Conference Wrap-up

2022-11-01 09:23:42+00:00 by Andreas Scherbaum

PostgreSQL Conference 2022 is over - and it was a success!

3 days of talks, and one day of training. In total we had 604 registrations, and a long wait list because the conference unexpectedly sold out a month ahead of time. In the end, 599 people picked up their badge.

On Tuesday, the attendees had a choice between 5 different high-quality training sessions by our sponsors. From Wednesday to Friday attendees had hard choices to make, with an opening keynote by Peter Boncz, four sponsor keynotes, one Lightning Talk session, 51 regular talks, and 15 sponsor talks.

During the breaks, the venue served excellent food and drinks.

Although the Social Event admittedly had some shortcomings, the last people reportedly left past 2AM, so we still rate it as a success overall. Feedback was generally positive, though we were disappointed there was no seating and that the caterers underestimated the amount of food required, for which we unreservedly apologise.

Also new this year: a signage system using Raspberry Pi’s. During the breaks, the projectors were plugged into a Pi, which displayed a slideshow with announcements, upcoming talks, sponsor logos and other information. For the next year we plan to expand this system and show more information, and also pictures from the conference.

We unfortunately have to report that one participant had to be expelled from the conference due to repeated Code of Conduct violations. The Code of Conduct Committee also had to deal with one other report.

This year, for the first time, we offered daycare for children. We hired a professional company (Märchenkinder) and received positive feedback, both about the service provider as well as the idea.

Before and during the conference we received several questions on whether we would provide recordings or live streams of the sessions. As a conference run by volunteers we would need more people who can help with recordings in order to make this happen, and increase pricing to hire the required equipment and technicians (most venues require us to procure AV through their partners). We also need to inform all attendees in advance before registration that talks are recorded, and we need to ask speakers for their approval for the recording. Rest assured that we’re looking into this for upcoming conferences though!

A special moment was Simon Riggs receiving minutes of standing ovation after he declared his retirement from active contributing. The organizers of PGConf.EU want to express their deep gratitude for Simon’s achievements and contributions as well and note that we’re very proud that he chose our conference to announce this publicly.

Thank you to all our attendees, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers for making PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2022 a success. See you all next year!