DjangoCon US 2024

We have just returned from our second visit to DjangoCon US held again in Durham, North Carolina on the East Coast of the United States.

Here is my review of our trip, attending as a Gold Sponsor, Django Lover, Recruiter and Golfer...

FRIDAY 20th SEPTEMBER

After months of planning our trip and the building of excitement we set early morning alarms on the Friday before the conference and set off to London Heathrow for our 7-8 hour direct flight into Raleigh Durham International. I passed the time on the flight watching a new TV series that had been on my list for a while and binged the whole first series.

The flight was half full (or empty, depending on your outlook) so there was plenty of room to move around. I changed seat to have a centre row of 4 seats to myself and stretched out. Liam joined me on the other end of the row with Josh a couple of rows back.

As we landed in Raleigh, I experienced a travelling first. The plane had to wait on the tarmac and couldn’t approach the terminal as the International Customs didn’t open until 1pm. We had landed half an hour early…

Once quickly through customs and with a US Border Control stamp in my passport we ordered our Uber and set off to our home for the week, a cute little AirBnb 10 minutes walk from the conference venue. We showered, unpacked and in our efforts to beat the jetlag went out for the evening.

First stop was the newly opened TopGolf Durham which was almost next door to the airport we had been at a few hours earlier. TopGolf for those who have never been is essentially a very fancy driving range combined with a bar/restaurant. We booked a 2 hour bay and played several of their games, nearest the pin, long drive, accuracy games, Angry Birds and Virtual Golf.

We had our first portion of buffalo wings of the trip (a solid 6/10 effort) several pitchers of Modelo and overall a lot of fun. After our golf, we went inside and played on the shuffleboard table taking on some American guys in a Ryder Cup style US vs Europe competition. Josh decided that the losers had to drink shots of tequila and unfortunately that was team Europe.

After this we took an Uber back into town and found our favourite dive bar from last year. 106 Main in the middle of Durham. We were recognised by the bar staff from our previous trip and quickly settled in with more rounds of drinks. As midnight approached/passed we walked back to our house to go to bed. 24 hours after leaving home.

SATURDAY 21st SEPTEMBER

On Saturday we had no plans so quietly got on with our morning, Liam ordered breakfast and we found a stream online to watch Reading FC get well beaten by Bolton (5-2) in the Football/Soccer. Josh went out to the pub to watch Liverpool’s match where I joined him a few hours later.

There was a craft festival happening in the middle of Durham so the town was particularly busy. Josh had found a good spot at an Irish bar and was talking with as many locals as he could. I showed him my trick with the leaning can of beer. We stayed here most of the afternoon until Liam called to say he wanted to get more wings and would meet us at a new place.

This was a bar called Pickleback 2 and recommended to us the night before. The buffalo wings came smoked or fried, we ordered both kinds and were not disappointed (wings rating 8/10). After the wings, Josh went back to the house and Liam and I walked round the corner to the Arcade bar where we played some pinball, air hockey and other games.

We also watched a softball game going on in the baseball field next door. We eventually walked back into town to go to 106 Main before finishing the night around midnight again. As we got home, Josh woke up. He and Liam then went back out into town and started Josh’s Birthday celebrations early as Sunday was Josh’s Birthday on UK time.

SUNDAY 22nd SEPTEMBER

My Sunday morning started with 18 holes of golf with Will Vincent, we played a nice course called Hillandale Golf which was my first experience of playing golf in the US. We were paired with a couple of Biomedicine Professors from Chapel Hill University and enjoyed a nice round in the sun. Overnight rain had flooded areas of the golf course and the humidity was insane. It was a nice way to start the day. Will scored a very impressive 4 under par!

After finishing golf, I met Liam at the house and we took our conference case to the venue to set up our stand. We took our Covid Tests and registered for the conference too. We put our stand up, laid out the swag and once this was done, he met up with Josh in the Tobacco Road sports bar where he’d been celebrating his Birthday again.

