Umbraco MVP Summit and Codegarden 2025
TLDR; This is going to be a multi part blog series, I started writing about my week in Odense, attending the Umbraco MVP Summit and Codegarden and it was turning in to a really long read. So here is the first part - all about the MVP Summit and a bit of background about Codegarden 2025.
What is Codegarden? Codegarden is the annual Umbraco Conference that is organised by Umbraco HQ and is held in Odense, Denmark. It's the biggest event on the Umbraco calendar with a mix of talks, socialising and craziness, more on all that in a bit.
My first Codegarden was back in 2018, the year I was awarded my first Umbraco MVP award. I've been trying to remember how many Codegardens I have attended in person. The COVID years have blurred my memory a bit so I have been trying to remember the years by the events I remember happening.
- 2018 - First MVP and my Codegarden Tshirt - a very special year.
- 2019 - Crazy Bingo evening with the top prize being a brick wall
- 2020 - COVID cancelled
- 2021 - Online only
- 2022 - Didn't attend but launched thesecretstage.vip website
- 2023 - The umbOlymics
- 2024 - The Rabbit Political one
- 2025 - This year!
So I've been to 5 Codegardens and each one is different but always fantastic.
2025 - The MVP summit one.
Originally I wasn't attending Codegarden this year. But then the Universe seemed to have other ideas. Some things happened and before I knew it, I was booking a hotel and flights to CG25 very last minute!
This is the 20th Anniversary of Codegarden and I really wanted to go, I wanted to celebrate this milestone with my fellow Umbracians.
With a CG ticket in my inbox, flights and hotels booked, I was all set!
This year was the first Umbraco MVP summit for current, renewed and first time MVPs and it was held on the Monday and Tuesday before Codegarden kicked off in Odense. I had to flew to Copenhagen on the Sunday to make sure that I arrived in Odense ready for Monday morning's event.
Alarm set for 3am, taxi booked for 4am, I would be flying out from Edinburgh at around 6am. At least, that was the plan. 4am came and went and no taxi showed up. Called the taxi company and was told, "sorry, we still don't have a car for you yet".
A quick panic and run up to my bedroom - wake up Mrs Williams and ask her to drive me to the airport!
I got to the airport in plenty time but it got the blood pumping!
After a quick bag search, I was through security, grabbed a coffee and before I knew it I was on the plane. Landing in Copenhagen on time at about 9am.
Being a tourist.
I'd prearranged to meet fellow MVP Heather Floyd in Copenhagen airport. She was landing from New York about the same time so we decided to do some tourist stuff for the day while we waiting for others to arrive from other parts of the world.
We met up at the airport train station and headed in to the city but as we left the station I realised my rucksack had been caught in the door! I pulled but it wasn't coming lose so I waited until we pulled in to another station and waited for the doors to open, doors opened but, not the right doors!
The platform was on the other side of the train and my bag was still stuck.
I quickly found that I could remove the strap from my bag that was jammed and I just accepted it was lost to the train gods.
I got off the train with Heather and we saw the train conductor just ahead of us. I quickly asked them if they could open the doors but unfortunately that wasn't going to be possible.
The conductor was super helpful though and told us that if I just stayed on the train, the next stop after Copenhagen would have the platform on the correct side and I could then get the strap and just jump on a returning train back to Copenhagen. Perfect!
Bag strap retrieved, we jumped on a returning train and then put our bags in the baggage lockers in Copenhagen train station. What a start!
With a few hours to spare Heather and I went out and did some touristy wandering.
We went up the Round Tower and found a nice cafe on a roof terrace. We also wandered down the river and just took in the sights.
Thanks Heather for a lovely day in Copenhagen.
After our wandering, we met up with some others around about 2pm at Warpigs. Warpigs is a BBQ grill bar that serves great beers and food. Within the Umbraco Community, it's a must visit if you're in Copenhagen.
To add to the drama of the day, I realised that my phone hadn't charged the night before so I had to borrow a power bank from someone at Warpigs just so I had enough power for my phone so I had my train ticket and hotel checkin details.
I caught a train at about 5pm and I was checked in to my hotel by around 6:30pm.
The Windowless Hotel - Fyrtøjet
When I booked my hotel for Codegarden, I decided I'd go cheap. You are hardly in the hotel over the week so I didn't see the point in paying too much for it. I booked in to a hotel called Fyrtøjet and it advertises itself as a quiet windowless city hotel!
You get an email with your room number and told the key is on your bed, that's the checkin.
The room, well, it's windowless. The picture says it better than I could.
