News: End of 2026 Onsite and the beginning of next year...

First, I have attended or been part of conferences since 2014, not all iOS, some C++ and definitely a few DEFCON's in the mix. That said, I have NEVER written a trip report after a conference. I have also been told that I write like I speak, which can be a challenge. All that said after catching up with a couple days of sleep, the energy I am seeing from attendees, combined with my experience, has me wanting to close out this year's onsite with this.

What a year! It starts way before I see this, which is your first visual cue that you have arrived at Folkestone West. You see it as you exit the train. From here it's just a quick 15 minute walk up to the Leas. I had a bit of an experience arriving in Folkestone this year which included two and a half days of travel and an engine failure on my first flight. Perhaps that's why seeing this was even that much more of a relief when I arrived.

But sometimes when things happen you have to hit the ground running, and so I did. After quickly dropping off my stuff at the hotel it was off to Dover Castle to catch up with friends, both old and new. If you have never been, the history is incredible and the tours take you back to times during the war as you explore the hospital and Casemates and even further back when you explore the castle. It was a beautiful day.

Monday morning at 8:00AM it was go time. If you have never been to The Leas it is an incredible venue built into the side of the cliff. It has a full history. Everyone I spoke with enjoyed the workshops, and we even had one lightning talk inspired by Daniel's Foundational AI class. As the conference got into swing the gatherings inside the hall and outside continued.

Tuesday was the start of the main conference and we had our early arrivals who were excited to see things get started. While the conference was smaller this year it gave everyone a chance to really interact with each other. While I will cover our three keynotes in this post, I have to say every one of our speakers nailed it. Additionally we had some incredible first time speakers and even returning speakers who gave standout talks in an old school way.

But let's start with Laura Savino. I am working now to get her talk released first, because you have to see her Spiderman impression. If she ever stops coding, she certainly has many other skills to rely on like method acting.

As mentioned we had many great speakers, and they will all be coming out over the next few months. One of our first time speakers was Natalija and this shot of her makes me think of how we all at the conference were working on validating through scrappy learning. Of course the end note for the day by Janina was a thing of beauty. It was such a great talk and really brought engagement and social responsibility together hand in hand.

Tuesday was a long day for attendees but I think a great one as well. After the talks were done for the day we retired to the Channel Suite for lightning talks and a pizza party. In the past we had done a speakers dinner but this year I wanted something less formal with everyone attending. It worked out phenomenally. We had seven scheduled talks and a few more added just for good measure.

And when we were wrapping that up - the night was not over. Because what is a Swift conference without a Karaoke session? The bonus was that Skuba opened for the conference and we had the place mostly to ourselves. It was such an incredible way to top off the day.

Wednesday was filled with even more great talks, and was opened by Joannis speaking about Swift Everywhere with WendyOS, and I am looking forward to getting his talk produced and posted. In between, we had a full slate of talks I'll be calling out as their videos drop. Our emcee was also our closer, and of course everyone in the community knows Daniel. I want to give him a personal thanks as well. Not only did he come as a keynote speaker, but he also offered to emcee. For me as a first year organizer, help from people like Daniel and the community as a whole is greatly appreciated.

I could write more but I also want to save some for as we continue from here. We don't have dates picked for 2027 yet, but we want to focus on wrapping up 2026 first. We have lots of content to get posted to our YouTube channel and plans to make along the way. So just make sure to join our YouTube channel and LinkedIn, and watch for more details to come.

Conferences like this survive thanks to our sponsors like RevenueCat, and Adobe. Our speakers work diligently on creating great presentations, and of course none of it exists without our Attendees who come to enjoy it all.

Thanks for reading this far,

Kevin Carpenter