My DjangoCon Europe 2026

My DjangoCon Europe 2026

Articles

Title: My DjangoCon Europe 2026

URL Source: https://www.paulox.net/2026/04/27/my-djangocon-europe-2026/

Published Time: 2026-04-27T00:00:00+02:00

Markdown Content: This year the conference didn’t start when I arrived in Athens, it started days earlier.

I first stopped in Lecce, where I was invited to give a talk to the local Django community, then in Bari where I met friends from the Python community, and only after that I reached Athens for DjangoCon Europe and the sprints. By the time the conference began, the experience was already in motion.

As in previous years, I know that if I wait to write a complete and structured article, it might never happen, or it will arrive too late to feel real. So I went with a different approach again: collect and publish the posts I shared in real time on Mastodon.

This time I also included a few posts from other participants. They captured moments, talks, and perspectives that I missed, and they helped complete the picture of the conference beyond my own point of view. Thanks to everyone who shared their experience along the way.

These posts don’t capture everything. Many conversations, small moments, and people I met are missing. But they follow the actual flow of the days, with the same context, energy, and sometimes even the same tiredness of those moments.

I may come back later and add a more reflective piece. For now, this is the closest version I have of what it felt like to travel, meet people, and be part of DjangoCon Europe 2026.

14 April 2026

  • 11:25

    🇬🇷 🌺 DjangoCon Europe 2026 kicks off TOMORROW!

    Everything is ready and we can’t wait to welcome you. Five days of talks, workshops, sprints and the best Django community — all under the Athenian spring sun. See you tomorrow.🌞🏛️💻

    📍Athens Conservatoire (17–29 Rigillis Street, Athens 106 75, Greece)

    🕘 Registration opens at 9AM

    https://2026.djangocon.eu/

* 23:47

This trip to DjangoCon Europe in Athens wasn’t just a flight✈️

I tried to turn it into a small “Django speaking tour”, a bit like the one I did in 2022.

Yesterday I was in Lecce for a Django talk and a walk through the city with the local community. This morning I reached Bari, had a quick lunch by the Adriatic sea with the Python Bari organizer, and then flew to Athens.

Same sea, different shore, same community.

Looking forward to meetings you all.😊

* 23:57

Paolo Melchiorre Very cool!

15 April 2026

  • 01:09

    Paolo Melchiorre As you know, I am a fan of Python & Django-based travel.

    I APPRECIATE this trip!

  • 09:47

    T minus 15. Wish me luck🍀 djangoconeu2026``DjangoCon Europe

* 09:49

Arrived in Athens yesterday evening, made it to the conference this morning.🏛️

Just picked up my DjangoCon Europe badge✔️

It’s always the same small moment, but it kind of flips the switch: ok, I’m here now.🤯

* 10:10

First chats at DjangoCon Europe 2026.

You randomly say “hi” to someone and 5 minutes later you’re deep into Django, life, and conferences.

This is why I love this community.

With Raffaella Suardini, Alex Gómez, Glenn Mendoza, Juliana Nicacio, Fabian Braun, Jacob Walls, Jake Howard, Jacob Rief, Emma Delescolle

* 10:16

DjangoCon Europe 2026 just got officially started here in Athens🇬🇷

That moment when someone from the stage says it’s on, and suddenly everything begins.

Let’s go.

With Mariusz Felisiak and Antonis Kalipetis

* 10:23

First keynote of DjangoCon Europe 2026 just started🎤

Really happy to see Carlton Gibson on stage opening with a talk about keeping Python dynamic while adding small “static islands” where they actually help, curious to see how this lands🙂

* 10:24

Carlton Gibson kicks off DjangoCon Europe in Athens with a keynote about typing called “static islands 🏝, dynamic see🌊” python``Django

* 10:37

Kickoff for DjangoCon``Europe 2026 in Athens [email protected]

Carlton talks about the landscape of type hinting in Python and Django.

The second part of the keynote then introduced Django mantle a type safe wrapper for Django ORM.

Hadn’t heard of it before - def gonna try it out

![Image 16: Carlton Gibson standing in front of a rainbow shaded slide (mis coloration in photo) with the following quote:

"Python is a highly dynamic language and has extensive metaprogramming capabilities. Many popular libraries use these to create APIs that may be more flexible and/or natural for humans, but are hard to express using static types"

* 12:23

Markus Holtermann presenting DjangoCon Europe in Athens.

In his talk he showed some interesting statistics about how security issues have evolved in Django and how the process goes from a user reporting an issue to the Django security team triaging and handling them.

