As a PHP developer and Laravel evangelist the Laracon EU is my event of the year. This was my third participation. This year not as an attendee but as a speaker. One of my biggest dreams and goals for the coming years. This years Laracon turned from something great into something amazing for me personally.
What is Laracon EU?
Laracon is an international Laravel conference with around 750 attendees. The conference has multiple tracks and is focused on in-depth technical talks. It’s a place to meet like-minded and experienced developers. Laracon EU is held each year in Amsterdam, which makes it good place for a lot of international attendees.
Speakers dinner
Almost every conference starts with a get-together with all speakers, sponsors and organisers of the conference. This is the perfect opportunity to meet new people, make friends and learn from each other. This years lineup for the conference was amazing, with really great speakers. To name a few Taylor Otwell (creator of Laravel), Evan You (creator of VueJS) and Freek Van der Herten (Spatie, creator of community packages).
It was great to meet with all these people. I made a lot new friends and even got a few tips for speaking the next day.
The big day
Tuesday 29th of Augustus was the big day! Stiff of the nerves all day I did my final preparations and got some final tips for speaking. I had to get on the stage for speaking! My talk named Laravel Design Patterns was focussed on which design patterns are used in the Laravel framework. It was a pure technical talk.
After my microphone was fixed, I really started feeling the nerves. From the coulisse I could see all the people walk into the room. I was speaking on the blue track which means there were around 250 seats available. The room got fuller and fuller until the crew decide that the room was full. There were even people standing on the stairs. The room was completely overcrowded. I never expected such a high turn-out.
The talk it self went pretty ok. I have lots of improvements for myself, but for a first time speaker I believe it went well. Most importantly I had a lot of fun given my talk and learning other people something new that day.
The next day!
Speaking one time on a conference is normal as a first time speaker. However my Laracon experience went even crazier. After my talk on the 29th I heard from the organizers that they had to close the door and that they had to deny over a few 100 attendees to enter the room. I never would have expected that!
It turned out that one of the speakers wasn’t able to make it. This meant that there was a slot left on the Wednesday. They asked me if I wanted to do my talk again since a lot of attendees missed my talk. Who am I to say no right? Speaking for the second time on my favourite conference. How cool is that?
The second time speaking was just a nerve breaking as the first time. I was speaking on the same blue track. This time the room was pretty crowded as well. It was a good turn-out.Â
My Laracon turned into an amazing conference where I made a lot of new friends, improved my social skills by speaking for a big crowd and also gained a lot of confidence.
See you next year?
I want Laracon EU is the best place to learn other developers, get new insights in the framework and learn other skills in general. Laracon EU is already planned for next year, will I see you there?
All talks on Laracon are recorded and published on YouTube.
