Last year Joomla! made its first appearance at HostingCon Global 2016, the premier hosting and networking conference. The four-day event was a complete success with a two-hour session on how Joomla! can increase your ROI and the Joomla! in the Exposition Hall. We made many new friends and connections. Mike Demopolous was on fire, holding over forty one-on-one meetings that gained several new sponsors for the project.

For me, surprisingly, I received an invitation to a Joomla! Automated Testing Code Sprint. Developers from all over the world come together. Of course I did not say no. My experiences with the active participation in the Code Sprint I would like to share with you in this article.    

Back from Lisbon and Granada, where I attended two fantastic and different technology events (more about them here, The Challenge to reach The Summit), I have one more J-story to tell. In Lisbon, I attended to WebSummit. Web Summit (originally Dublin Web Summit) is a technology conference held annually since 2009. The topic of the conference is centered on internet technology and attendees range from Fortune 500 companies to smaller tech companies. This contains a mix of CEOs and founders of tech start ups together with a range of people from across the global technology industry, as well as related industries. On the other hand, in Granada, I attented to JoomlaDay Granada. JoomlaDays are Joomla community events, organized by local user groups (JUGs) of each city.

Joomla made an appearance at HostingCon Europe 2016 (http://europe.hostingcon.com/) in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. As the name suggests, this was an event for cloud and service providers from Europe. We were asked to represent Joomla and given an expo booth to share about Joomla with a good few hundreeds of attendees.

The Sheraton Vancouver Wall Centre sits in the heart of vibrant Vancouver. Everything the city offers is within walking distance. Many restaurants, shopping, Stanley Park and the iconic Seawall are all a short stroll from the hotel. In 2016 the Wall Centre completed a full renovation to each and every guestroom. We talked to Sean Antonson, who works at the venue, to find more about what it has to offer to attendees who chose to stay there.

TJ Baker is leading the Team that is organising Joomla World Conference 2016. We talked to him to know a little bit more about those who are working to make another great event become a reality. According to him, all team members pitch in wherever and whenever needed regardless of their role. That is especially true once they get to the venue for the event, when "all hands on deck" are required for a successful outcome.

Attending Joomla World Conference is usually a life-changing experience. We talked to Ana Barcellos, from Brazil, about thoughts and feeling on the event and how much she has been affected afterwards.

You know about tailgating, right? Before a big football game or another event, the fans gather and celebrate their mutual love for the team, sport, or shared activity. In fact, it is what many people attend sporting events for: to experience the excitement and connections they get with hanging out with people of similar interests.

The call for Speakers for the 2016 Joomla World Conference has been extended until September 15th. If you’ve been trying to decide if you want to present and thought you’d missed the deadline, you’ve still got time to get on board!

The Joomla! World Conference is coming to North America this November 11-13 in Vancouver, BC and it is going to be a fantastic event once again. Let us help make your conference choices a bit easier this fall.  Here are the top 10 reasons why you don't want to miss out on the 2016 Joomla! World Conference.