I stayed at the conference venue and with help from Thibaud Colas filled the conference bags with our leaflets and Foxley Stickers. This took over an hour! Thanks Thibaud!

Once the bags were stuffed, I joined the guys at the sports bar. This time it was overlooking the Durham Bulls Minor League Baseball stadium. Such an impressive facility, I was a little disappointed that there was no game happening but we were there outside of the season.

Will Vincent and Andrew Mshar were there too and we had dinner before walking down to the pre-conference social event. Django.Social Raleigh/Durham is run by Jason Judkins a local to Durham and Freelance Django Developer. With sponsorship from RevSys the event was a huge success with so many people coming along the night before the conference started.

Holding these casual events on the eve of a conference helps people to settle in, catch up, socialise and make new friends before the main event. We had a lot of fun that night and afterwards walked back into town and introduced a few others to 106 Main before calling it a night around 1am.

MONDAY 23rd SEPTEMBER

DjangoCon US 2024 started with breakfast in the venue after a 7:30 arrival to make sure we were set up and ready for people walking past our stand. The breakfasts were amazing with a spread of all sorts although I went for the same bacon and eggs each morning.

Peter Grandstaff and Kojo Idrissa gave the orientation and welcome followed by Sheena O’Connell giving the first keynote. A brilliant talk about educating developers, most people we spoke to throughout the conference said that this was one of their favourites.

The rest of the morning was spent at our booth speaking to people, discussing our client's jobs and understanding what people were going to be looking for in their next job searches.

Lunch started after the Lightning talks, I waited a little while before heading into the hall (see my top tips video) and sat with an interesting group of people. We shared our experiences of the conference so far and I answered some questions about the job market for Python/Django Developers at the moment in the US.

After lunch we were busy on the stand again, giving away some Foxley Talent t-shirts, stickers and the wireless chargers. I made it back into the Junior Ballroom to hear Sage Abdullah’s talk about how Django changed his life. I would highly recommend you find this on youtube when the videos are released.

The traditional DjangoCon photo was taken at the end of the day by the steps outside the Durham Convention Centre. Who can you spot in the picture?

After the group photo was taken, I went for dinner with the Wagtail team. After all, this site is built on Wagtail… we went for curry at a place called Viceroy. Vince Salvino, Thibaud and I all went for “fire in the hole” spicy for our dishes despite a warning from the owner. I can confirm the curry was very spicy, but that’s how I like it!

While I was having dinner, Josh and Liam rode past us on hired scooters which looked so much fun, they went on a ride all around the city and up to Duke University where they saw the Wallace Wade Stadium that we visited last year for a game.

I took Vince to 106 Main for a drink after dinner and I had an early night. Liam and Josh came back to the house a bit later.

TUESDAY 24th SEPTEMBER

Day 2 of DjangoCon US was a slightly more leisurely start with a scooter ride into town (this was now our preferred mode of transport) with the conference starting a bit later.

Our friend Velda Kiara gave the morning welcome message followed by Mario’s keynote. I attended Jacob Kaplan-Moss’ talk on what the DSF could do with a $1,000,000 per year budget and also on how companies can donate. This resonates with me as we give 5% of our annual profits to the DSF and I wrote about why in this article last year.

In the afternoon, Tim Schilling gave a brilliant talk about what best to do with your salary to provision for the future. I would love to turn this into a blog post with Tim in the future but until then, keep an eye out for the talk when it is shared online! Kati Mitchell also came by the stand in her Django.Social t-shirt for our now annual photo.

Before the day finished, Josh went for a bike ride with Drew Winstel on his spare bike. During the ride a pedal fell off and they couldn’t get it back on. Josh somehow rode back with just one pedal. What a nightmare!!

Tuesday evening started by visiting the Durham Beer Garden to throw some darts. Josh won all three games he played, I lost all three of mine! We had arranged another visit to the Boxcar Bar & Arcade, this time with a large number of attendees joining us for the early part of the evening before the Six Feet Up team ran a Mario Kart grand prix. This place is amazing, I put together a highlights video which is on our YouTube and Instagram accounts.

