The Annual UK Umbraco Festival took place on 8th November 2024.
Last week, I had the pleasure of attending the annual UK Umbraco Festival 2024 in London. Hosted by the UK Umbraco Foundation, the event brought together around 300 Umbraco enthusiasts and professionals from all over the country to connect, share knowledge, and get inspired by the latest in the Umbraco ecosystem. Here’s a glimpse into my trip and what made the festival an unforgettable experience.
I headed down from Glasgow late on Thursday evening, November 7th, which meant that, unfortunately, I missed this year’s traditional Thursday Hackathon. I made my way to CodeNode on Friday morning, a vibrant venue in the heart of the City of London. After grabbing a coffee or two, I had the chance to catch up with a few familiar faces, one of the event organisers Callum Whyte, as well as many friendly members of the Umbraco community, including Adam, Jenny, Paul, Ravi, Gemma, David, Rick, Busra, Warren, Thomas, Emma, Tim, Aaron, Lotte — sorry if I missed you here. It’s always great to reconnect and meet new people who share the same passion for Umbraco.
Kicking Off with “Umbraco, Foundation, & Friends”
The festival officially began with an engaging opening talk by Callum Whyte, titled "Umbraco, Foundation, & Friends". A lively introduction, providing updates on all the latest developments within the UK Umbraco community and a special highlight — the new UK Umbraco Foundation website, powered by uSkinned Site Builder.
Callum invited me to the stage to share the story behind why the UK Umbraco Foundation chose our platform for their new website. With uSkinned Site Builder, Callum and his team quickly moved from a single-page HTML site to a fully-featured, high-performing website that truly showcases the community. Our platform’s flexibility allows the Foundation to expand its site as they grow, while also providing a streamlined, cost-effective solution. By using Site Builder, the Foundation is now able to deliver a consistent and powerful digital experience that resonates with its community-focused mission. It was a proud moment to highlight how Site Builder has empowered their team to help grow and promote the UK Umbraco community.
My presentation at Umbraco UK Festival 2024. Scan the QR code!
Highlights from the Talks
The day continued with a series of inspiring talks from a diverse group of speakers spread across two rooms, which meant I couldn’t attend every session but tried to catch as much as possible. Here are a few standout moments that particularly resonated with me...
Morning Keynote by Asim Hussain from the Green Software Foundation
Asim’s talk delved into the environmental impact of software, an area gaining significant attention in tech. He introduced the Impact Framework, an open-source tool designed to quantify environmental impacts like carbon emissions. His talk emphasised the importance of sustainability in tech, offering tools to assess and reduce our environmental footprint — a valuable perspective for all of us at uSkinned.
Unlocking Sustainability at Scale with Static Site Generation and Composable Architecture
Marcin Zajkowski explored the technical nuances of building sustainable digital solutions at scale. Using examples from a large-scale global site, he demonstrated how static site generation and composable architecture could significantly reduce data consumption. His insights reinforced the value of sustainable design and inspired us to explore further optimisation options, such as static site generation, for our Hosted platform.
Customising Umbraco’s Backoffice
Lotte Pitcher presented a practical guide to customising Umbraco’s new back office, which was insightful for anyone not yet working with Umbraco’s latest short-term support versions. Her session covered everything from dashboard extensions to using new extension templates, making it easier for developers to get started — a great reminder of Umbraco’s adaptability.
Paul Seal presents at the Umbraco UK Festival 2024.
CI/CD on Umbraco Cloud
With a humorous touch, Paul Seal walked us through the process of implementing CI/CD for Umbraco Cloud deployments. His practical tips and step-by-step instructions made it accessible for anyone looking to streamline their deployment processes. It was a lively session, complete with a spot-on Ricky Gervais impression that kept us all entertained.
The Bittersweet Reality of Diabetes Tech
Georgina Bidder offered a moving perspective on the world of diabetes technology, advocating for more thoughtful design and usability testing. As someone with first-hand experience, she highlighted the value of user feedback and accessibility—a message that resonates deeply with us as we continue to enhance the user experience on uSkinned.
Building an Umbraco Copilot
In one of the day’s most innovative talks, Callum Whyte demonstrated how AI could transform the Umbraco experience by creating a custom “Umbraco Copilot.” By leveraging Azure's OpenAI Service, he showed how to integrate AI to automate tasks and assist users of all roles within the CMS. The potential was inspiring and opened up ideas on how we might enhance the uSkinned Site Builder experience with AI in the future.
Raffle time!
Networking and Raffle
After a lively networking session over complimentary drinks (cheers!), everyone reconvened in Room 1 for the closing raffle, with prizes that included some fun Umbraco-branded goodies — one of which was an axe! It was a lighthearted way to close the event, celebrating the community spirit that makes the UK Umbraco Festival so special.
Inspiring Day
The UK Umbraco Festival is more than just a tech event; it’s a celebration of the collaborative, and friendly spirit that defines the Umbraco community. From insightful talks to the opportunity to connect with others, this year’s festival was an inspiring reminder of the innovation and camaraderie that drives us all forward. It was an honour not only to present but to be part of this amazing community.
Thank you to the UK Umbraco Foundation and everyone who made the day a success — I look forward to seeing what we’ll all achieve in the year ahead!
#h5yr
About the author
Paul Daly
I am a co-founder and the Creative Lead at uSkinned. It's my responsibility to lead the design and frontend coding efforts for all of our products as well as across each team, including Marketing, Branding, Content and Support.