DjangoCon US 2025 Review

DjangoCon US is my favourite event in the Django calendar. A celebration of all things Django held in the United States each year. This year the conference was located in Chicago, the windy city.

This was my seventh visit to a DjangoCon and my 3rd time in the US. Although, this was my first time attending on my own which was a very different experience but one that still involved Django, talks, sports, networking, food, drink and not a lot of sleep.

Here’s my review of the week.

Saturday 6th September

I’ve always quite liked travelling alone. I went to Australia and South Africa by myself aged 20 and loved the independence. 20+ years later I still enjoy it.

My wife and daughter dropped me off at Heathrow Airport with my bags and waved me off. I was supposed to pay the drop-off parking fee but totally forgot (cue a £40 fine waiting for me on return!) as I was so excited and distracted.

I checked in, paid another excess baggage fine, dropped my bags off and made my way through the departure lounge. The flight left at 4pm UK time, arriving in Chicago around 7pm local time. I watched a couple of movies on the flight and 4 episodes of a series from my watchlist.

When I landed, the airport was very quiet and I had no holdup at the border despite what I had been told to expect. My bags came through quickly too and I was checked into the hotel and having a beer by 8:30pm

I stayed up as late as I could to try and beat the jetlag but had an early start to get my pre-conference round of golf in.

Sunday 7th September

Despite my alarm being set for 5:30am I was awake long before that. My plan for the morning was to head out to Lemont for a round of golf.

We played at a course called Ruffled Feathers which is the only Pete Dye designed course in Chicagoland. To non-golfers, Pete Dye is the creator of complex, well thought out golf courses that reward attention to detail in your golf, much like the way a Django developer builds their own project. This picture was of the 11th hole, a nod to his famous 17th hole at Sawgrass.

After golf, I shot straight back to the hotel, showered, changed and rushed off to meet people at Wrigley Field for my first experience of live baseball. The Chicago Cubs were playing the Washington Nationals. The game was a good contest with the Nationals winning in the 9th innings. As a cricket fan I was engaged but a little underwhelmed by the game. I would definitely go again but probably wouldn’t bother watching a game on TV.

We stopped for some drinks after the game to let the crowd disperse. Next on the agenda was to go down to the river for a pre-conference Django.Social event which I had put messages about onto slack. I planned to meet Paulo Melchiorre and Jacob Reif at the hotel bar before walking down. We found the bar and got a good spot.

People turned up through the evening and we shared our excitement for the week ahead. It was nice to catch up with some faces from last year as well as some new people.

I walked back to the hotel with a different group, we shared some drinks at the bar and I went to bed around 11pm again.

Monday 8th September - Day One

This was the first day of the conference and an early start for me as I needed to set up my stand. Being on my own this time, I knew the job would take a while but with the jetlag I was up and ready to go by 7am.

I was registered and set up by 8am with a new screen to showcase all of Foxley Talent’s US based jobs (you can check the latest jobs here) along with some reports that I have written within this blog. This screen was on rotation all day and prompted several good conversations over the week.

I grabbed some breakfast and before we knew it, the conference kicked off with Kojo’s opening words and the Keynote from Carson Gross. This was a great start and people loved the talk.

The first day is a great chance to say "Hi" to people and catch up. The stand was busy all throughout the rest of the day chatting to people between talks and during the breaks. I did manage to see some of the lightning talks though.

Later in the afternoon a group of us made the decision to attend the Chicago Bears NFL match against the Minnesota Vikings that evening. I really enjoy American Football, regularly attending games in London and a college game at Duke when I was in Durham for DjangoCon a couple of years ago.

The game was really exciting. The Bears went ahead in the first half and the crowd were so loud. In the 2nd half the Vikings had a total change of fortunes and ended up winning 27-24 although it wasn’t as close as the scoreline looks.

After the game we took a ride back to the city on one of the disco tuktuks alongside the water. This was the only sighting I had of the lake I had all week. Once back at the hotel I went straight to bed.

Tuesday 9th September - Day Two

The second day of the conference began with another early morning wake up. I did some work in my room and had a coffee while admiring the view of the river. The benefit of the jetlag was that I had time before the conference to stay on top of things happening in Europe with the business.

