Could you host DjangoCon Europe 2026? Call for organizers

Posted by Thibaud Colas & DjangoCon Europe Support working group on August 28, 2024

We are looking for the next group of organizers to own and lead the 2026 DjangoCon Europe conference. Could your town - or your football stadium, circus tent, private island or city hall - host this wonderful community event?

DjangoCon Europe is a major pillar of the Django community, as people from across the world meet and share. This includes many qualities that make it a unique event - unconventional and conventional venues, creative happenings, a feast of talks and a dedication to inclusion and diversity.

Hosting a DjangoCon is an ambitious undertaking. It's hard work, but each year it has been successfully run by a team of community volunteers, not all of whom have had previous experience - more important is enthusiasm, organizational skills, the ability to plan and manage budgets, time and people - and plenty of time to invest in the project.

For 2026, we want to kickstart the organization much earlier than in previous years to allow more flexibility for the organizing team, and open up more opportunities for support from our DjangoCon Europe support working group.

Step 1: Submit your expression of interest

If you’re considering organizing DjangoCon Europe (🙌 great!), fill in our DjangoCon Europe 2026 expression of interest form with your contact details. No need to fill in all the information at this stage if you don’t have it all already, we’ll reach out and help you figure it out.

Express your interest in organizing

Step 2: We’re here to help!

We've set up a DjangoCon Europe support working group of previous organizers that you can reach out to with questions about organizing and running a DjangoCon Europe.

The group will be in touch with everyone submitting the expression of interest form, or you can reach out to them directly: european-organizers-support@djangoproject.com

We'd love to hear from you as soon as possible, so your proposal can be finalized and sent to the DSF board by October 6th 2024. The selected hosts will be publicly announced at DjangoCon Europe 2025 by the current organizers.

Step 3: Submitting the proposal

The more detailed and complete your final proposal is, the better. Basic details include:

We also like to see:

Have a look at our proposed (draft, feedback welcome) DjangoCon Europe 2026 Licensing Agreement for the fine print on contractual requirements and involvement of the Django Software Foundation.

Submit your completed proposal by October 6th 2024 via our DjangoCon Europe 2026 expression of interest form, this time filling in as many fields as possible. We look forward to reviewing great proposals that continue the excellence the whole community associates with DjangoCon Europe.

Q&A

Can I organize a conference alone?

We strongly recommend that a team of people submit an application.

I/we don’t have a legal entity yet, is that a problem?

Depending on your jurisdiction, this is usually not a problem. But please share your plans about the entity you will use or form in your application.

Do I/we need experience with organizing conferences?

The support group is here to help you succeed. From experience, we know that many core groups of 2-3 people have been able to run a DjangoCon with guidance from previous organizers and help from volunteers.

What is required in order to announce an event?

Ultimately, a contract with the venue confirming the dates is crucial, since announcing a conference makes people book calendars, holidays, buy transportation and accommodation etc. This, however, would only be relevant after the DSF board has concluded the application process. Naturally, the application itself cannot contain any guarantees, but it’s good to check concrete dates with your venues to ensure they are actually open and currently available, before suggesting these dates in the application.

Do we have to do everything ourselves?

No. You will definitely be offered lots of help by the community. Typically, conference organizers will divide responsibilities into different teams, making it possible for more volunteers to join. Local organizers are free to choose which areas they want to invite the community to help out with, and a call will go out through a blog post announcement on djangoproject.com and social media.

What kind of support can we expect from the Django Software Foundation?

The DSF regularly provides grant funding to DjangoCon organizers, to the extent of $6,000 in recent editions. We also offer support via specific working groups:

In addition, a lot of Individual Members of the DSF regularly volunteer at community events. If your team aren’t Individual Members, we can reach out to them on your behalf to find volunteers.

What dates are possible in 2026?

For 2026, DjangoCon Europe should happen between January 5th and April 27th, or June 4th and June 28th. This is to avoid the following community events’ provisional dates:

We also want to avoid the following holidays:

What cities or countries are possible?

Any city in Europe. This can be a city or country where DjangoCon Europe has happened in the past (Vigo, Edinburgh, Porto, Copenhagen, Heidelberg, Florence, Budapest, Cardiff, Toulon, Warsaw, Zurich, Amsterdam, Berlin), or a new locale.

References

Past calls

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