OwainJones.dev

Easter 2025: A Packed Week of Umbraco Meetups and Conferences

28th April, 2025

Owain Jones

From sharing migration tips at UmBristol to hosting UmbraCymru and soaking up inspiration at DDD Southwest, Easter 2025 has been one for the books!

Photo by Jason Elkin

#Umbraco #Meetups #Conference

This Easter has been a well-needed relaxing break (I did the classic four-day leave + Easter bank holiday combo), but it has also been jam-packed with some awesome Umbraco meetups and conferences! So, I thought I'd put together a blog with some thoughts and pictures from the week's events!

Also, shoutout to Bethesda for shadow-dropping the Oblivion remaster last week!

Kent Virtual Meetup – Thursday, 17th of April

My Easter break started with the virtual Kent Umbraco meetup, where Mike Masey and Richard Ockerby demoed their really cool rollback preview package, which looked awesome and is something that, in my opinion, should definitely be part of Umbraco core.

Justin Neville also demoed how to create custom shipping providers in Umbraco Commerce, which was super interesting, as I had personally never used Umbraco Commerce before. It was fascinating to see the nitty-gritty of how it works. He also showcased how he got a WooCommerce plugin (written in PHP) working with Umbraco by using this really cool tool called PeachPie Compiler to get it running on .NET!

London Virtual Meetup – Wednesday, 23rd of April

Next up was the virtual London Umbraco meetup, which was an open discussion night. We discussed some really interesting topics, including upcoming features in Umbraco 16/17, cool things we've done in Umbraco this year, what keeps folks energised during down times, and Juliano's pegboard! (It was a cool pegboard.)

Cymru Virtual Meetup – Thursday, 24th of April

Then, on Thursday, I hosted the virtual UmbraCymru Lunchtime Umbraco meetup, where we had lots of good discussions about the new hybrid cache, UX, block previews, deployment slots, and load balancing!

Click to open full size image.

Bristol In-Person Meetup – Thursday, 24th of April

Then, in the evening, I travelled to Bristol, via Swindon (yes, I got on the wrong train...), to give my talk "How I made migrating our client's websites, from 8 to 13, easy! (ish)" at the umBristol meetup; which was hosted on a farm!

During this talk, I shared the challenges my team faced when migrating our clients’ websites from Umbraco 8 to Umbraco 13, modernising them along the way and transitioning our solutions to use the new block-based lists and grids. I also demoed the open-source migration package I created, which enabled my team to write custom converters to transform client data from the old structure to the new one. Additionally, I explained how this approach made migrations repeatable and helped us minimise the dreaded “content freeze” period.

A speaker gives a presentation at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, standing next to a projected slide titled 'The Method4UmbracoMigrator way.' Several attendees sit facing the presenter, who gestures toward the slide. The room has a sloped ceiling, a skylight, and a blank flip chart nearby. Click to open full size image.

Photo by Jason Elkin

A speaker gives a presentation at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, standing next to a projected slide titled 'The Method4UmbracoMigrator way.' Several attendees sit facing the presenter, who gestures toward the slide. The room has a sloped ceiling, a skylight, and a blank flip chart nearby.

Photo by Jason Elkin

Luke Hook also gave a brilliant talk titled "Visual Studio / .NET Tips and Tricks". I love these types of talks, as what's common knowledge to one person may not be to another, and I always come away from these "tips and tricks" talks learning a new thing or two! Visual Studio's Endpoint Explorer and .http files are definitely two things I'm going to play around with!

Owain standing in the doorway of a building, pointing and smiling at a sign that says "Training & Craft rooms" Click to open full size image.

Photo by Nurhak Kaya

Owain standing in the doorway of a building, pointing and smiling at a sign that says "Training & Craft rooms"

Photo by Nurhak Kaya
A speaker (Joe) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a yellow shirt and dark blue jeans. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling, windows with trees visible outside, and green trim along the walls. Click to open full size image.

Photo by Nurhak Kaya

A speaker (Joe) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a yellow shirt and dark blue jeans. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling, windows with trees visible outside, and green trim along the walls.

Photo by Nurhak Kaya
A speaker (Luke) sits in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a pink snoopy hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls. Click to open full size image.
A speaker (Luke) sits in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a pink snoopy hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls.
A speaker (Owain) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a grey 'Friendly' hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls. Click to open full size image.

Photo by Joe Glombek

A speaker (Owain) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a grey 'Friendly' hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls.

Photo by Joe Glombek
A speaker (Owain) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a grey 'Friendly' hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls. Click to open full size image.

Photo by Joe Glombek

A speaker (Owain) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a grey 'Friendly' hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls.

Photo by Joe Glombek
A speaker (Owain) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a grey 'Friendly' hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls. Click to open full size image.

Photo by Joe Glombek

A speaker (Owain) stands in front of a projected slide at the umBristol April Umbraco meetup, smiling while presenting. He wears a grey 'Friendly' hoodie and dark trousers. A laptop sits on a small table nearby, connected to the projector. The room has a sloped ceiling and green trim along the walls.

Photo by Joe Glombek

Developer, Developer, Developer South West – Saturday, 26th of April

And Saturday was time for the DDD South West conference!

I missed out on tickets last year, so I was super stoked to have grabbed one this year, and wow, it did not disappoint! It was an absolutely stacked lineup of speakers (four tracks!), which made it very difficult to choose which talks to attend.

The talks I ended up attending were amazing, and they were:

  • "Advanced Debugging" by Steve Temple
  • "Modern Software Architecture Review Best Practices" by Steven Read
  • "Why am I being such a git about best practices?" by Joe Glombek
  • "Rethinking Website Carbon Calculators: Alternative Ways to Measure Digital Emissions" by Rachel Breeze
  • "Understanding The Business Problem" by Sean Farmar
  • "Adventures in Spacetime" by Kevlin Henney

If you can catch any of these talks at another conference, I would highly recommend every single one!

Click to open full size image.
An image of the front door to the Engine Shed building, there is a popup sign by the side of the door that reads 'DDD South West' with an outline of a cow.' Click to open full size image.
An image of the front door to the Engine Shed building, there is a popup sign by the side of the door that reads 'DDD South West' with an outline of a cow.'
A large group of attendees gather for the opening keynote at the DDD South West conference. The room has industrial-style ceilings with large vents and pipes, and two screens display a 'Welcome!' message. Some staff members in orange jackets stand near the stage while the audience listens from rows of tiered seating. Click to open full size image.
A large group of attendees gather for the opening keynote at the DDD South West conference. The room has industrial-style ceilings with large vents and pipes, and two screens display a 'Welcome!' message. Some staff members in orange jackets stand near the stage while the audience listens from rows of tiered seating.
Click to open full size image.
Click to open full size image.
Click to open full size image.
Click to open full size image.
A close-up of a plate of Greek food at the DDD South West conference, featuring stuffed vine leaves, baklava, a colorful salad with vegetables, hummus, a small falafel ball, and a spicy red sauce. Click to open full size image.
A close-up of a plate of Greek food at the DDD South West conference, featuring stuffed vine leaves, baklava, a colorful salad with vegetables, hummus, a small falafel ball, and a spicy red sauce.
Click to open full size image.
Click to open full size image.

It was a brilliant conference, and the fact that you had four tracks of amazing speakers, for free, is just mind-boggling! So if you missed out on going this year, I'd 100% recommend going next year!

Huge thanks to everyone who organised, spoke at, and attended these events; it’s the people that make our Umbraco community so special. This Easter has left me recharged and ready for the new projects and meetups ahead.

Here’s to many more meetups, talks, and conversations in 2025!