Helena Spease on volunteering, community, and procrastinating on tickets

This is the third of a series of informal chats with Texas Linux Fest regulars. If you didn’t catch the others, you’ll find them here and here.

If you’ve followed Texas Linux Fest in recent editions, you probably recognize Helena Spease from the marketing and outreach efforts that get reminder emails into the inboxes of attendees, the announcements of speakers, and the recruitment of the on-site volunteers that keep the event running in the track rooms and exhibit area.

Given that she’s taken on the role of reminding people to put TXLF on their personal calendars, I asked her for some behind-the-scenes insights into that process … and for one final reminder to join us at Texas Linux Fest on Saturday.

Nate: “So, the most basic question first: how many years is it you’ve been at Texas Linux Fest?”

Helena: “This is my second year. I work for an open-source foundation: The Open Infra Foundation, if you’re heard of that. We host the OpenStack project and, in that role, what I do is manage our community days. In expanding our community days, I was looking at other community events, like the various Linux Fests and SCaLE. We’re always looking for collaboration opportunities, and the Open Infra community expressed interest in co-locating and things like that, so I started volunteering for Texas Linux Fest.”

Nate: “So what did you do that first year?”

Helena: “Same thing; I volunteered for marketing and volunteer coordination. Last year, there was a co-location with KCD, and the KCD organizers actually pulled all the volunteers for us, through UT. Then, this year, my landlord is a UT professor; I asked him to help send out a call for volunteers to his students, and that’s how we got them this year. You’ll see them tomorrow. Actually, some have probably shown up; they’re probably here enjoying the conference because they get a free ticket. They do things along the lines of like helping out at the registration desk, t-shirt distribution, and room proctoring is a big one.

On the marketing things, any time that an attendee gets an email with helpful information or a spelling mistake, that comes from me. Or any sort of promotional things, like the social media channels and the email marketing.”

Nate: “Looking back on that first year, what stood out to you as the most fun dimension? Or, what have you decided you want to do differently this time?”

Helena: “I thought it was really interesting when you link to a ‘Linux Fest,’ you’re thinking, like, “operating system,” and highly ’technical’ people and things. But then, when you actually talk to the people in the planning committee, yeah, you do have a lot of those people who are highly technical, but then you also have, like (TXLF designer) Beck: he’s there and knows things like photo editing with open source. For me, not being a ’technical’ person, in more marketing roles, it’s really interesting to see this diversity in the sorts of open source tooling that people are interested in.

This year, we migrated our email marketing. Now we’re on Listmonk, which is an open source marketing tool. A fun one is last year I used Figma for social media, but this year, since Beck recommended it, we used Penpot. It’s basically like a one-to-one, alternative to Figma. It works great, so that’s pretty big.”

Nate: “Oh; I think I’ve heard of it mostly in terms of making mock-ups.”

Helena: “Yeah, it’s used for wireframing. But you can use it for actual production. Email headers, social media graphics, and all of our speaker cards are built in Penpot. So it’s real graphic design and layout.”

Nate: “What do you think is different about Texas Linux Fest compared to other community days and meetups?”

Helena: “If you look at Open Infra Days or you have a giant non-profit supporting your event, there’s very definitive branding. So it’s very interesting to see that, versus something like Texas Linux Fest. You still get a very similar event, but people are coming because of the community, not necessarily because of who’s running it. I don’t think there’s a negative or positive to either. It’s really interesting just to observe the dynamics.

When it comes to the attendees here, I hear independent feedback here and it’s overwhelmingly like ‘Oh my gosh, thank you so much for organizing this’ … which is so nice to hear. I’m like ‘it wasn’t that much but thank you and we’re happy you enjoy it. So it’s really nice to see how appreciative people are.”

Nate: “When it comes to the emails you send out, what is the plan like? Is there a formula?”

Helena: “You’ll see the normal kind of marketing calendar we follow is, like: registration launch, price increases, schedule, launching the CFP, closing the CFP; those kinds of schedule timelines. And then, with those kinds of campaigns, you’ll see like spikes in registration. A big one is if you announce a keynote speaker. And, then, the one week to price increases, one week the CFP closes. Those are where you get your major spikes.

The biggest thing ever, in the years of events I’ve done, is you will stress until the last minute because everyone is a procrastinator and will not register — especially for something local like Texas Linux Fest — because they can drive their car over here, or walk or take the bus, they will not register until the night before, or three days before.

And you’ll stress up until those moments, like, ‘No One’s Gonna show up!’”

Nate: “Yeah; and one reason that I think we should post these interviews in the run-up is to remind people.

So: it’s tomorrow, or possibly ’today’, depending, as you’re reading this! What would you tell people who think they want to attend, but haven’t bought their ticket yet?”

Helena: “Buy it early! I mean, you can always get a refund on your ticket.”

Nate: “Oh, that’s a good point. I don’t know if everyone knows that….”

Helena: “Yes, that’s true. Refunds are a thing. Buy it early because us, as organizers, we have a budget we’re working on, and we need those numbers earlier rather than later.”

Nate: “If someone hasn’t bought their ticket? Does that mean they should just stay home Saturday?”

Helena: “No no; just show up. You can get a ticket on site!”

Nate: “I like to think that people who have not bought their ticket are doing so because they have other conflicts in their schedule, and they’re just like ‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to make it.’ But you run the risk of forgetting.”

Helena: “Sure. And it’s always hard in Austin, specifically. It used to be we had two major events ACL and South By Southwest, right? And now, the festival culture has become a thing, and it’s like every single weekend, there’s a festival of some sort in Austin. Now, with all these competing events in the city, it gets really difficult to draw audiences one every single weekend.

And Texas Linux Fest definitely fits into the Austin culture, for sure. Austin has a certain vibe of how things are put together? With community in mind. Well, it’s a little bit rebellious, okay. But it’s community oriented, and it’s relaxed, I guess. It’s not a high stress conference we’re talking about.”

Nate: “So, to summarize for the night before, if you were thinking of coming to Texas Linux Fest tomorrow? Do. And if you weren’t thinking of it, change your mind and come anyway, because you can still get a ticket out the door.”

Helena: “Yes. And next year buy it early. And get on the newsletter. And the planning committee could always use more people. There’s seats available!”

Nate: “Yeah, and you know the call for papers will be open again before you know it. Is there anything else you want to add? What don’t people know?”

Helena: “Get barbecue. But we don’t have it here on site. Go somewhere else and get barbecue. Maybe you can bring it here; there are big tables. Probably just don’t bring it into the talks.”

Technically, it seems like bringing in outside food might be an iffy proposition, but we do have it on good authority that the venue is close to all sorts of eating establishments. You can drop by Texas Linux Fest 2025 Saturday, October 4, whether you have purchased a ticket in advance or not, and you can say thanks to Helena for all her work getting the word out.