Last week, I had the pleasure of attending KubeCon 2024 EU in Paris. I must begin by thanking SIGHUP for giving me the opportunity to participate in my second consecutive KubeCon, THANK YOU!

I decided to write this post to encourage those who have never attended a large-scale event to give it a try!

In this case, size matters!

If you’re involved in the cloud native world as a client, developer, consultant, or major vendor you can’t miss it!
Colleagues, clients, partners, competitors, maintainers of small projects, volunteer committees, and big corporations—they’re all there!

It’s a unique opportunity to meet people, talk, engage, and build relationships.

Often, just listening to other attendees discuss their challenges and needs can open your eyes to new scenarios you hadn’t considered.
If you’re in consulting or a client, you’ll likely meet vendors you work with throughout the year in the showcase area.
It’s a great chance to connect with technicians, sales representatives, or executives who will remember you or your company long after the event.

And of course, the inevitable swag like t-shirts, socks or stickers, can be a pleasant bonus!

Education

Of course, a conference mainly means sessions!

You have the chance to hear some of the most authoritative voices discuss the topics you work with, whether business or technical sessions.
Don’t underestimate the opportunity to ask questions during the Q&A or to chat with the speaker afterwards.

Community

KubeCon means community. Let’s not forget that CNCF projects are built on the open-source community, which you can collaborate with on many levels.
What better opportunity to meet—and put a face to—the people you chat with all year on Slack?

Immersing yourself in the community is a unique opportunity, especially at the end of the first quarter.
It allows you to pause your projects (as much as possible 😅), recharge your batteries, and come back energized and motivated!

Resources

Whether you attended or not, you certainly couldn’t follow all the sessions you were interested in—or maybe you discovered some on social media!
The CNCF records all sessions and provides videos and presentations, almost in real time. Wow!

You can find everything in the conference agenda. The videos are available on the CNCF’s YouTube channel, and there’s a photo album with over 5,000 photos to browse! Are you already looking forward to planning your next conference?

You can find CNCF-sponsored conferences on this page.

I’ll be at KCD Italy in June in Bologna, will you?