An Update on DjangoCon US 2020

Posted by DjangoCon US 2020 organizers, Lacey Williams Henschel, and Jeff Triplett. on June 17, 2020

This is a tough announcement to make. After 12 consecutive years of DjangoCons in the United States, we’ve decided to cancel DjangoCon US 2020. We look forward to seeing you in San Diego for DjangoCon US 2021 on October 17-22, 2021.

We have to do what’s right for our community, and the best knowledge available to us right now is that COVID-19 will still be part of our lives this fall. We also have international travel bans that impact our speakers, attendees, and sponsors, along with larger tech companies that have issued company-wide travel restrictions. While we aren’t sure if international travel will be permitted by this fall, we have already heard from larger tech companies that are restricting non-essential travel through mid-2021. These factors make hosting an in-person conference this year impossible for us.

We considered taking DjangoCon US virtual this year, and until a few weeks ago, we thought that was an attainable goal. We’d hoped that by now, we wouldn’t still be living under stay-at-home orders, have restricted or no child care options, and be struggling just to meet our basic needs. After seeing our communities rise up and peaceful protests start to spread throughout the world, planning a conference and asking people to divert their attention seemed short-sighted compared to needs that are more important.

It doesn’t feel right to ask our community to spend their time organizing a conference, submitting a talk, or planning travel from across the globe when there are far more important concerns.

We echo the Django Software Foundation: “To eradicate racism, xenophobia, and all other forms of inequality, we must take action. It is our responsibility and our honour to use our platform to amplify the voices of the oppressed and marginalised.” We will be researching changes that DjangoCon US can make in 2021 and beyond to better serve our community.

We also feel that the Django community is very well served by other conferences that have made plans to go forward with a virtual program in the second half of 2020. If you’re organizing a virtual Django or Python event and there is something we can do to help, please reach out to us; our contact email hello@djangocon.us is still being monitored.

We hope you can attend one of the events listed below and be “physically distant, socially together” (in the words of our PyConline friends in Australia). And with any luck, we’ll see you in person next year!

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