ServerSide.swift 2024 Conference Recap

Running a conference is not an easy task, as I keep seem to forget! This year's ServerSide.swift was the 4th edition of the conference and the 2nd time in London. We returned after a long break with a new date and back up to 2 days. Both of these changes definitely paid off and gave the conference a much improved vibe.

The September date provided a much warmer London and less clashing with Thanksgiving and the holiday period. The 2 days allowed us to spread to talks out and provide longer breaks making the conference feel a lot less rushed and provide lots and lots of networking time. I think this was the biggest change of the conference and definitely the one I got the most positive feedback on.

Overall, the feedback was extremely positive. The quality of the talks this year was fantastic with a wide range of talks. We had several success stories that have prompted blog posts, call outs to the community that have results in new AWS documentation, and talks on the fundamentals of the ecosystem that will serve as reference guides for Swift on the server for the years to come. It was fantastic to see so many folks from Apple attend, with engineers from across the organisation. It felt like the in-person WWDCs of old! The social events were packed (we will get more space next year!) and overall the feedback, both in the feedback forms and online was fantastic.

We also got the videos out in record time! Actually having the screen recordings meant that I could power through the videos in a couple of days and they all ended up on Youtube the week after. You can view all of the videos from this year's conference here. And yes, the videos from 2022 are still being worked on as and when I get time.

Next year is already in planning. Expect a similar time of year, the same venue and the same single track conference over 2 days. I would like to bring the panel discussion back if I can make the logistics work. The other thing that I would love to bring back would be the day of workshops and/or office hours. These have worked really well in the past and I'm actively looking into if we can make them work next year, both logistically and financially.

Speaking of finances, I still have a long way to go to make the conference financially viable. Anyone who has attempted to run a conference can tell you they are not cheap endeavours! The move to 2 days, the economic climate with high inflation and less money (meaning less sponsors) meant that there was a significant increase in costs without the corresponding increase in revenue, partly caused by ticket prices being kept close to last year's price. However, I'm hoping over the next year or two we should get to the position where we're at least break event. I'm eternally grateful for the support of this year's sponsors. Without them, the conference would not run at all.

Running a conference is an extremely stressful, time consuming, and rewarding experience! I'm really pleased with how this year turned out and thank you to everyone. The sponsors, those who gave up their time to speak, the orange minions who were running round all conference making sure everything ran smoothly and to everyone who attended. I want to make the conference the conference to attend and with the talks, the unique topics, the people who attend and the venue I think we're well on the way to achieving that goal. I'm looking forward to next year and can't wait to see how it grows. I hope to see many of you there and we should have some dates for diary in the coming weeks.