Last week I was over in Denmark for Codegarden 2024. The 19th edition of Codegarden and my first time attending along with the Gibe team.
Here is a review of the week.
Monday
After leaving the house at about 3:30pm, catching the bus to the airport and getting through security without any issues, it was time to grab some dinner and wait for my flight to Copenhagen. I try and travel with hand luggage only as it just speeds things up at the end side.
I had a carry on bag and also an additional larger bag allowance. I've tried to travel to Codegarden with a single carry on bag in the past and no matter how well I pack, I always need more space.
Heading to a conference for a week shouldn't need much, but Codegarden isn't your usual tech conference. I'll explain more during this blog.
Waiting in the airport, I headed to the Wetherspoons bar to get some dinner. Now I wouldn't normally mention this but I think it's note worthy. I ordered a beef burger with chips and a pepsi at 5:51pm on the app, it arrived at my table at 5:56pm! I mean, I know it's fast service but I would have had to wait longer at a fast food outlet. 🤣
Anyway, I enjoyed it and it passed the time - all 5 minutes of it!
I headed to the gate and boarded on time. Just before I turned off my phone for the flight, I got a message from the Bristol based team members, they were meant to be in the air an hour before me but it turned out their flight had been delayed and they might be arriving about the same time as me now.
Copenhagen
On the final approach to Copenhagen airport I looked out the window and had a lovely view of the sunsetting as we landed.
I landed in Copenhagen and checked my phone. Bristol flight had literally landed in front of my flight so there was now a race to see who could get through security fastest. I won and then waiting for the Bristol team to arrive. Once we were all gathered, we jumped the train in to the city centre and headed to our hotel. Arriving at about 11pm.
Tuesday
After a few hours of sleep - it took me a while to get to sleep after travelling, I was up and heading back to Copenhagen Central Station. Steve (my boss at Gibe) and I caught an early train from Copenhagen to Odense, where Umbraco HQ is located, as well as where Codegarden takes place, while the rest of the team stayed in Copenhagen a bit longer to get some sightseeing in.
Tuesday in Odense is usually just the Umbraco Business Summit, but this year they put on some activities for people who were arriving early. I'd posted on social media that I'd noticed Odense had a bouldering gym
Before I knew it, Umbraco HQ had organised a bouldering morning for anyone that was interested!
I arrived at Umbraco HQ in time to meet some others who were planning to go to the gym and after a short walk we were there. It's a great gym, 2 rooms of different problems to climb and something for everyone. The cave was really good fun and after a few hours climbing with others, I was done.
Actually, truth be told, my hands were done. I think it was down to tiredness and I think I was gripping on to the wall far more than I usually do, my hands were a mess! I managed to take some skin off bother hands while climbing - too much info? 🤣 I taped them up and I was fixed for the rest of the day.
Workshop
After climbing, I headed back to Umbraco HQ for a workshop about Umbraco 14 called - Exploring Umbraco 14: A Developer's Workshop by Phil Whittaker and Jon Whitter.
I found this a really good workshop, they demo'd and then helped all the attendees get a basical Umbraco package created using TypeScript and Vite. As a backend developer, mostly dealing with C#, this was all new to me and I learned a lot from this session.
Pre-pre party
Every year, there is always a pre-pre party, which usually consists of going to Storms, a street food market located in Odense and this year was no different. Everyone meets there, usually about 5pm and we start to say hi to old friends and start conversations with new friends while enjoying some great food and drinks. Then we all head to Umbraco HQ for the official pre-party for Codegarden.
Pre-party time!
This year, the theme for the pre-party was 90s, which I actually found really hard to think of an outfit for this. I ended up just wearing a bucket hat and some circular sunglasses, while an open shirt and jeans. My tshirt had a picture of a VHS tape, floppy disk and a cassette tape, you know, those important things of the 90s.
Anyway, the night was great fun and I met even more new people to call friends. It was fantastic and really put me in the mood for the rest of the week.
The conference
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday....
Last year, I can say I didn't enjoy Codegarden. It was my first Codegarden since the pandemic and I just didn't feel part of it. I've no idea why, but I wrote a blog about last year. I felt alone and pretty low for most of the event.
This year I was determined, if I could, to really embrace the event this year.
