Codegarden 2026

This year Codegarden moved to Copenhagen, the first time it's been there in a long while. I've only ever known it in Odense, so this was a bit of a novelty for me.

Here's a recap of my week and a few thoughts on how this year's event went.

Location

Don't get me wrong, Odense was lovely. It's home to Umbraco HQ and I'll always have a soft spot for it. But it made for a long day of travelling, and I'm only a short hop from Edinburgh. I can't imagine what it was like for anyone coming from further afield.

The old routine was a 2 hour flight, then another 2 hours on a train from Copenhagen airport to Odense. Depending on your flight time, you could be rolling in late in the evening, completely wiped out.

This year? Still the 2 hour flight, then a 15 minute train into Copenhagen, and a nice easy 15 minute walk from the station to my hotel. Perfect.

I stayed at Cabinn Copenhagen, as I always did in Odense too. I know the basic rooms aren't for everyone, but they're cheap, the breakfast is good, and for the amount of time I actually spend in my room during Codegarden, it's more than enough.

I arrived on the Sunday about 5pm and met up with some fellow Umbracians in the evening for some food and drinks. I had an early night though as it was going to be a busy week ahead.

The MVP Summit

Monday morning, I was up early for a 5k run. Umbraco HQ had asked me to lead the CGRunners on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings, and since I'd never run in Copenhagen I wanted to recce the route first. It was easy to navigate and I was confident I could lead the group over the next 3 days. Back at the hotel I showered, had breakfast, packed my bag (pictured above) and headed to the CPH Conference Centre, home to the MVP Summit for Monday and Tuesday. I got lots of lovely comments about my Umbraco themed bag.

I really enjoy the MVP summit. It's a chance to speak with fellow MVPs, new and renewed, before Codegarden gets underway. We get access to some of the Umbraco HQ team too which is a real privilege. We had fantastic speakers and also had really great open circle chats about all things Umbraco and Community. There are a load of blogs already out about the summit so all I will add is, I really enjoyed it, and the announcement about Umbraco.Automate got me really excited.

The 2 days flew by and I didn't get a chance to speak to half the people I wanted to. Sorry!

With the afternoon of Day 2 free, fellow MVP Grey Muir and I walked to Beta Boulders for some bouldering. We did the same in Odense last year, and it's become a lovely way to unwind after a jam packed few days.

Before I knew it, it was time for the Umbraco party.

The Party

Not much to say here. The usual get together of loads of people, all catching up. Lots of hugs, smiles and laughter, the friendly party I've come to expect when Umbracians get together.

One thing I will mention though is the Beach Theme. Nik, Matt and Paul, who I'm lucky enough to call friends, all decided to pull on the same unicorn shirts for the evening. Nik's idea. It went down a storm.

CGRunners

The runs on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday all went really well. We even finished Thursday with more runners than we started with on Tuesday, which is a rarity, usually numbers drop off as the week goes on. Tuesday was a 7am start and the others 6:30am, all from outside the main venue. With a 10 minute jog to get there, my alarm was set for 6am all week. Thankfully the weather was on our side for the runs and everyone seemed to enjoy it. We had runners from all over the world join in, Nepal, Australia, UK, Denmark, it was fantastic to see.

Codegarden 2026

The venue was epic, the talks were brilliant and the whole vibe was top notch. There was something different about it that I can't quite put my finger on. Even though I was speaking and had my talk on my mind, I still managed to enjoy the other sessions. I've spoken at Codegarden once before but was so nervous I barely remember any of the other talks that year.

It was huge and so spacious. Plenty of room for everyone but also loads of room for Umbraco fun. Such as a free to play retro arcade, with games like Pacman, Mario Kart, Golden Axe and a pinball machine. There was room for a pick and mix stand full of all the sugary treats you could ever need and also 3 mini stages (H5YR, Moose and Unicorn) as well as the main stage, a silent stage (more about that in a minute) and tables for doing work if needed.

On one of the days there was a barber shop brought on site in a van and the other day you could go and get a free Umbraco tattoo. There were 5 free tattoos up for grabs. All 5 were claimed within the first hour of the tattoo studio opening!

When it was time for lunch, there were zero queues, the food was fantastic and there were pastries and coffee throughout the day. ![[rabbitPuzzle.jpeg|380]] But it's not just about the Umbraco fun, Codegarden is an opportunity to listen to peers who are passionate about Umbraco and the community.

The Sessions

Wednesday was a cracking day for talks. Three in particular really stood out for me.

Vibe Coder to AI Engineer: From Designs to Umbraco (and Everything In Between)

This one was by Matt Wise, a fellow Umbraco MVP and a good friend of mine. It was a follow on from the talk he gave at Umbraco in the City late last year, showing the journey he'd been on to get AI to build a site from designs.

