What is a Release Party?

Release Parties are an informal gathering of community members hosted by Fedora to celebrate a new release. Release parties are a great way to help spread Fedora in your local area and provide an opportunity for Fedora users in your area to come together as a community.

Release parties can be casual events with a few people meeting in a coffee shop or larger events with numerous people in attendance, planned activities, and speakers.

What to do at Release Parties?

  • There are many things you can do at a Release Party. A typical release party will have the following:

    1. Talks/Presentations: Typically talks at release parties are ones that introduce features in the new release of Fedora. If you’re not sure what are the most interesting and important check the Talking points.

    2. Question and Answer session: Host a session where people can come and ask questions about Fedora. This can be a great way to help answer people’s questions and learn what common questions are in the community. It’s also an opportunity to help people with installs and upgrades.It’s OK if you’re not an expert. Make this an “audience participation” event and get everyone to help everyone, just like in the rest of Fedora. This is also a great time to show off the various ways to get help online.

    3. Live USB Creation Station: Have a machine with you that you can create Live USB images for people on the USB keys they provide. This can be a great way to send someone home with a Live Fedora image they can work with if they are hesitant to commit to an actual Fedora install.

These are just ideas. You’re not required to do any or all of them. Focus your party on your audience. For example, if you’re hosting a release party at work, have talks focused on the way you use Linux and how that relates to Fedora.

Hosting Release Parties

It’s simple to host a Release Party

  • When you’re ready, you need to do a few simple things:

    1. Send an email to the mindshare mailing list and let the world know what you’re planning. Ambassadors and others may have suggestions or advice that can improve your event. This also lets you find others who may want to help you with your event.

    2. Open a ticket in the Mindshare Issue Tracker and let people know about your event. If your event needs financial or swag support (see below) this is a crucial (and mandatory) step. Please use the Release Party template.

    3. Once your party is approved, do the following: calendar, so others can easily find it.

      1. Request a QR code to award the Release Party Attendee badge. You can do it by opening an issue at mindshare pagure

      2. Put in a swag request ticket in the Fedora Budget Repo (See below) ..Finalize your plans and hold your party.

    4. After your party, write an event report. An event report lets the community know what happened and how it went. Ideally your report will be shared on the Fedora Community Blog, but posting it on your own blog and the Fedora Planet is fine too. If your event requires financial or swag support (see below), this is mandatory. These reports should help us understand what happened and how the party went. Ideas for what went well and what could be improved are welcome.

    5. If you have financial assistance approved, file a reimbursement ticket in the Fedora Budget Repository

Financial Assistance and Swag

Release Parties and should be planned at least 30-40 days in advance. In our experience, events planned with less lead time are generally less successful. If you’re going to request swag, plan for 2 weeks for shipping.

Follow the Getting Financial Assistance and Swag section here.

Writing Your Event Report

  • Community Blog: Advocates can sign in to the Wordpress instance of Community Blog using your FAS Credentials by following this link. Once inside, you can create a new post where you can draft your experience. After you are done, subscribe to CommOps and share the link of your draft. Politely ask if somebody can approve your post after a review. Here’s an example of a Release Party Blog post.

  • Your own Blog: If you have been maintaining your own blog, you can post it there as well. To extend the reach of audience, Advocates may syndicate their blog to Fedora Planet. For more information check out this 'how to'.

Comment on your issue in the mindshare repo with a link to your event report.