Sponsoring FOSS.IN

When we announced the resumption of FOSS.IN earlier this year, we didn’t think we would have too many problems doing so. Everyone missed the event, and the outbreak of joyous “huzzah”s was proof enough of that.

But we had not counted with one thing – sponsor weariness.

tl;dr :

  • Sponsor rates reduced
  • Expo stalls now available
  • Group discounts available

The problem was (and is) that after we shut down FOSS.IN in 2010, we left open a time slot that no one was willing to touch before – simply because FOSS.IN sucked out all the oxygen out of the room during the period.

But once we were out of the picture, many events were scheduled in that time period, including the most excellent HasGeek events and a lot of vendor-specific events. And each of these events needed sponsorship (and in most cases got it).

Then we came back, and found ourselves at the end of the queue. Many potential sponsors had already allocated their money, and had not budgeted for FOSS.IN (and we can hardly blame them for that). When we approached them, we (for the first time in a decade) found ourselves facing rather apologetic rejections.

Now, in a way we had expected this. This is one of the reasons why we had to raise the delegate fees to cover the enormous costs involved in running an event like FOSS.IN. But that wouldn’t be enough.

It’s not that we don’t have sponsors – it’s just that we don’t have enough sponsorship in place yet.

And that is the reason for this post.

Benefits
Many organisations have benefited from FOSS.IN in direct and indirect ways.

Directly, it has given their developer employees access to some of the best developers in the world, including core kernel developers, important FOSS project developers, and a lot of developers you didn’t even know existed.

Indirectly, you have benefited from the fact that people who attend FOSS.IN (including students) often turn out to be excellent developers and technical people later in their lives – people you want to hire. Don’t believe us? Just ask some of your best people if they have attended FOSS.IN in the past. You will be surprised!

FOSS.IN is more than just a tech event – it is the coming together of some of the best minds from across India and the world. Unlike events that focus on a single topic, FOSS.IN brings together people from many technical areas. Where else will you find Web Developers interacting with Linux Filesystem developers to discuss the issues they face – and fix them?

If you agree that you have benefited from FOSS.IN in the past in one of many ways, then help us continue the tradition.

We need organisations who have (and haven’t) supported us in the past to step forward and do the right thing. And there are several ways of doing this:

Sponsorship
First of all, of course, is direct sponsorship. And to make this easier for them, we are doing a one-time, rather unprecedented thing – we are slashing sponsor rates, and increasing the number of sponsor slots. So if you had evaluated our sponsorship opportunities earlier, do so again – they now cost far less. Check out http://foss.in/sponsors for the details. Some of these slots have already been taken (companies who had taken a Silver sponsorship have now been upgraded to Gold Sponsors), and there are several new, smaller sponsor slots that you could avail of to make your presence felt at what IS india’s best known tech event.

Note that we have only changed the sponsor rates – our quality (no talk slots or keynotes included with the sponsorship) and privacy (no delegate contact info) terms remain in place. If you had rejected us on this basis, then this post is not for you.

Expo Stalls
Next, you could take a stall in the commercial expo (Tech, Gold and Silver sponsors get stalls with their sponsor packages). You will get excellent exposure. Check out http://foss.in/expo for details.

Tickets
And you could (and should) buy tickets for your employees. We have great group discounts, just check out http://foss.in/register for details. (Tech, Gold and Silver sponsors have tickets included in their sponsor packages).

We already have hundreds of delegates signed up for FOSS.IN, and their demographics should interest you. Have a look at http://foss.in/attendee-demographics – you will see what we mean. More will sign up as we get closer to the event.

And you should really grab this opportunity to be seen supporting India’s favourite, non-commercial, volunteer driven tech event. Visit http://foss.in/sponsors for more details on how you can make that happen.

And thanks a lot for your support!