News
Code of Conduct team feedback
During the DjangoCon Europe 2019, the Code of Conduct team was very pleased to see how well the Django community got well together. We prepared ourselves to face a few incidents, but fortunately things turned out better than we thought. We were extremely satisfied with the positive atmosphere we had at the conference.
Guided by previous DjangoCons, these are some of the things we planned to secure a pleasant experience:
- Review all slides for the Talks and Sprints and guide speakers on the usage of pictures/memes;
- All participants had to agree with the Code of Conduct when purchasing a ticket;
- The Code of Conduct was printed and attached to the entrance of the venue;
- A phone number to get in direct contact with the Code of Conduct Team was available during the whole event;
- We made sure a member of the Code of Conduct team was made physically available at both the conference venue and at the party;
Although no incidents were reported, a few participants brought to our attention something: someone walking around with a t-shirt that they thought could be an insult to some. Upon investigation, we found out the person was part of the venue's staff. Then, by having a kind and informal conversation to the venue's director, we got to know the t-shirt owner's background a bit more. We decided that the situation could not disrespect any member of our event, given the context. And as expected, no one filled a formal report about this matter.
It was an amazing experience for all of the DjangoCon CoC Team. We were extremely satisfied with the outcome of the conference and even more importantly, with the ambiance the community provided to itself. We are definitely looking forward to contributing to future events such as this.
Elvis, Jessica, Sarah & Víðir Code of Conduct team
T-shirt prints 👕
Our initiative for print-on-demand t-shirts at DjangoCon 2019 wasn't sufficient, but we have opened a merch shop for digital prints, and original stencils are shown at the end of this article in case you would like to print your own – and if you do, please share with others how it turned out 💡
We would like to share a little bit of evaluation about the ~120 custom prints that were done during DjangoCon Europe 2019, since we think its a great idea, and maybe other events would like to continue.
Print on-demand
DjangoCon 2019 had print on-demand merchandise, including bring-your-own-garment. The prints here screen printed and handmade quality, the workshop recruited only students, and the fabrics could be both new and used.
There were some risks involved in this. The “on-demand” still meant that we had to return unused t-shirts and garment coloring to the suppliers. Human resources were also sparse and in the end defined the production capacity. To have a nice selection between colors, sizes and fits, meant that the outlet had to be 4 times what we expected to sell. This setup means that a conference needs a good relationship with your suppliers of t-shirts to be able to return the large unsold stock.
Bring-your-own garment meant that for instance tote bags could be filled on the blank side:
Critical reflections
We think participants at DjangoCons should be offered an opportunity for a wearable memory of the event. We can recommend exploring similar ideas about on-demand printing. For the sake of consuming less textile resources and to help keep tickets affordable, on-demand is a great instrument. We have learned from other events that pre-orders often fail because people show up and change their minds or are hesitant to pre-order before seeing the actual shirt.
Some people have actually also reached out and said that they were glad not to get a t-shirt that they wouldn't use anyways - so to that extend, we are also confident that it isn't everyone who wants another conference t-shirt.
Granted, as many have objected, we did hand out a tote bag. This is largely due to the traditional sponsorship format: Handing out sponsor materials. But surely, future organizers can also think of new creative ways to address this.
There are other machine-driven print methods available which can produce much more reliable, faster and standardized prints than the screen printing method we applied at AFUK. Especially, we are sorry to see that technical mistakes have made some prints wear off at the first laundry. This was in particular due to a proper test round prior to the event, the prototype went straight into production, so to speak.
The garments, both tote bag and t-shirts, were made from ecological cotton and under Fairtrade working conditions. As we are having a good time at a conference, let's ensure that the workers who manufacture various supplies for the event have, too.
A little shop
Since its free to setup a shop on various outlets, we've chosen one with ecological garments (Spreadshirt). Oh and since it's also digital print, we thought we'd add more colors, so we've made a pride-colored 🌈 edition of the Django heart.
You are not supporting anything financially by buying from this shop, we have zero profits from it. If you would like to support Django, we suggest direct donations to Django Software Foundation.
T-shirt stencils from DjangoCon 2019
In case you didn't get a t-shirt, here are the stencils that we used.
Download vectorized file: PDF, 1.1 MB
Videos and photos
Thanks for a great conference - It's been about a month since DjangoCon 2019 ended, and memories are there to relive.
Firstly, with thanks to our official photographer Bartosz Pawlik (Bartek), we have over 900 photos to share from the event.
We also cropped and normalized sound on all the video recordings. They can be conveniently viewed in chronological order on this Youtube playlist or you can click each individual talk in the program and see the video embedded below the talk description:
Live streaming and online questions
We are now streaming live!
And we want YOUR questions. See the instructions here.
Once talks have been streamed, they will be edited and released online, but please allow us some time, as we have to do a bit of manual post-processing.
The organising team
Sold out!
We are sold out and making final arrangements now. We (the volunteers organising this conference) have lots and lots of things to do, and in case you find our news flow to be slow, please rest assure that we are busy behind the scenes making this the best possible conference for each and everyone 💚
All talks and workshops are now published as well as a schedule.
Don't have a ticket?
- You can still be part of the conference: All talks are streamed live.
