There has been a lot of talk about [LugRadio Live USA 2008](https://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/start) on this blog and elsewhere, and I just wanted to write a single post that summarise everything that is on offer right now as the event of the year. Yes, it is indeed the event of the year, as voted by the LugRadio team and our close friends.
First things first. It is on the **12th and 13th April 2008**, thats just a few weeks away! It takes place at **The Metreon, 101 4th St, San Francisco, California, 94103**. If you are coming, do please go and [pre-register](https://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/register) although tickets are available on the days.
## Things to see and do
With **three stages** and a large exhibition area, in which we encourage all of our exhibitors to have things to see, touch and play with, there is a huge amount going on at LugRadio Live USA 2008. First up is our incredibly diverse range of speakers, representing a huge range of areas such as Linux, the desktop, digital rights, power management, usability, the web, kernel development, multimedia, online communities, distributions, databases and much more.
The line-up of rock-stars includes:
* Miguel de Icaza (Mono / Novell / Co-Founder Of GNOME)
* Ian Murdoch (OpenSolaris / Founder Of Debian)
* Robert Love (GNOME / Google)
* Aza Raskin (Mozilla / Humanized)
* Benjamin Mako Hill (Ubuntu / Debian / FSF)
* John Buckman (Magnatune)
* Val Henson (Kernel / VAH consulting)
* Christopher Blizzard (Mozilla / GNOME)
* Mike Linksvayer (Creative Commons)
* Alex Graveley (VMWare / GNOME)
* David Schleef (GStreamer)
* Matthew Garrett (Power Management / Kernel)
* Danese Cooper (Intel / OSI)
* Aaron Bockover (Banshee / Novell)
* Liana Holmberg (Second Life / Linden Lab)
* Emma Jane Hogbin (Hick Tech)
* Joe Zonker Brockmeier (OpenSuSE / Novell)
* Kristen Accardi (Kernel)
* David Lefty Schlesinger
* Joe Born (Neuros)
* Selena Deckelmann (PostgreSQL)
* Stewart Smith (MySQL)
* Dan Kegal (Wine)
* Ben Collins (Ubuntu / Kernel)
* Jason Kridner (Texas Instruments)
* Jeremy Allison (Samba / Google)
* Christian Hammond (VMWare)
* Ian McKeller (Songbird)
* Alison Randall (Parrot / Perl / OSCON)
* David Huffman (LVM)
* Brian Will (Pigeon)
* Belinda Lopez (Ubuntu)
* Ilan Rabanovich (SoCal Linux Expo)
* Eddy Mulyono (Packaging)
* Matthew Walster (Demo Scene)
In addition to this, we have an incredible collection of exhibitors, showing off a range of different projects, and at LugRadio Live we have always endeavored to ensure the community projects share as much of the megaphone as companies. I think you would agree that the following list shows a nice balance between the commercial and non-commercial sides of Open Source and technology:
* Google
* Dice
* GNOME
* PostgreSQL
* O’Reilly
* OpenSuSE
* Magnatune
* Neuros
* Sun
* Texas Instruments
* South California Linux Expo
* Komputers 4 R Kids
* San Francisco LUG
* BytesFree.org
* Ontario Linux Fest
* Frets on Fire
* OpenNMS
* One Course Source
* Haiku
* Hyperic
* BitNami
* OpenStreetMap
* FreeBSD
* Ubuntu
* Inkscape
* Mandriva
* One Laptop Per Child San Francisco
* KDE
* Linux Pro Magazine
* San Francisco Community Colocation Project
* Indamixx
* Untangle
* SF Hardware Hacking Community
* The Digital Tipping Point
* San Francisco Perl Mongers
## Fun and Games
LugRadio has a very unique atmosphere. The main priority for the show is *fun*. We absolutely want to provide a fun, social, relaxed, entertaining and inspiring atmosphere. Our goal is to make everyone who comes feel like they are in a room of friends. Our atmosphere is unique, and often referred to as a *rock-conference* – it is not your typical dry computer conference, it has all the elements of a computer conference, but wrapped up in a fun and loose atmosphere where every feels part of it.
In addition to the oodles of speakers and exhibitors, we also have some more fun things:
* **Gong-a-thong Lightbulb Talk Extravaganza** – in this hour, a collection of people will get up and talk for 5 minutes about something they are involved in. If you like quick-paced summaries of cool things, this is for you. We have slots open for talks for this hour – if you want to get up for your 5 minutes of fame [email us](mailto:showATlugradioDOTorg).