I'm not going to go in to the details of each day, all the talks I went to were great and I really enjoyed them. It would take too long to go in to detail. But I do want to write about how I felt during this year's Codegarden and what made the difference.
TLDR; I was happy, I spoke to lots of great people and I had a safety net of friends I could find, this made it a much more enjoyable event for me.
The longer version goes something like this :
I was travelling with my work friends from Gibe, there were 6 or 7 of us all attending this year and I also had another group of friends who I chat to on a daily basis who were also attending. Both groups had setup a whatsapp group and this meant that if we were ever lonely or looking for someone just to chat to, enjoy a drink or a game of Hammerschlagen, I could just tap in a message and find them and it really worked. I only dropped a message once or twice over the entire week, but it was a great way to keep in touch.
Safety net
But what if you're on your own? What safety net do you have?
On day one there is uBuddy, which is meant to be a chance for first timers to team up with someone who has been to Codegarden before, get to know them and form a safety net for them. I've been a buddy for a few years now and it was me who first suggested something like this after I attended my first Codegarden so it's something I feel strongly about and I'm maybe biased towards this part of the event and I think it's a really important part of Codegarden. However, this year, I felt it was an after thought. 😟 On the program, it just said uBuddy Program. No details that it was for first timers, people who wanted help understanding Codegarden etc. You had to click on a different link on the website which gave more info.
I went along to the Theater stage and found that because the Keynote session overran, the uBuddy stage was forced to rush through everything and, unless I missed it, there was no pairing up people, so no buddies. This made me sad because I felt this was going completely against the "friendly" theme of the conference. Hopefully this is improved next year. If you're from HQ and want to chat, you know where to find me. 🙂
I think this single session could do with more promotion because there were loads of first timers and only a handful turned up to the uBuddy session. Maybe even do something when everyone is together in the main stage. I've a few ideas and may post about it another time.
What else?
Last year I spent a fair bit of time going to non-technical talks or actually taking time to myself and sitting in the quiet room - I didn't feel the need to do that this year. Instead I went looking for conversations with other people, I hardly tooted / tweeted other than about The Secret Stage (I'll blog about that another time too) and I wasn't on my phone much. I was trying to be present in the event.
I was excited to hear about the new Umbraco 14 release, I learned more about Azure and infrastructure as code (Terraform & Bicep). I enjoyed the social side of the event but also knew when enough was enough. Maybe I'm maturing and know that I can't burn the candle at both ends like I used to. Don't get me wrong, I still stayed out late but was really aware of how much I was drinking.
I also had the added responsibility this year that I was leading the #cgRunners on Wednesday and Thursday morning. I took a group of runners for an easy 30min run both mornings. The first morning down to the venue and the second morning through the lovely parks of Odense. It's a great way to start the day and I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did.
Other highlights
This sounds like a simple thing but the way the main room was setup for lunch / dinner really helped with socialising, there was more breakout areas, comfy seats, high tables, seated tables. You could just walk up and ask, is there room here? That was enough to start a conversation and I found I did this a couple of times. It really added to the whole experience.
The venue and the event has really stepped up a level. Everything looks more professional. The sessions ran really smoothly and to have all the talks recorded this year is a great addition.
I was honored to be awarded my 7th consecutive MVP award this year. Thanks to the nominations that I received, I don't get to know who you are but it's appreciated.
Spending time with the Gibe team is always a blast. There were a few first timers in the group this year and from what I have heard, they all enjoyed their first Codegarden.
Thanks to Gibe for sending my to Codegarden this year. I may not be attending next year but I do know that whoever goes from the company is going to have a blast at the 20th Codegarden!
Final thoughts
Overall, I think Umbraco HQ are getting a lot of things right and it really makes the event unique and special. I really like how the week is almost completely taken up now, it used to be just Wednesday, Thursday, Friday but with the social events and workshops on the Tuesday during the day, it is an added bonus. Yes it adds a bit of cost for an extra over night stay but I think it's worth it.
Hopefully next year, if I'm able to attend, there are some new swag items to buy, this is the second year where there isn't any an event specific tshirt.
Enjoy the rest Umbraco HQ staff, you deserve it! Another great event has been achieved. #h5yr