![Image 19: Markus Holtermann (@[email protected]) speaking at a podium during DjangoCon Europe. Markus, a man with glasses and a beard wearing a dark t-shirt, stands to the left of a large projection screen.

The slide on the screen displays the text: Potential SQL injection via_connector keyword argument in QuerySet and Q objects

The background features professional stage lighting in a large conference hall.](https://cdn.fosstodon.org/cache/media_attachments/files/116/407/994/427/732/465/small/70c28ed35a40f0b0.jpg) * 12:36

Paolo Melchiorre now on stage talking about AI assisted contributions and maintainer load DjangoCon Europe``djangoconeu2026

* 12:37

Sitting infront of the TV listening to Paolo Melchiorre TALK.

We are together although i am not physically there.

DjangoCon Europe``djangoconeu2026

* 13:01

Another talk about what AI does to Open Source projects (there will be more positive AI talks later in the conference). Here Paolo Melchiorre shows examples of how maintainers feel about AI and what rules they set in their projects.

DjangoCon

* 14:29

DjangoCon Europe 2026 DAY ONE, here we go! 🇬🇷🌺

Talks and workshops are already in full swing, people are lining up, amazing companies are at their booths and we’re just getting started!🔥

Carlton Gibson Haki Benita

* 15:01

This morning I presented my talk “AI-Assisted Contributions and Maintainer Load” at DjangoCon Europe 2026 in Athens🇬🇷

Thanks to everyone who joined, filled the room, and asked thoughtful questions, it really means a lot🤗

I’ll share slides and more soon 👇

https://www.paulox.net/

Photo of the talk by Mariusz Felisiak

With Antonis Kalipetis

* 15:11

Back after lunch at DjangoCon Europe 2026 and now sitting in a talk by Haki Benita 🍽️

He’s diving into Django signals, reliability, and how to make them work better in real-world scenarios… this is one of those topics you don’t think about until it breaks😄

* 16:35

After the DjangoCon Europe coffee break, back into the room for Jake Howard ☕️

Django supports multiple database connections, but leaves it up to you to manage how to use them and which queries to send where… let’s dig into this🙂

* 17:03

Last talk of the first day at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Tim Bell 🎤

As tables get extremely large, the abstraction starts to break down and performance issues show up… curious to see how partitioning helps in real-world cases🙂

* 17:33

Very advanced database stuff for very big tables - Tim Bell talked about database partitioning and especially applying partitioning to an already existing database. The screenshot shows one of the queries needed to perform the migration. DjangoCon

* 17:50

Thanks for the picture Benedikt Bauer I forgot to take it myself

BTW Tim Bell this is a very creative way to fit long code in a slide , I’ll copy that😂

  • 19:53

    🌺 🇬🇷 What a start!

    Day One of DjangoCon Europe 2026 was full of incredible talks, interactive workshops and cool conversations all around. Thank you everyone for bringing such amazing energy! 💌 🔥 Rest up and we’ll see you tomorrow for more Django.

* 20:28

Wrapping up the first day of DjangoCon Europe 2026 with a big dinner in Athens🇬🇷

After a full day of talks, now sitting at a long table with people from all over Europe, sharing stories and really good Greek food🙂

These moments are just as important as the talks and workshop.

With Jens-Erik Weber, me, Carlton Gibson, Daniele Procida, Florian Apolloner, Fabian Braun, Joe Burch, Valentinos Evripidou, Mariusz Felisiak, Markus Holtermann , Jacob Rief, Haki Benita

* 23:57

Day 1 of DjangoCon Europe 2026 in Athens is done🇬🇷

As always, the best part is the people. Old friends, folks I’ve shared so many moments with, volunteers, and lots of new faces

Also had a few people come up during the day to chat, ask about my talk, share feedback… those small moments really stay with you🙂

This is the human side of the Django community

With Anthony Ricaud, Jon Gould, Anže Pečar, Marco Silva, Andrew Williamson, Benjamin Balder Bach, Timothy Mccurrach

16 April 2026

  • 09:36

    Marlene Mhangami is kicking us off for day two with a practical guide to agentic coding DjangoCon``djangoconeu2026

* 10:59

Day 2 at DjangoCon Europe 2026, my first talk of the morning🇬🇷

Now listening to Andrew Northall 🎤

Started with caving… and now “caving” into old reports, digging valuable data out of decades of messy documents and turning it into something usable. Really nice overlap between the topic and the process🙂

https://2026.djangocon.eu/speakers/GJUXR3/

* 11:24

Second talk of the morning at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Laís Carvalho Laiscarvalho 🎤

Talking about observability in Django, going beyond print() and logs to actually understand what’s going on inside your app… this is one of those things that makes life much easier once you start using it🙂

* 12:41

Emma Delescolle telling us about the django-admin-deux admin rewrite proposal DjangoCon Europe``djangoconeu2026

* 13:17

🔥 💙 DAY TWO and still on fire!