* **The Mass Debate** – we get four luminaries of the Open Source and technology world together onto the main stage to answer your questions. Go in prepared to grill them…they love it.
* **LugRadio Live And Unleashed** – we will be recording a live recording of LugRadio in front of a raucous audience, which is always a lot of fun for everyone involved.
* **Evening social events** – on both the Friday and Saturday evenings, specific venues will be selected for drinks, schmoozing and more fun.
* **Win things** – we will be giving plenty of prizes away throughout the weekend, and you can even win some incredible prizes by recommending people to pre-register and come to the event. See below for more.
* **Nutsacks** – every visitor who comes to LugRadio Live USA 2008 will get a special visitor bag with a raft of rather cool freebies, one such example being an incredible Neuros shot-glass. Believe me, when we go after schwag, we try to do it right. 🙂
* **Lunch** – a light lunch is provided, as well as drinks and snacks to keep your energy levels up throughout the weekend.
* **Lazy Areas** – everyone needs space to chill out, relax and maybe do a spot of hacking. We will have bean-bags aplenty, ready for your relaxing pleasure.
* **Low cost enough for everyone** – $10. Ten measly bucks. Thats all it costs for the full weekend, all talks, all exhibitors, all events, everything. Do go and [pre-register](https://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/register), and you could win some prizes (see below).
## Hotels and Travel
Our [Travel](https://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/travel) page contains a lot of details about how to get there by plane, rail, car, hoverboard or otherwise.
There are also some hotel deals available:
* From $169/night – The Marriott – right across the street from The Metreon – book on line directly at www.sfmarriott.com. No codeword needed.
* From $119/night – The Pickwick Hotel, 85 5th St. San Francisco, CA 94103 – ask for the “Metreon Meeting” rate.
San Francisco has a huge range of hotels for a variety of prices. If you have any travel questions or problems, do [get in touch with us](mailto:showATlugradioDOTorg).
## Pre-register and win prizes!
**Asus EEPC, Neuros OSD, O’Reilly books and limited edition LugRadio t-shirts up for grabs. Read on folks.**
You can win an Asus EEEPC or a Neuros OSD and some O’Reilly books for yourself as well as LugRadio t-shirts and O’Reilly books for your friends, while all the time helping to make [LugRadio Live USA 2008](https://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/) on the 12th and 13th April at The Metreon in San Francisco an awesome event.
The idea is simple – we want to encourage as many people to the event as possible, and we would like to reward you for spreading the word about LugRadio Live USA 2008. With this in mind, we have some rather nice prizes to give away. All you need to do is to encourage people to come to LugRadio Live USA 2008, ask them to pre-register and when they pre-register they will be asked for the name of the person who recommended the event to them. In that box they should enter *your name*.
The person who refers the highest number of people will win themselves their choice of an [Asus EEEPC](https://eeepc.asus.com/global/) or a [Neuros OSD](https://www.neurostechnology.com/neuros-osd), two O’Reilly books of their choice and a limited edition LugRadio t-shirt. In addition to this, the people that the winner referred will each receive an O’Reilly book and a limited edition LugRadio t-shirt. The next highest number of referrals will win either the Asus EEEPC or Neuros OSD that remains. Thanks to [efficientpc.co.uk](https://www.efficientpc.co.uk) for providing the Asus EEEPC and to [Neuros](https://www.neurostechnology.com/) for providing the Neuros OSD prizes, and thanks to [O’Reilly](https://www.oreilly.com/) for providing the books.
So, to re-iterate, getting involved is simple. Follow these easy steps:
* Talk as many people about coming to LugRadio Live USA 2008 as possible – spread the word, blog it, hassle your friends and colleagues and encourage them to come.
* Ask them to go to [this page](https://lugradio.org/live/USA2008/register) and pre-register. Tickets for the event cost only $10 for the full-weekend with full access to all the talks, exhibition and activities and a light lunch is provided.
* While pre-registering, they will be asked who referred them. Ensure they put your in your name in this box for it to be counted.
The winners will be announced at LugRadio Live USA 2008. Please note – only those people who actually attend LugRadio Live USA 2008 will count as referrals and all names must have a matching ticket – no trying to stooge the system folks.
Good luck and we look forward to seeing you at the awesome greatness that will be LugRadio Live USA 2008! 🙂
