Learnings from VCF Midwest 20 (2025)

I just got home from VCF Midwest 20 where I again had a couple tables, this time I had a setup that looks, acts and feels like you’re on a corporate network in 1999, but if you’re here you likely know this already. I wanted to capture my thoughts on what I’ve learned so far from hosting a table, mainly for myself before I forget (read this next year DY) and for others that might be considering having a table.

1. You WILL run out of table space faster than you realize. Draw out a table plan, Visio, Lucid, even just a piece of paper. They’re 30” deep and either 6’ or 8’ long, you pick.
2. You WILL run out of time faster than you want. Start early, plan ahead, expect problems, these are old systems.
3. If you want floor space but no table, say, for a rack, indicate that in your request, they’ll work it out for you.
4. Stay in the hotel by the show floor, the group rate is good and you won’t have to deal with driving. Finding a spot in the loading area is hard enough as is.
5. As soon as they announce the group block, book your room, there’s no cost to cancel up to something like 7 days.
6. Arrive on Thursday. Trying to check in, get settled AND set up on Friday isn’t fun. You’ll be able to get your badge and start loading in around noon, sleep in and get extra coffee, you’ll need it.
7. Make a checklist for packing to go AND for setup. You’ll thank me later.
8. Bring spares, cables, power distribution, monitors, whatever, something WILL die in transit or on the floor. If you don’t have a spare, the thing there knows this and will take it out on you for not having one.
9. Bring a small tool kit, oops (checklist anyone?).
10. Bring some small fans, the little USB ones are good, set them up facing you behind the tables, the fresh air is nice. (Remember to unpack them).
11. Get chairs for the front AND back of your table, you select how many when you fill out the table reservation. The rear ones are for you to sit down on, you’ll want them, trust me. The front ones are for visitors to sit down on, there’s enough room now for this to be possible. If they’re sitting, they tend to stay longer, they’ll thank you for being able to get off their feet for 5 minutes. Get a front one for every computer you want people to use.
12. Make flyers and such for the table describing things you have, it’ll save time, and your voice. Use large fonts that are highly legible and readable from a couple feet away.
13. ShadyTel rocks, use them for voice and data circuits, they’ll bring you a phone directory sheet if you have their service, put it up on one of those acrylic stand things for people to see. Pay your fake real bill for real real, they take donations.
14. Set up the modem AND make sure it works. Bring the correct power supply for it.
15. Bring hand sanitizer for the table for both you AND the visitors.
16. If you’re also going to sell things, be honest and account for how much room you’ll need for it. Add a half a table or so just for that, if you don’t, DO NOT sell things. Be prepared to take cash, Zelle, PayPal and Venmo. Get cash to make change, about half the people use it.
17. Make a price list AND put it up out front by the entrance, there’s a place they put up for that purpose. Remember to do it (did I mention a checklist?).
18. Wear COMFORTABLE shoes, you’re going to walk at least 15,000 steps a day.
19. Take your favorite pain killer, Ibuprofen for me. If you forget there’s a CVS vending machine on the 1st floor of the hotel, ask the desk for directions.
20. I took my T-Mobile home Internet gateway for Internet access, it worked flawlessly this year. Default route to it. Bring your company network engineer along, have them set up NAT to it for you (thanks Dan).
21. Plan on your setup taking 20% longer than you estimated. Plan on tear-down taking about half the time of setting up. Also plan on it taking 20% longer than that. Did I mention you’re going to walk a lot?
22. The place HAS to be empty by 5PM, I recommend tear-down starts around noon on Sunday, 1PM latest unless you have a really small setup.
23. DO NOT try to introduce new things the day before, or especially the day of, the show. Don’t try to set the BIOS date on a HP small form factor to 1999, it won’t go back further than 2000.
24. Try to get a room close to the elevator, holy cow that’s a huge hotel.
25. You can have GrubHub deliver there, even late, a couple places are open until like 2AM. Supposedly they’ll bring it to your room, mine didn’t know how to, save the frustration and meet them at the main entrance. I said you’re going to walk a lot.
26. The hotel charges for Amazon deliveries. No idea how much, was just told they do.
27. There tends to be 4 profiles of visitors to my tables:
1. Quiet passer by, looks, doesn’t ask, reads the flyer and moves on: 1-2 minutes.
2. Interested, asks questions, doesn’t get hands on: 3-5 minutes.
3. Interested, asks questions and gets hands on, make sure they have a place to sit, give them some pointers, have a flyer with instructions: 5-10 minutes.
4. Uber nerd into it. Lots of questions, mucks around, has fun, likes to fiddle: 10-15 minutes, perhaps more. These are the coolest ones but can distract you from others.
28. Leverage modern systems & services where possible when it’s not directly user facing. Example: my backend services such as DNS, LDAP, NIS, RADIUS and TACACS don’t run on vintage hardware, it’s too much of a pain, they run on a modern Linux VM hidden in an small form factor machine under the tables. Same goes for the AIM and BattleNet services, they only run on modern Linux so there they live. 
29. Use this as the start of your checklists.

Check back here, as I remember things I’ll just update this post. Overall, great show, had a blast, got to meet new friends IRL and see old ones.

Note to self, re-organize this list into pre-show, setup day, show day and tear-down day order.