Umbracokalaset 2025 - Swedish Umbraco Festival
7th November, 2025
I had the absolute pleasure of speaking at Umbracokalaset 2025 in Stockholm! From friendly faces and great conversations to an incredible response to my talk on building better content editor experiences, it was an unforgettable week with the amazing Umbraco community.
Photo by Markus Johansson
Two weeks ago, I had the absolute pleasure of speaking at Umbracokalaset 2025, the Swedish Umbraco conference, held in beautiful Stockholm.
From the moment I arrived, I was reminded just how warm, welcoming, and friendly the Umbraco community really is. Every conversation left me feeling inspired and grateful to be part of such a passionate group of people.
This was going to be my first talk at an Umbraco Festival, and, whilst I've done quite a few meetup talks before, this was the going to be the biggest audience by far! So, to say that I was a bit nervous, was an understatement!
I’d like to extend a huge thank you to my employer, Aspire Systems, for sponsoring my trip to the 2025 Umbracokalaset Swedish Umbraco Festival. Their support made it possible for me to attend, share my talk, and connect with so many brilliant people in the Umbraco community.
If you’re not familiar with Aspire Systems, they’re doing amazing work helping businesses build powerful, scalable digital solutions, including with Umbraco. You can learn more about what they do at www.aspiresys.com/uk.
My journey there
My journey was from Cardiff Airport, to Amsterdam, then finally Stockholm; it was long, but thankfully uneventful! When I arrived in Stockholm I caught the Arlanda Express, which was amazing (seriously, why can't we have good transport like this back home?!) and headed straight to my hotel.
I decided to stay at the Berns Hotel, which was where the Festival was being hosted, and wow, what an absolutely stunning place! When I arrived, I just checked in, unpacked in my room, and then headed to the hotel's "Asian Fusion" restaurant called Asiatiska; where I had some delicious Yam Wontons, Sushi, and Mango Sticky Rice, in a beautiful grand ballroom!
Umbracokalaset
The next day I got up early for breakfast, which was hosted in the same stunning ballroom, before heading down to the Umbracokalaset Festival!
Upon arriving, I picked up by badge, a raffle ticket, and a goodie bag which had some some awesome swag, trinkets and sweets!
The morning was really nice, meeting old and new friends, and enjoying the party atmosphere! The organisers had done a great job with the theming!
Then we had the welcome talk and obviously, as we're in Sweden, most of the talks where in Swedish; so I tried my best to follow along to using Google Translate's live transcription feature, it wasn't very good it but was good enough for me to "get the gist" of what was being said. As a Welshman, I loved hearing people speak in their native languages. Skål!
As my talk "Unlocking the Full Potential of Umbraco: Building Friendly Content Editor Experiences" was at 15:15, I headed back to my room after lunch, so that I could have one or two last run throughs of my slides!
Then the time came... I got mic'd up, and welcomed to the stage... I was nervous, but when I started speaking, it just kinda flowed, and the nervousness went away! I really enjoyed giving my talk, I made the audience laugh a few times, which is always goal of mine, and then just like that my 30 minutes was up! (although I did go over by 5 mins! oops!)
I was really worried that my talk was going to fall flat, that people would just think "that was boring, we all know that already!"... but thankfully the feedback I had afterwards was incredibly positive!!! A couple of people came up to me afterwards saying that they where students and had only started using Umbraco a few months ago, and that they found my talk incredibly useful and inspiring! And a few more people said they where also new to Umbraco and found the tips and tricks that I'd discussed invaluable!
Hearing all that feedback was honestly amazing! it made all the worrying and stress of me doing my first "big talk" completely worth it. It was also a powerful reminder of how important it is to share stuff like this, because, as I said in my talk, "you don't know until you know"! Sharing is caring, and caring is community!
You can download my slides here:
Umbracokalaset 2025 - Owain Jones - Building Friendly Content Editor Experiences.pdf [5.93 MB]
(saving as a pdf appears to have messed up some of the formatting, sorry!)
Photo by Matthew Wise
Photo by Emma Burstow
Photo by Emma Burstow
Photo by Emma Burstow
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
Afterwards, we had a big group photo, and headed to the terrace for drinks and the raffle results; and in true Umbraco fashion, the prizes where all fun and quirky, and included some massive tubs of Nutella!
The grand prize of the raffle was a hockey table, the box was quite large, and we where all wondering who the poor sod was going to be who had to figure out how to get it home...
The number was called, and Sebastian (who apparently couldn't win it because he's Umbraco HQ staff) quickly turned to the first person next to him, shoved his ticket into their hand and proclaimed them the owner of the winning ticket!
And guess who that was... it was me!! I was both ecstatic to be proclaimed the winner, but at the same time I was also thinking "how the hell do I get this home???" haha! Thankfully, Markus, from Obviuse, offered to ship it to me after the festival.
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
Photo by Markus Johansson
At the time of writing, hockey table hasn't arrived yet; I have a customs charge to pay, but the Royal Mail payment website is down... yay... So I'll update the blog with pictures of it once it gets here!
It's here, and it's awesome!!! I wasn't really sure what to expect, as all it'd been described to me as was "foosball, but like hockey", but it's really really fun! It's a lot more challenging than standard table football, and it feels like you can be much more tactical, but also chaotic if you just slam the pucks! I rate it a 10/10!
Afterwards we set off for some food and drinks at a place called Barrels Burger & Beer, where I had a delicious triple smash burger, and my very first blooming onion! We then re-convened with the partner summit people at a bar called The King's Fox, where I got well acquainted with Swedish Perry!
Rest of the week
The next day, I met up with fellow Umbraco Matthew Wise, and we did some touristy things including visiting the Nobel Prize museum, Vasa Museum, Paradox Museum, and a walk around Stockholm's Old Town; where we also paid a visit to Markus and Anders at the Obviuse office too!
I also visited Gröna Lund on the Friday, for their Halloween event, which was awesome! The theming was on point, and the scare actors where brilliantly spooky!
All in all, I had an absolutely amazing time! I’m so glad I pushed myself to submit a talk. It was nerve-wracking, exciting, and completely worth it!
If you’ve ever thought about sharing your knowledge at a conference, go for it! You’ll grow as a developer, meet amazing people, and become part of something truly special!