In March, I attended KubeCon + CloudnativeCon Europe for the first time in person. Since my pre-event research didn’t answer some questions I had, I’m writing this post for future reference.

Pre-event⌗

In the past three years, I attended the conference virtually. However, the virtual experience is no longer available. As a result, I bought the all-access early-bird ticket and went in person.

All-access includes access to the CNCF-hosted Co-located events (ArgoCon, BackstageCon, and others). These mini-conferences around a theme happen on the day before the principal conference. The ticket price increases significantly as time goes by. It’s always a good idea to buy the early-bird one. If you must cancel for any reason, there is a refund policy - read it before buying.

Regarding travel and accommodation, I also booked in advance.

I went by plane, but later I found that groups of attendees, when possible, go by train together! That environmentally friendly initiative is called KubeTrain.

The hotel was near the venue, and that was a big plus. There might be some queues to enter the venue and some sessions (like keynotes) have high attendance, so the sooner you are there, the better.

Rejekts⌗

Cloud Native Rejekts is a conference where rejected talks from KubeCon + CloudNativeCon receive a second chance to be presented. I knew about it, but I forgot to reserve in advance. As a result, tickets were not available when I tried just some days before. ☹️ Next time I will check it earlier.

Co-located conferences⌗

If in doubt whether the Co-located events are worth it, don’t be. It is an excellent investment!

This year, there were a lot of Co-located events at the same time. My recommendation is to create a list of sessions that sound interesting to you. For example, I balanced my selection according to themes (security, observability, networking, etc.) and speakers. This tip also applies to the main conference sessions.

Regarding the list, it should not be too strict and organized! Do not discard sessions just because they happen in parallel. You will probably need to adapt your schedule on the spot because rooms are full or on different floors and you don’t have time to switch.

Don’t panic. All sessions will be later available for free on YouTube. Enjoy the conference and don’t stress too much about your list.

Main conference⌗

I must confess that the main conference was a mix of feelings.

On one side, this is the official conference. Besides the sessions, you have the keynotes and solutions showcase - a space where company booths exist and you can interact with people working for those companies. I highly recommend visiting the booths and learning more about the products and companies. It allows you to see trends in the market and learn new things as well! It is an enormous source of inspiration.

On the other side, there are much more people in the venue! I couldn’t attend some sessions, for example. They were full, even 5-10 minutes before they started with long queues outside the room! I believe this can improve in the future, for example, with attendees signaling their interest in sessions to estimate better the room capacity needed. But until then, be prepared to miss some talks.

Note-taking⌗

One thing that worked well for me was note-taking with pen and paper. I know, the most cloud-native technology. 😂

Jokes aside, one of my pre-event doubts was if going with the laptop to the venue would be a good idea, but I decided not to. You will walk a lot, so the less weight on your back during the day, the better. You are also more open to talking with other attendees without a laptop. Instead, I preferred to revisit my notes and put them in a digital format later in the hotel room.

Of course, this depends on the expectations of your availability during this week in your company, but if possible, try to disconnect a bit and immerse yourself in the conference.

Parties⌗

So… what do you do when the sessions end? There are two types of people. 😅

The ones who go to their accommodation and rest for the next day, and the ones who want to extend their conference experience and meet new people at parties.

Since I only attended the conference virtually, I was not aware of these parties, to be honest. Only a few days before, when doing some research to clarify some doubts (whether to go with a laptop or not, for example), I found a Reddit thread that pointed to the Conference Parties website. One or more companies organize these parties in different places. Some of them were far from the venue.

Even though I tried to go to some parties, I was mostly not successful. Despite being able to have tickets for some of them, they were overbooked and when I reached the place, there were long queues and closed doors because they couldn’t accept more people. The good thing about this was that I met new interesting people in the queues. If you want to attend these parties, make sure to go in advance, before their start time, to increase the chance of entering them.

Final remarks⌗

The overall experience was great, and I want to repeat it in the future. I learned new things, met new people, and came home inspired to play with new concepts and tools!