” questions. Chapter Proposed badge system details a possible solution.

It might be necessary to schedule a “german-only” track to keep people happy, because there will most likely not be an Ubucon Germany 2016 and some people might refuse to go to Ubucon Europe because they don’t consider their english skills good enough.

Michal will likely attend the whole event and needs accomodation. It would be nice if there was a list of recommended hotels, or even agreements for special room prices with some hotels.

Judith comes to Ubucon Europe to tell other people about interesting stuff she does. To adapt her talk to the location and audience she needs to know a list of topics the audience wants to hear about, so she knows if her talk actually fits into the concept. It might be good to schedule a list of thematic tracks beforehand to “guide” the speakers and the audience.

Once Judith’s talk has been accepted, she will most likely want to know the following things to adapt her talk to the location and audience as best as possible:

• A room plan of the whole location so she can quickly find the scheduled room, in the extreme case Judith only comes to give her talk and doesn’t have much time
• A detailed plan of the room her talk is scheduled in, so she knows how large the audience can be at maximum, how many projectors there are etc.
• Technical details about the room, e.g. which display connector (VGA/HDMI/etc.) she needs, if there is an audio system present, the aspect ratio of the projector (4:3 or 16:9)
• How to get an Internet connection, e.g. for live demos
• Who to talk to if something doesn’t work/breaks

Dont forget that Canonical employees are community members too, and that many people not working for Canonical work on projects together with Canonical employees! Ubucon Europe 2016 might be a good opportunity to bring a team together for a short Sprint. These teams have specific requirements:

• Time away from the rest of the event, e.g. a whole day or multiple days before or after the actual Ubucon Europe
• Private rooms
• Very good internet connection
• Accomodation near the location for multiple days

Giving our partners the possibility to exhibit their products at booths, and maybe also give talks, is a good possibility to show our community that their work has a huge impact and our partners can show off their products to their target audience.

Alberto will need to know the following things:

• How much it will cost (we might be able to avoid the entire discussion if we just say “sponsor the event and you can have a booth” or so)
• A plan of the exhibition area with exact dimensions
• Who to talk to about shipping all the stuff necessary for the booth
• How many power outlets there are
• How to get an internet connection, e.g. for live demonstrations

Bruno knows about different operating systems and considers himself to be a “power user” or even an active developer. He is not an active Ubuntu member, but likely an active member of other FOSS communities which are maybe Ubuntu upstreams.

Bruno will be interested in mostly the same talks and sessions as Michal, he might skip the bits that are too Ubuntu-specific though.

Getting Bruno on board might be a good opportunity to foster better collaboration with projects Ubuntu relies on and ships with. Bruno might be interested in running a booth for his project, but we have to carefully select which projects we want to give a stage to to keep the whole event focused.

If Bruno runs a booth, he will need to know the same things as Alberto.

George might have heard about FOSS, Linux and Ubuntu before, he might even use it in some form, but he is not an active community member and does not consider himself an enthusiast. He might be interested in visiting Ubucon Europe if the event looks like something he and his whole family will enjoy on a lazy sunday.

This means George needs lots of opportunities with a low entry barrier to entertain his partner and kids during the day. This might include the opportunity to play open source games on a projector, crafting, an Ubuntu paperchase, quizzes etc. Also George will want food and drinks we can’t really plan for in advance.

If we can cater to George and his needs, the whole event might become much more interesting for everybody involved, from the University to us and our partners/sponsors.