- Asking questions will also be possible.
Information about streaming and asking questions will be published within the next days. Workshops are not streamed.
Have a ticket?
We would like to hype a few things that we'll be announcing options for:
- Ordering a t-shirt at a low price with on-location printing
- Bring your own t-shirt and hand it in for screen-printing
- Signing up for workshops online
- Bring your own bottle and/or hot liquid container for zero-waste
The organising team
Sprints
Pack your laptop for the Sprints - a tradition at DjangoCon Europe! This year is no exception. Therefore, we've made sure to get a pretty large venue for the event!
Sign-up is both available when buying your ticket and afterwards in the ticketholder area. We hope that you can help our planning by signing up today – but not least, helping out Django or all the related open source projects that you can work on and learn to contribute to during this packed weekend.
It's in a very central location, just next to the lakes of Copenhagen:
It's not just that the venue is decently sized, but we can also stay there a bit late – and the outside areas and dining options are great as well!
See you there!
The organising team
The Journey So Far
Hi all! This is our first News section item; so we want to write an overall story of what has happened so far. If you are not that interested in conference organising, we also have a fast ⏩ summary.
The fast ⏩ summary: We will start announcing the schedule very soon, as we are reaching out to people who have submitted proposals right now. We had an amazing amount of proposals, and this alone means that the conference could have been more than 3 days. We stick to the usual 3-day talks + 2-day sprints format, but hey: There’s energy and potential for so much more! We will also add more details about the conference venue and the sprints venue soon.
Now the longer 🦕 story: We started looking for a venue in August. In September, we got things confirmed and rolling. The team is quite large (13 people), and the timeframe is quite narrow, because we will do the conference already in April. This meant that we had a bit of added coordination due to the team size, but we are winning in terms of diversity of experience and capacity. The chosen dates were a great timing, because many people can extend their stay in Copenhagen due to holidays (Easter). We also avoided an overlap with other conferences.
So please do consider making the best of your travel efforts to stay around the area. This is not a sponsored message, we just think you should make the most of the trip :) There will be a lot of you in Copenhagen, so worth planning to meet new friends and explore the city and its vicinity after the conference and sprints.
One of the reasons why a few of us from Copenhagen have been reluctant to do a bid for DjangoCon Europe has been a preconceived idea of our city being expensive and thus excluding. We don’t think that this is totally dealt with, but we have found a venue that wanted to work with us in a way where it didn’t bump up the ticket prices compared to previous years.
And it’s a fantastic venue! Normally it’s a production school for theatre and artistry, and they have great facilities for conferences. The venue is also interesting because it will accommodate smaller workshops in adjacent rooms. This is we provided an option for workshop events in the CfP. We will accept an amount that means we are also able to accommodate a few additional spontaneous workshops/meetups. We really appreciate the ones that are prepared, but we also want to make space for something that happens while people meet IRL.
Oh you might want to see a photo from the venue?
Quick word on food: We don’t know the exact menu, but we know that it will be locally sourced and organic. There will also be coffee, breakfast and an afternoon cake, no worries :) If you have any dietary needs or allergies, we will definitely sort this out, and if there has been a shortage in the response fields during the ticket purchase, please do reach out.
We have listed some discounted Hotels and Hostels that we hope can help people find a decently priced room, and moreover we encourage you to use an soon-to-be-published ticket-holder website to help coordinate both accommodation and ride sharing.
Leading up to the early-bird deadline, we sold a lot of tickets, and we are now close to being sold out. Being new conference organisers, we hadn’t anticipated the pace of activities and weren’t able to build an invoice system fast enough. We also wanted to seek out professional consultation to ensure whether or not VAT could be deducted for non-Danish buyers: It cannot. But we have the invoices generated now, and we will send out emails next week – not just about these invoices, but also invitations to join the new ticket-holder website. This website is a common-ground, so please don’t mind if you send in a PR with your idea ;)
We are adding a bit to the live-streaming online experience this year: Knowing that not everyone who sent in an application for Opportunity Grants such that they can be present at the conference, and knowing that there are so many other reasons not to be able to go, we will read questions from internet-participants. It’s an experiment, but we will do our best to make it work out. For ticket-holders, we are also opening up Slack channels for organising meetups etc.
We also would like this conference to add an environmental and climate-friendly effort: Please do try see if you can travel to Copenhagen by train, bus or ride-sharing. Once you are here, we also have an option to try out the city’s bicycle-friendly infrastructure by riding the bikes provided through a collaboration with a local social enterprise. Bicycles are not included in the ticket prices, but can be ordered on the ticket-holder website (to be announced) at affordable rates.
Merchandise? We didn’t mention this. But that’s a surprise ;)
Finally, a big shout-out to the previous conferences whom are the shoulders that we are standing out. Their efforts, instructions, documentation and guidance are priceless.
Right now, the organising team is quite submerged in putting together the program, responding to grants applications, catering to visa requests and reaching out to sponsors. So if it’s possible, we really prefer that practical needs are dealt with during late-March.
- General inquiries: [email protected]
- Sponsors: [email protected]
- Speakers and content: [email protected]
- Code of Conduct: [email protected]
- Hospitality, visa and travel: [email protected]
See you soon!