When this gets released online, I recommend giving it a watch.

It's Elemental: Reuse Your Content!

By Kenn Jacobson, Principal Developer at Umbraco. Reusable content has to be one of the most requested Umbraco features for as long as I can remember, so this one had my attention straight away.

We all create reusable content in Umbraco but it's hacky and not ideal.

Umbraco 18 is just around the corner and it's bringing Elements, which is basically proper reusable content done right. You can share content items between pages and it works natively with Block List and Block Grid. Kenn gave the grand tour with loads of demos and a few sneak peeks at what's coming.

Exciting times!

From Stakeholders to Beholders: How Running a DnD Campaign Can Make You a Better Developer

I've seen Grey's talk before but I wanted to see it again, but I was feeling a bit low on energy. I headed to the Silent stage and then remembered I could watch any of the stages from there. There were 4 TVs set up and you just grab some noise cancelling headphones and tune in to whichever stage you want. A fantastic idea and I really appreciated it.

Grey's talk did not disappoint, they were dressed up as a Dungeon Master and had 3 people on stage all taking part in the talk while they went through a fun campaign. If you get to see this talk in person, do, it's fantastic.

Awards

On Wednesday evening we had the annual Umbraco awards. It's always interesting to see what other agencies are building and to see what is catching the Jury's eye. I had submitted a couple of packages into the community awards and had secretly hoped to get a nomination for OC.PowerSort but alas, it wasn't to be. The packages that did get short listed were all fantastic and well deserved.

I want to suggest something for next year though. Paul Seal's Clean Starter Kit should be inducted into the Package Hall of Fame. The Starter Kit is used by so many people, including Umbraco HQ. I thought it was a sure thing this year.

Thursday's sessions

It was my turn to be on stage for my 20 minutes of fame. I was talking about the Umbraco Management API, a talk I've done before, but previously as a 40 minute live demo. 20 minutes was a push but I managed to get everything I wanted covered. I'd recorded all my demos in advance and it seemed to go well. I had a few questions at the end and feedback was all positive. Phew!

![[smile.jpeg|383]] (Photo by Paul Seal, pre talk, all smiles)

My talk was at 10:25am so I missed the early talks, including Paul Seal's "Accelerating Package Development with Umbraco 17 automation", which I want to catch once the recording goes online.

After my talk I took some downtime to gather my thoughts, and by the afternoon I felt ready for more sessions.

The afternoon sessions I attended were :

This made sense at the time

This was by Anna Bastron, a Solutions Architect at Byteminds, and it was a fun one to settle into after lunch. There was a cardboard DeLorean on stage and loads of brilliant Back to the Future references throughout, which I loved.

The premise stuck with me. If you could go back and talk to whoever made a decision on your project five years ago, what would you ask them? Even if that person was you.

Anna talked about how decisions that made perfect sense at the time quietly turn into constraints. Parts of the system get harder to change, some bits feel risky to even touch, and sometimes we end up defending a decision just because it's been there a long time. It was all about spotting those moments and knowing when something might be ready for a second look.

Short talk but packed with great takeaways. One of those ones that sticks with you.

Automate All the Things: Building & Evolving Umbraco Sites with AI Agents

Shannon Thompson is a well known face in the Umbraco community. He's the person behind Examine and is now a Senior Software Engineer at Microsoft. His talk was brilliant and slightly terrifying in equal measure.

The idea was simple. Spin up an Umbraco site, design it and create content all without opening up a code editor.

The best bit was "YOLO mode", where every command the agent wanted to run was auto approved. We could watch the agent running and slowly generating a website from nothing.

A really fun and informative talk in equal measures.

Thursday night

I could go into all the details, but I'm going to leave them out and just say this. Thursday evening was fantastic. The right balance of fun, silliness and Umbraconess. Great work to all involved.

Friday morning

Before heading home on Friday evening, I attended the Hackathon and worked on my Umbraco Obsidian package umbPublisher. I got a new release created and published, thanks to a feature someone suggested when we got chatting after my talk.

I headed to the airport early because of the potential passport control delays and grabbed some lunch before heading home about 5pm. Tired but full of ideas.

Final Thoughts

And just like that, another Codegarden was done.

Honestly, this one might just have been my favourite. The move to Copenhagen worked brilliantly, the venue was superb, and the talks were some of the best I've seen. Getting up on stage for my own talk and having it go well was the icing on the cake.

But as always, the thing I'll remember most isn't the venue or the sessions. It's the people. The early morning runs, the catch ups over coffee, the daft matching shirts at the party, the friends old and new. That's what keeps me coming back year after year.

If you were there, thank you for making it what it was. And if you weren't, start planning for next year. I can't recommend it enough.

See you next time.