We played lots of the games available, drank local beers, ate stonebaked pizza and had such a great time. The highlight for me was the game Josh organised on the American Football throwing game. Each player had a minute to score as many points as possible with the loser having to down a pint of lager. I fluked the top score and our friend Kevin had to drink the pint.

After leaving the arcade in the rain we took scooters back to the Durham Beer Garden, which had closed early so guess what… we went back up to 106 Main and stayed there until closing time.

WEDNESDAY 25th SEPTEMBER

For the final day of DjangoCon US 2024 we arrived in time for breakfast, sitting with new people again and chatting through Josh and my proposed lightning talks for that afternoon’s session. Josh gave his CV/Resume advice talk again (see audience view video) and I was planning to speak about how to futureproof your career by spending 5 minutes a day on LinkedIn.

This talk needed writing from scratch which I spent the majority of the morning doing. Although not my most polished presentation, I got the message across and had lots of conversations afterwards. I have also seen a number of people posting for the first time, including pictures from their time at DjangoCon. See, it is that easy…

Josh’s talk went really well, and he even did some in-person CV/Resume reviews afterwards. Writing my talk during the morning session meant that I missed Frank Wiles speaking about the history of Django. I will watch this back when the talks are released along with some of the others. Sorry Frank!

As the main part of the conference wrapped up, we packed away our stand and said our goodbyes. I think this was the last pic taken by one of us at the venue!

Leaving DjangoCon after such a fun week is always hard so we arranged to meet people in the Durham Beer Garden for darts and beers. Liam and I also had a box of buffalo wings from their food van outside (9/10 the best I had all week) which I would highly recommend. The darts boards were very popular and Drew took this great action shot wile I was throwing!

Later on we took scooters up to 106 Main to say our goodbyes to the regulars and the staff who we have got to know over our two visits to Durham.

We were joined there by a large group of Django People. As 106 closed we moved around to another bar. We stayed here for a quick drink with the last standing people, said our final goodbyes and a scooter ride home to bed.

THURSDAY 26th SEPTEMBER

My alarm went off at 6am as I was playing golf with Will Vincent again this time at the amazing Duke Golf Club located at Duke University. I hired a set of clubs that were basically brand new and were probably better than my own set at home. The course was absolutely stunning and a real treat. It reminded me of some of the championship courses you see on the tv and definitely one of the best places I have played golf in my life! Playing golf with Will is a real treat too, we plan to book-end all future DjangoCon events by playing rounds of golf.

When we finished the game, I met Liam and Josh at the nearest Dick's Sporting Goods store to buy gifts for our families along with stocking up with American candy to take back too. While waiting for our Uber we stopped for a slice of pizza at “I Love NY Pizza”. I had the buffalo chicken (4/10 only the sauce was good) of course.

Afterwards we quickly packed and cleaned our AirBnb before ordering an Uber back to the airport. Once through security we bought a few final gifts from the Duty Free stores and waited for our flight home. We were lucky again with a quiet flight and plenty of room so we all had empty seats beside us. This time I wanted to try and sleep through it if possible so I put on a rubbish film and was dozing off before the food came! After the food I managed to get a couple more hours sleep and woke up with little over an hour of the flight left.

We landed back in London at 6:25 and we were out of the airport with all our bags (see missing bag stories from DjangoCon Europe trip) in record time. With my daughter at school all day I caught up with some sleep and did my washing before putting together these highlights videos from our time at the conference which are on our Instagram and YouTube accounts.

We can’t wait to attend again next year and eagerly wait for news on the host city. We have loved being in Durham and would be just as happy to go there again as visit somewhere new.

Thank you to everyone who we met during the trip. You were amazing! But a special thanks goes to the organising committee who put on such fantastic conferences year after year! You Are Freaking Awesome!

Thanks for reading! - Jon