What are you most looking forward to about PyCon UK 2025?
30 Mar 2025One of our organisers, Gail Ollis, looks back on past conferences to explain what she is looking forward to at PyCon UK 2025. What are YOU looking forward to?
I’ve been to PyCon UK in Birmingham, Coventry and Cardiff, so with PyCon UK in Manchester for the first time I’m looking forward to exploring a new city. Wherever it’s held, it’s a wonderfully welcoming and inclusive place for the diverse Python community. It has grown since we organised the very first one in the old Birmingham Conservatoire, but at around one tenth the size of PyCon US it’s still of a scale where it’s easy to meet and chat with like-minded people in a relaxed environment. I’m looking forward to seeing the new faces — there are always plenty of people discovering the joys of PyCon UK for the first time and that makes me very happy. New faces from past conferences are now friends I am looking forward to catching up with. I see them at most once a year, but it’s part of the magic of PyCon UK that it’s always easy to pick up where we left off.
I no longer write software for work so the balance of choices I make from the talks and workshops has shifted over the years, from the more detailed and technical ones to the broader and more reflective. PyCon UK has offered such a diversity of sessions that I’ve found plenty to interest me. I’ve always enjoyed hearing about fascinating things people have done using Python. My favourites have included digitising the plant catalogue at Kew Gardens, analysing data from a ventilator to better manage hospital care of premature babies, and setting up a wildlife camera to identify mysterious night-time garden visitors. I’m hoping for yet another unexpected application to capture my imagination this time.
While I no longer have such a keen interest in deeper tech talks, I enjoy the buzz they create. Coming together with the Python community for a few days has a real impact on people’s work. It’s not just about the scheduled sessions, but the conversations they spark. This is a BIG part of what I’m looking forward to: the spontaneous conversations in “the hallway track”.
I’m also looking forward to the lightning talks, a daily selection box of delightful and unpredictable surprises! I confess I do sometimes lose attention a bit at the end of a busy conference day, and catch up from the live transcript on screen, marvelling at the skills of the Speech To Text Reporters.
I’ve saved the best until last: the delightful “show and tell” on Saturday afternoon by the young coders who built fun projects throughout the day. The issues they report are all too familiar, but having overcome them they proudly present working software—often complete with chenille stems and googly eyes. Those kids know the true meaning of decorators!
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