Umbraco Spark 2024 - what a success!

  • Posted: Monday, 11 March 2024

Umbraco Spark took place on Friday 8th March 2024 at the M Shed in Bristol and did not fail to deliver as the ultimate rendezvous for every dedicated Umbraco developer.

Another year and another Umbraco Spark has come and gone and what a day it was! This year was the most popular Spark to date, with just over 160 attendees, we sold out earlier than ever before and we had a long waiting list for those who didn't get there quickly enough so it just goes to show next year, make sure you get your ticket early!

We had over 40 talk submissions which was amazing, huge thanks to everyone who submitted, even if someone did wait until 2 mins before the deadline to submit!

How DID it go?

As the organisers, there will always be areas that we want to improve upon, but honestly, we are overwhelmed by the positive feedback we have received and we are so proud of what we continue to deliver. Sometimes it feels like you are on the outside looking in on the day, and we don't always appreciate the impact Spark can have on our attendees. We've learned that the conference is innovative, (as the conference suggests, yey!) inspiring, friendly, covers a broad range of topics, relaxed, fun, well organised and in a great location, but most importantly it offers the community (full of intelligent folks) to come together, reconnect and share their opinions and ideas in a safe place which encourages those that attend to take what they've learned and apply to their day to day and sometimes even results in a talk submission at Spark in the future ;).

OUR highlights

A few of our highlights were hearing Luke Hook's talk about "UmbraCopilot - AI all the things", Hooky is such a natural speaker and delivered his talk effortlessly with some great demos! 

Erica Queesenberry's talk - "Avoiding the common dev:creative handoff pitfalls". As a project manager, this provided a great insight on how developers and creatives should work together better to avoid those common pitfalls we all come across during the project phase. It was interesting to hear this perspective from a designer. 

With a huge array of topics to choose from, we know we made it difficult for all our attendees to decide who to see, and we hope to continue to do that for years to come! 

Just wanted to thank you again to you and the Gibe team for another fantastic event. Honestly so good from start to finish and I had a great time so Kudos to you all...

Aaron Smith, Consultant, iO Associates

It was my first time at Spark, and I must say that I thought it was great. So please pass on my thanks to your team, it was a pleasure to sponsor such a great event.

Andrew Clymer, Director, Rock Solid Knowledge Ltd

What a great event. It was my first time at an Umbraco conference and it was a really relaxed, welcoming and professionally run event.

Hannah Smith, Director of Operations for Green Web Foundation and co-founder of Green Tech South West.

SPECIAL THANKS

We don’t want to sound like a broken record, but 

OUR SPEAKERS - We’d like to thank all of you for giving up your time preparing for the conference. I think we can all agree, the talks were inspiring and innovative. The Umbraco community is fortunate to have speakers who are willing to share their knowledge and experiences.

OUR SPONSORS - 
Bump DigitalGibe DigitalRock Solid KnowledgeCrumpled DogCab EngineuMarketingSuite and Tiny. It goes without saying (but we like to say it anyway) that this conference would not be possible without the Sponsor support we received. #H5YR goes out to all our 2024 sponsors. Your support has been instrumental in making this event a success, and we appreciate your commitment to the Umbraco community.

OUR MCs - Individual thanks goes to Matt Sutherland and Sophie Neale the dynamic duo who helped create a fantastic event experience for our audience and speakers.

And, most of all, all of YOU for coming and for those travelling a long way to be at Spark!

THAT'S A WRAP, FOLKS

Umbraco Spark will be back next year and the huge support and success of 2024 goes to show that Spark never fails to deliver and Bristol proves time and time again that it’s a great location and a perfect spot for the community to link up again!

P.S.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK...
Umbraco Spark is a community conference so we must build upon it each year and take any learnings forward. If you have any feedback, we want to hear from you here.

SPEAKER SLIDES...

We've already added some speaker slides to the website and will continue to as the week goes on. So if you were inspired and want to build upon some of the great ideas shared at Spark, the slides can be found within each speakers bio here https://umbracospark.com/#speakers

PHOTOS COMING SOON

Thanks to Clive @ Crumpled Dog, we'll soon be adding some shots from the day to the website - so keep an eye out if you think you might have been snapped at umbracospark.com.

About the Author

Cat Todd, Senior Producer

Cat is a Producer at Gibe with experience working with some top brands across the marketing sector. She keeps busy with project and account management working side by side with the tech team to ensure the project hits the nail on the head in terms of requirements and expectations. Cat also organises the Umbraco Spark Innovation Conference!