John Todd from Digium has posted asking people if they would like to go on a balloon trip:

As you may know, Astricon this year is in Phoenix, AZ - have you signed up yet? Often there are internal Digium discussions about portions of Astricon and what we should do about some portion of the show. We're often not the best people to answer those questions - you are! So hopefully the community can give some feedback on the activity question below:

There have been discussions about what, if anything, might be a fun pre-conference activity for people who show up a bit early to Astricon. I had initially thought of going out to an open-air rifle range, and allowing participants to bring their old legacy PBX gear with them to do a bit of high-caliber equipment reconfiguration. However, no suitable ranges could be found and there are those pesky lawyers with their "liability" clauses...

A more serene (but just as loud) option would be for a balloon trip on Tuesday morning. Phoenix is well-known for it's clear skies and amazing views of the Sonoran desert and surrounding mountains, and a balloon trip would also be a way to get to spend some time talking with the other attendees.

Most of the packages we're looking at include a ~5:00A pickup from the hotel, balloon ride, and then a champagne breakfast, followed by a return to the hotel around ~10:00A. This would chew into the session time a bit for those of you who were coming to the "pre-conference" sessions, but hopefully not more than an hour. The price would be ~$200, of which ~$185 is for the trip itself and then typically there is a $15 tip for the balloonist and/or the shuttle driver. We haven't worked out if Digium will collect that from you in advance (as an option on your registration?) or if that would be paid to the balloon company directly.

WHAT I NEED FROM YOU: If you are attending Astricon and you think this is a trip you might be interested in, please let me know with a "Yes!". If we get enough people who think it's a worthwhile adventure, we'll set it up. Otherwise, it will gracefully fade from the radar as a nice, but uninteresting sidebar.

JT

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John Todd
Asterisk Open Source Community Director