OggCamp is an unconference celebrating Free Culture, Free and Open Source Software, hardware hacking, digital rights, and all manner of collaborative cultural activities and is committed to creating a conference that is as inclusive as possible. If you’ve got a story to tell, no matter your background or current status, whether it’s your first talk or you have loads of experience, as long as the talk is connected (somehow) to our theme then we want to know about it.

We’re super excited to open the doors next Saturday for OggCamp 2024 and welcome you back after 5 years! Since the organisers and crew are still finding our feet after some time away, we thought we’d share with you some key information to bear in mind for OggCamp this year.

In case you’ve missed them, we’ve posted a number of updates on the OggCamp website over the past few weeks:

• Announcing the OggCamp Swap Shop
• Talk Guidelines
• The Schedule (for the scheduled track)
• Thank you to our Sponsors

If you’d like to hear more as a preview of the event, you can also tune in to the most recent episode of FLOSS Weekly.

Schedule

Doors will open at 10am on the Saturday for registration. Please be sure to have your ticket PDF, or email address you used to purchase the ticket available for our crew at the registration desk. We’ll kick off with a welcome talk somewhere around 10:30am. Missed the ticket sales? Don’t worry! You’re still welcome at OggCamp. Just please do consider making a donation (to help us run the conference next year), which you will be able to do at the merch stand.

We have a wide range of scheduled talks available on JoindIn, but as always, there’s plenty of space on the grid for you to come with your own talk on the unconference tracks, or if you’re someone who prefers to be more concise, in the lightning talk slots on both days. Don’t have an idea for a talk yet? No worries, feel free to get inspired throughout the weekend and bring your own talk, following our guidelines if you’re unsure what to expect.

Merchandise/Raffle

As always, we have OggCamp merch available for you to remember your weekend by! Both t-shirts and mugs will be available at our stand in the ‘Pioneer Room’, where you’ll also find tables to socialise, play your favourite tabletop games, do ad-hoc demos of your projects, or just chat to our friendly team and sponsors. If you’ve pre-ordered merch, please make sure you have your ticket ready showing you’ve pre-ordered, and we’ll be sure to get it to you from the stock we’ve set aside! We’ll also be selling tickets for the OggCamp raffle with plenty of great prizes on offer including a BeeLink mini PC, PiCar, Android tablet and more! Raffle tickets will be available using cash only, so please make sure to bring some along with you!

Social events

We don’t have any ‘official’ OggCamp social activities this year, but our encouragement to OggCampers is to gather in the Pendulum Hotel Bar, where you’re sure to bump into lots of like-minded folk for a nerdy natter, a board/card game, or some food and a beverage! There will definitely be folks around on Friday evening before the start, as well as on Saturday; we expect many people will be leaving after we wrap up on Sunday, but feel free to arrange your own meetups beyond OggCamp if you like. Special thanks to Richard Shortland-Neal for providing us with a list of local vegan and gluten free options for those who are interested.

Code of Conduct, Health and Safety

All attendees are reminded that you must follow the OggCamp Code of Conduct at all times. As mentioned in the CoC, we have a limited supply of FFP masks and COVID-19 tests available for those who need them. Please contact a member of the crew to access these. While we really do want to welcome everyone, the health and safety of attendees remains our top priority. Please do not attend the event if you are experiencing any of the known COVID-19 or Flu symptoms

As a reminder, if you see a CoC violation, or need help, grab a member of crew, or call the OggCamp crew phone number (+44 (0)7735 211096) which will be kept held of by a member of crew at all times during the hours of the event.

Stay connected

Finally, be sure to follow OggCamp at our social links for updates leading up to and during the event. You’ll find these on the homepage of ogg.camp. Got questions? The channels we are most likely to see first are Mastodon and Telegram.

Please also make sure to use #OggCamp2024 on your own posts, so the team can see how much fun you’re all having and use your photos to help promote future events! You can see a wall of Mastodon updates related to the event here.

Thanks for reading, and we look forward to welcoming you next weekend!