From agentic coding to adding observability to a Django app, and even navigating the modern-day job hunt — today’s talks and workshops are as good as it gets. And there’s more.

Stay tuned. 🌺👀

https://2026.djangocon.eu/schedule/

* 15:17

Jochen Wersdörfer getting ready to tell us about shipping Django as a desktop app! DjangoCon Europe``djangoconeu2026

* 16:36

For anyone not in the DjangoCon Chat - you should absolutely check out the blog by Reinout van Rees - https://reinout.vanrees.org/weblog/index.html

He’s doing really comprehensive summaries of all the talks he’s visited and keeps documenting them for posterity.

And plugging his vacation photos😅

* 17:00

Cool Lightning talk at djangoconeu2026 by Benedikt Bauer about JWT😊

* 17:10

Cool Lightning Talk by Anthony Ricaud about GeneratedField at djangoconeu2026 😎

* 17:27

Took part in the “Django and AI: A Community Conversation” workshop at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Really appreciated the space that Laura Gates and Thibaud Colas created for an open discussion around AI in the Django ecosystem.

I joined the “Core maintenance of Django” group with Emma Delescolle, Marco Silva, Francisco De Maussion

I hope this is just the starting point for something bigger🙂

* 17:30

Django ORM Kung Fu - Postgtes can do a lot more in the ORM than you might think and being a Bass player in a Jazz band might help understand those techniques better. At least Mathias Wedeken said in his talk at DjangoCon

Tricks used: Composing annotations like functions, Func(template=),…

* 19:18

Just got off stage with Carlton Gibson at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

We shared the next edition of Django on the Med 🧳

→ Pescara, Italy 🇮🇹

→ 23–25 September 2026

https://www.djangomed.eu

Then I also introduced PyCon Italia 2026

→ Bologna, Italy 🇮🇹

→ 28–30 May 2026

https://2026.pycon.it/en

And on May 27 there will be a free community day with workshops, including a special “Django Off The Med” session🙂

* 21:09

Gelato break during DjangoCon Europe 2026… Thibaud Colas bring us in a place called Django Gelato in Athens🍦😄

Couldn’t not stop here.

Thinking of Mariatta Wijaya , this feels very on brand for her conference selfies😄

With Thibaud Colas, David Vaz, Glenn Mendoza, Jens-Erik Weber, Hwayoung Cha,

* 21:13

Paolo Melchiorre 🤩 Love this!

  • 21:53

    Paolo Melchiorre djangolato!

17 April 2026

  • 00:00

    Day 2 of DjangoCon Europe 2026 in Athens is done🇬🇷

    Talks, chats, drinks, gelato 🍦 and, more than anything, a lot of people I got to meet again today.

    These days are intense, but in a good way🙂

    With Andrew Miller, Thibaud Colas, Jack Linke, William Blackie, Tom Carrick , Francisco De Maussion, Juliana Nicacio, Laura Gates, Shai Berger

* 09:36

Day three begins with Daniele Procida’s talk on Body of Knowledge DjangoCon Europe``djangoconeu2026

* 09:42

Daniele Procida starting the last day of DjangoCon Europe with “Body of knowledge” 🏺🏛talk

* 09:52

Final and third day of DjangoCon Europe 2026 in Athens🇬🇷

Starting with the keynote by Daniele Procida 🎤

He opened with the story of Socrates, condemned to death here in Athens 25 centuries ago, just a short walk from the venue… quite a way to begin a talk about knowledge and documentation.

* 10:22

Russell Keith-Magee makes a surprise appearance on the big screen during Daniele Procida’s keynote at DjangoCon Europe in Athens

* 10:52

Second talk of the morning at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Vjeran Grozdanic from Sentry🎤

Talking about encrypting data in Django without complex migrations, with a drop-in field that can handle both old plain text and new encrypted data on the fly… very curious about this approach🙂

* 11:20

Third talk of the morning at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to the Django Felllow Jacob Walls🎤

A preview of what’s coming in Django 6.1, with new fetch modes to avoid the classic N+1 queries problem without having to maintain long lists of fields… this looks really promising🙂

* 12:18

First talk after the coffee break on the last day of DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Andrew Miller 🎤

Looking at Django’s APIs in a broader sense, especially settings.py and manage.py, and how things like runserver can be confusing when it comes to deployment… interesting angle on something we all use every day🙂

* 12:49

Last talk before lunch at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Charlie Denton and Samuel Searles-Bryant 🎤

A look back at how we handled transactions before atomic, and how something we now take for granted actually changed the way we write Django apps… nice mix of history and “wait, do we really understand this?”🙂

* 12:50

🇬🇷 🌺 DAY THREE has started!