Around 8 am I went down to the conference rooms to get some breakfast. I joined a table and had a great chat about the first day’s events and the talk schedule for the day.

After lunch the whole group gathered at the lobby of the hotel for the group photo. This was taken by Bartek Pawlik who comes to the conference each year and takes the official pictures. I’m hoping to get a new headshot for my linkedin from this year’s set…

During the afternoon, I snuck out of the venue to get a coffee and make a call home. I managed to get in to see some of Ryan Cheley’s talk at the end of the day. I think it was the lack of sleep catching up with me but I didn’t really follow it too well. Sorry Ryan! I tidied up the stand and went for a shower before another busy evening.

That night I had made plans for dinner with a client who I’ve known for several years. We went for dinner at an Italian place with their team. I had a delicious lasagne and some wine. One of the foods I was told to try in Chicago was the deep dish pizza but didn’t have the chance on this trip. I’ll make sure I get some next year!

After dinner we got an Uber across the city to an event put on by one of the other sponsors, Six Feet Up. They hired a space in an arcade bar with lots of games and a karaoke room and put some money on the bar. It was a lot of fun here and there was a darts game which a group of us played most of the night. Afterwards we walked back to the hotel and shared some more drinks and a few laughs in the bar.

This was a late finish - making it to bed around 2am. But a great last night of my trip.

Wednesday 10th September - Day Three

I woke up a bit later (around 7am) and packed my bags and room before heading down to the conference. Coffee, bacon and eggs were the order of the day! I popped outside for some sunshine and another coffee mid morning. The buildings in Chicago are stunning, both by day and by night!

The booth took up most of my time for the day although I managed to see the DSF Community update with Thibaud Colas, who was joined by Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Frank Wiles and Paolo Melchiorre. This was an insightful session with a Q&A discussing the work of the foundation and the search for an Executive Director and the appointment of another Django Fellow.

I caught some of the lightning talks again but didn’t have time to deliver one this year. I had a couple of topics I wanted to talk about so I’ll record these and share them on my YouTube.

Lunch was a super tasty, slow cooked spicy chicken with rice and beans. Probably the best meal at the event this year. During lunch, I followed up a conversation from the night before with a company that is struggling with their hiring. Hoping this leads to a new job or two to look at this year.

After lunch Kayti Mitchell swung by the stand for our annual photo. Check out my reviews of DjangoCon US 2024 to see last year's picture and read about the conference.

During the afternoon session there was an interesting panel discussion with some key members around the Django community hosted by Velda Kiara with guests including Jeff Triplett, Dawn Wages, Natalia Bidart, Peter Grandstaff, Tim Schilling and Rachael Calhoun.

They spoke about all things Django and the community. I’d definitely recommend watching this one back.

My flight home was on the Wednesday evening so towards the end of the day I packed up the stand and caught some of the closing remarks before sharing a lift to the airport with Chris Giaume. This worked out really well, we breezed through security again and Chris even signed me into one of the lounges as his guest. This was a nice end to the trip, I had some sushi and a glass of wine (or two) before boarding my overnight flight home.

Thursday 11th September - Home

I managed a few hours of sleep on the plane and woke up with around an hour of the flight to go. The flight actually arrived back at London Heathrow almost an hour early, my bags were quick to come off the carousel and I was through the border and security within minutes.

My wife had come to meet me at the airport. But paid for short stay parking this time… As a surprise for my birthday she brought a balloon to the gate for me. The birthday celebrations waited until the weekend. As far as the rest of Thursday went, I caught up with some emails and slept most of the day.

The whole trip was a whirlwind, granted I squeezed in a lot and left on the final day as opposed to staying on for the sprints but this was a last minute trip this year. The great thing about DjangoCon in the US is that they visit the same city two years in a row. This means next year I’ll be able to see and do more around Chicago, try some of the Pizza and hopefully check out the lake and see more of the architecture around the river.

The date for DjangoCon US 2026 has been confirmed already and it’s going to be in Chicago again… I’d suggest you keep 14-18th September clear. Hope to see you there!