It was "functional".
I quickly unpacked, put my phone on charge and grabbed a quick shower. I got out the shower and then realised my phone charging cable wasn't working. Honestly, this day was just one of the worst.
A quick shout on the Umbraco Discord channel to see if anyone had a spare charging cable and I was sorted! Thanks Dean!
Now that I had my luggage, a phone charger and a bed, I headed out to Storms to meetup with some of the MVPs who were also attending the summit.
Storms is a massive warehouse with loads of streetfood outlets. You can get everything from Sushi, Indian, Greek, Burgers, you name it, you'll find it there. It's also on the "must visit" list when going to Codegarden. This year I found a great selection of 0% beers on offer so with a beer in hand and a chicken burger in the other, I spent a quiet evening chatting with friends and catching up.
Day 1 MVP Summit
While at Storms I got chatting to Peter, Jake and Noah from [Koben](https://www.koben.com.au/) and found they were also staying in Fyrtøjet and Peter, who had been awarded his first MVP this year, was attending the Summit. We arranged to meet early to grab a coffee on the walk to the venue since the hotel didn't provide breakfast.
After a bit of a wander, we found a coffee shop, possibly the only one that actually opens before 9am and made our way to the venue - what do people do for coffee at this time in the morning when everywhere is closed?
We were one of the first to arrive and we picked up our name badges and also our new MVP badges.
In previous years, once you have been awarded an MVP award, if you are given the award a following year, you get a mention on the website but that was about it. HQ have now made pin badges for each year which I love and we were given them in small pouches on arrival.
The badges were back dated too so I now have a badge for each year awarded. Thanks HQ!
Once everyone had arrived, the MVP summit kicked off with a fantastic talk from Matt Brailsford - after my previous blogs about possibly having ADHD, listening to Matt talk about his own journey of discovery was a breath of fresh air and I found myself nodding along to everything he was saying. A very personal subject to him but he spoke so openly about it all. Thank you Matt!
When the videos from CG come online, be sure to watch his talk- "How to Create a Neurodivergent Friendly Workplace"
After Matt's talk, we split up in to two tracks and we discussed a lot of things ranging from, how do we engage with new members of the community to how can we use AI and should we be using AI.
I attended the discussions about Meetups & Events, Editor Experience and Community Growth & Engagement. A lot of great topics were raised and I really hope that as MVPs and with the help of HQ, we can continue to grow and welcome new friends in to the umbraco community.
Once the day had finished we headed up on to the roof top of the venue for some socialising before dinner. The DevRel team and HQ did a fantastic job at organising everything.
After the venue closed, some of us headed back to Hotel Odeon, where many others were staying, and I enjoyed a couple of drams with friends. I tried the Danish whisky - Stauning, for the first time. A lovely dram and one I will be trying to purchase to add to my collection!
Day 2
Day 2 kicked off with another hunt for coffee for Peter and I and this time we ended up going to the train station where there were a few more options.
We enjoyed a coffee and pastry and then headed to the venue. There weren't any pastries at the venue on Day 1 so I thought I better have something to eat, only to find, when we walked in, a table of pastries! YES!
One thing I have noticed when I go to Codegarden, I really don't take good photos first thing in the morning, I always look super tired / hungover, even when I haven't been drinking. Note to self, maybe don't do selfies in the morning.
With coffee and pastries had, we kicked off another morning of talks and recapped on Day 1. After lunch some people headed off to the Business Summit while others headed to workshops and training that were being held at Umbraco HQ.
I decided that the week was going to be pretty full on so decided to go to the local bouldering wall for a few hours with a couple of other MVPs.
The grades were lots of fun and if you're in Odense, I recommended going to Boulders. The staff are really friendly and the wall has plenty of problems for all levels to climb.
After the climbing, I headed back to the hotel to do some coding on my Obsidian / Umbraco package and then got ready to go back to Storms for dinner before then heading on to Umbraco HQ for the pre-party to kick of Codegarden 2025.
Pre-party / Codegarden 2025
I'll continue this in another blog. The first 2 days were great. The first ever MVP summit and it was so inspiring to listen to others talk about the community and see the passions others have for Umbraco. As a 8x Umbraco MVP, it's great to see the new MVPs coming in to the community with fresh ideas but also to see that we now have MVPs from all over the world. It's Umbazing!
Thanks to all those who attended for making it a fantastic start to the week and massive thanks to Umbraco HQ for putting on a great Summit! #h5yr
> photos by Owain Williams and Umbraco.