Last day of talks and workshops. Soak it all in.💙

* 14:46

Group photo moment at DjangoCon Europe 2026📸

Took the chance to snap an unofficial selfie while we were all there… couldn’t wait for the official one😄

* 14:52

First talk after lunch on the last day of DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Loes Crama from Cosine🚀

Django being used to manage data for a space mission, tracking thousands of components across Europe… always fun to see where Django ends up🙂

* 15:19

Next talk at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Christophe Henry 🎤

Exploring the idea of using Django templates on the frontend, transpiling them to JS to keep a single source of truth while avoiding too many HTTP requests… interesting direction👀

* 16:28

Last talk of DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

Now listening to Mateusz Bełczowski🎤

Looking at supply chain attacks in Python projects, how dependencies can get compromised and what we can actually do about it… a strong topic to close the conference👀

* 17:23

Lightning talks just wrapped up at DjangoCon Europe 2026⚡️

Always a fun mix of ideas, demos, and unexpected moments right before the closing… a perfect way to end the conference🙂

With Anže Pečar, Alex Gómez, Hwayoung Cha

* 17:29

Closing session just wrapped up at DjangoCon Europe 2026 in Athens🇬🇷

Final thanks, hugs, goodbyes… and that feeling that it went by too fast.

See you somewhere down the road🙂

With Antonis Kalipetis, Paris Kasidiaris,…

* 23:55

Last evening of DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

A walk through the center of Athens and dinner with the speakers… really nice way to close these days.

Good company, a bit of wandering around the city, and some well-earned food after an intense conference🙂

With Jacob Walls, Shai Berger, Carlton Gibson, Florian Apolloner, Mariusz Felisiak, Daniele Procida, Andrew Northall, Christophe Henry, Charlie Denton, Samuel Searles-Bryant, Tim Bell, Markus Holtermann, Jake Howard, Thibaud Colas

18 April 2026

  • 16:36

    At DjangoConEU2026, we had a community conversation about Django and AI usage, hosted by Thibaud Colas and Laura Gates: We had a tiny sub-group of esteemed people (Jon Gould! William Blackie!), we talked about the “Who Gets Left Behind by AI”. The framing isn’t necessarily perfect (tempted to also argue “Who is free from AI”), but it’s DEFINITELY a necessary perspective.. and one of the most critical ones.

    With AI and current trends in mind, we noticed the following(thread)…

* 16:39

Thibaud Colas Jon Gould Open Source maintainers are paying the price of vetting AI/slop contributions. Lots of examples of this given earlier at the DjangoCon event itself in Paolo Melchiorre‘s talk.

There’s ALSO a cost for system administrators and open source hosts bearing the costs of intense AI scraping.

19 April 2026

  • 00:40

    Afternoon of the first sprint day at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

    We had a hands-on session to continue the Django + AI workshop from the conference, with a few members of the official AI working group and other sprinters.

    Really good discussion, helped clarify quite a few points.

    A report will follow🙂

    With Thibaud Colas, Laura Gates, Tom Carrick, Marco Silva, Emma Delescolle

* 00:47

After the sprint day at DjangoCon Europe 2026🇬🇷

We went for a long walk through Athens with the Parthenon in the background, then a great dinner with Greek food and one last drink before calling it a night🍷

Always special to spend this kind of time together, especially meeting new people along the way🙂

With Anthony Ricaud Anže Pečar

* 13:54

The plans for the second edition on Django on the Med 🏖️ are progressing nicely. Here’s Paolo Melchiorre hard at work at the DjangoCon Europe sprints🦄 Django``DjangoOnTheMed``djangoconeurope2026

* 17:09

Last sprint morning for me at DjangoCon Europe 2026 in Athens🇬🇷

Tried to wrap up a few things I had started, helped where I could, and spent time talking and saying goodbye to many people.

Also gave a hand bringing lunch for everyone, small things but part of the whole experience🙂

Big thanks to the organizers🙏

With Paris Kasidiaris, Anže Pečar, Jacob Rief