Finally, after waiting for a year we could enjoy another JoomlaDay in the Netherlands! We had online meetings for a few months, and got our program set, and our visitors and presenters were back!

The day before

Preparing

The day before the JoomlaDays, almost everyone in the team met and filled the goodie bags, all materials such as banners were loaded for transport to our venue. And at the venue everything was set up for welcoming all visitors again. With enough hands to help it doesn't take too long and the team checked into “our hotel” and met some of our guests, presenters or visitors in the lobby. Here I met some old Joomla Friends like Yannick and also met a new one in real life. Funny, not having had much contact online but recognizing each other from profile photos, right Viviana?

We from the team enjoyed a dinner together with the guests and of course I’m sitting together with our French guests because I don’t speak French. It was a nice and joyful dinner and we got to know each other a bit better. Afterwards, some people were going to the hotel lobby for a drink and some went to their rooms, like I did. For me, because I told my wife I was going to run on Friday morning, and she laughed expecting it was never going to happen, like last year. 

JoomlaDays Friday

The start - but first...

Well, I’m just stating here for my wife that my alarm went at 06.30 and immediately I wanted to go back to sleep. But, I went outside for my run. A nice run of just over 6 km. After a record time freshening up, having breakfast I could go to our venue, together with one of our presenters. And in time back at our venue to welcome all of the guests!

Meeting everyone again!

Early in the morning people were arriving from all over the country for the JoomlaDays. Perhaps not mentioned often (or perhaps it is) but events like this also means seeing friends again, enjoying talking or networking in order to strengthen connections in the Joomla community. I also spoke with some Joomlers I haven’t seen in a year, or even multiple years like Darek! But the catching ended because Rick officially opened the JoomlaDays 2024.

The start workshops and some presentations

Our goal this year was in order to help Joomla users gain knowledge, so we organized workshops on different kinds of topics. Our SEO workshop by Debbie was best visited but also the workshops about YOOtheme and developing Joomla were popular to complete our top-3. I volunteered to stay at our venue booth welcoming any visitor who was a bit late for the workshops or already stopped by.

But it wasn’t all about workshops, there were also presentations about the Joomla Task scheduler, HTTP security headers for example. And Nicolas even did a presentation during two slots about starting a website with his extension Hikashop. 

No bugs, but still

We didn’t organize a Joomla Pizza, Bugs & Fun this year, but pizza is always a good idea at a JoomlaDay, so we had pizza to conclude our first day. After we closed the venue for the day, all who were staying in the “Joomla hotel” had a social event in the lobby. It was quite busy I can tell you, and joyful. We even had our own Joomla band present, with Rick and Anja on guitar, with Rachel and Darek singing. It was a fun night!

JoomlaDays Saturday

Lots of presentations

Day two started a bit later than the first for me. Again, driving some of our guest to the venue and meeting more people who were only visiting the Saturday event, handing over their badges and goodie bags. After another opening talk by Rick, Joomla Vice President Philip Walton shared his keynote. A true lovely keynote, but you had to be there.

And for the rest of the day, it was fully booked with presentations on all kinds of subjects. You could choose between starting with RSForm Pro by Anja, Marc about playing with the Joomla API, Nicolas showed his new extension Panopticon, Tom shared the power of Component Builder, Viviana showed how accessibility in general and in Joomla core works, Hans gave insight into CSS, Yannick explained the state of search engine land and SEO, and David told how gls-pakete.de actually was came to life, and the story on how that took place.

Yes, quite a lengthy summary without much details I know. The best way to experience any Joomla event is of course to be present if you can. 

There was a second keynote at the end of Saturday by Marc and Peter, the Release Leads of Joomla 5.2, about the road to this coming release. And when they finished their keynote, sadly that meant the end of the JoomlaDays Netherlands 2024. We enjoyed a drink together and with the visitors saying goodbye, we from the team went packing all of the Joomla material and go our separate ways again. 

And a huge thank you to our sponsors

An event like the JoomlaDays can’t be organised without sponsors, we are very glad they make our event possible. Thank you to RSJoomla, Akeeba, Vandeez, CloudAccess, Webteam4u, Yolknet, djumla, CloudFaction, Perfect Web Team, R2H, Tassos, Joomill, De Linie ICT, MOL4media, TLWebdesign, JoomlaCK, JCE, Bluepoint eCommerce, 1-2-appletree and Web357!

One last thing

Are you working with Joomla, professionally or as a professional hobbyist in the Netherlands (or willing to visit the Netherlands) and you haven’t visited the JoomlaDays? I would then like to invite you to also join the JoomlaDays Netherlands in 2025, as 2024 was awesome!