Dear $ALL,

As stated in the subject line, X2Go: The Gathering 2024 will take place at Linuxhotel, Essen, Germany, from Friday afternoon, 2024-06-28, to Sunday afternoon/evening, 2024-06-30 and will, again, be a three-day "work and play" (coding, chatting, sightseeing, socializing) event.

X2Go: The Gathering is the annual event where users, admins, and developers (including the i18n volunteers) of X2Go meet face to face, to discuss current X2Go-related issues, fix open bugs, and have a good time getting to know each other. As there is some overlap between X2Go, Arctica, and orca e.V., you can expect to see members of those groups as well.

After 4 years spent "in exile" (with a skeleton crew of volunteers meeting at shackspace in 2020, and going completely virtual in the years 2021-2023) due to the pandemic situation, we are finally returning to a full real-life event at Linuxhotel (though we will be streaming/recording our sessions, so you can join in remotely as well).

Note that while we do not require masks to be worn, it is still recommended and endorsed, especially in indoor areas. At the time of writing this invitation, and using some educated guesses regarding under-reporting and wastewater analysis, Covid infection rate in Germany is roughly somewhere between 1 out of 1000 and 1 out of 500 people per week.

*ATTENTION!* If you want to join us *and* want to sleep in one of the hotel rooms at the Linuxhotel, we need the number of beds and nights you want to reserve, as well as *your full name* (as printed on your passport) and *your nationality* by *2024-06-07* *23:59:59* *CEST*!!! Very important!!! After that date, we cannot guarantee that we will still be able to reserve a room for you! First come, first serve! As single rooms are in short supply, please book your bed in a 2- or 3-bed room, unless you absolutely have to use a single room.

Please send your reservation request to <mailto:vorstand@orca-ev.de> with the text "The Gathering" somewhere in the subject and bug me publicly on the X2Go-Project list if you don't receive a confirmation by e-mail after a day or two.

If for some reason or other you do *not* need a place to sleep at Linuxhotel, but *do* want to join us, please *still* let us know in advance that you're planning to visit. There's no such hard deadline as for the room reservations, but you will need to "check in" (and there will be an "Admission fee") for our gathering with the Linuxhotel staff, so please *do* let us know in advance.

We will be updating the Wiki page <http://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/events:x2go-gathering-2024> as more information becomes available.

We already have one sponsor for the event - CFD.direct have kindly offered to sponsor the Pizzas on Friday evening - but the more, the merrier, so if you know someone willing and able to co-sponsor the event, please let us know at <mailto:vorstand@orca-ev.de> as well. Whether they wish to send us some "swag" with their company branding, or pledge money that we can use to lower dining and lodging costs for our participants (or to lower their health risks by providing masks, sanitizers and free testing), their sponsorship is greatly appreciated.

Sincerely, Stefan Baur, "X2Go: The Gathering" event organizer