Another year, another successful ExpressionEngine conference - EECONF London 2025

After 12 months of research, planning and physical effort, we managed to pull off a successful international EECONF in London, bringing together ExpressionEngine specialists and web developers from across Europe, UK and North America.

As a part of the EE Community Association (EECA) for the last 12 months, IC360 have been working closely with the other members, to get this year's Conference organised, in London… the first EECONF outside the USA for many years.

Visit the EECONF website for more details.

EECONF 2025 London

The conference has always had a busy schedule of presentations, open discussions, business networking, demonstrations and informal socials (including beer!) covering 2 full days - plus an initial informal ‘warm up’ gathering the night before the first day. This has always been a great ‘ice breaker’ to help everyone relax and get to know each other - or catchup with ExpressionEngine friends and colleagues (coll-EE-gues?). So we were keen to make sure this format was achieved again this year.

The only significant change we did make, was going from a traditional 2-Track conference, to a Single-Track format. This meant everyone could participate in all presentations and removed any difficult decisions about what to see, and what to miss. Plus, for the organisers, it made the whole running of the conference much simpler and less stressful. Not that it wasn't still stressful mind you!

Please sir… can I have a conference?

As new boy to the Team - and also as resident Brit - I was first tasked with scouting out suitable venues in London back in Nov 2024. So I spent a couple of days visiting various well-established and conveniently located conference venues, not too far from the Paddington railway station. This was going to be one of the most likely arrival points for people in the UK and also from international flights into Heathrow airport.

After receiving a number of quotes from these venues - even though they were all excellent in their own right - the Business Design Centre in Angel won the honour of our presence. A suitably grand and historic building, with a perfect event space for our little nerd-fest.

Business Design Centre, Angel, London

Build it and they will come

Thereafter, the whole team were focused on the whole aspect of creating a real conference, for real people, in a real place. Not just a Zoom call or a Slack forum chat!

Being the first time I'd been involved with organising an event of this nature, I thought the 1 hour-a-week video call would be good enough to get everything to run smoothly. Thankfully my colleagues had way more experience and were fully prepared for everything that would be required… not that we didn't still hit some hurdles and obstacles along the way.

Between the 5 volunteer organisers, I calculated there must have been over 500 hours worth of work in total, over the whole year - not including the 3 days for the conference itself.

But all worth it, I have to say!

Some of the things that had to be considered, debated and created were:

Website - need to have a central resources for all the info.
Funding and Sponsors - who's going to pay for this?
Pricing - how much should the tickets cost?
Speakers - need to get exciting and interesting people to share their ideas and techniques.
Catering - coffee, pastries, lunch… and more coffee.
T-shirts - got to promote those generous sponsors, and be cool at the same time.
Hotel - a local hotel with good facilities and decent group booking rates.
Directions to the venues from public transport.
Signage - directional signage at the venue.
Seating plan - nerds need their laptops!
Taxes (yes, even the UK government wants a slices of the action!)
Lanyards for attendees
Agenda - need a well organised schedule for things to run smoothly.
Video equipment - for filming the presentations, to share later.
After-hours fun events and socials.

Brain melt - in a good way

So over the course of 2-3 days… approximately 40 people mingled, shared ideas, talked tech, gave advice, swapped stories, listened, talked some more, gave news, interrogated and laughed until their throats ached (well, mine did anyway!).

I've always personally found EECONF to be the warmest and friendly environment for sharing everything EE. The team from Packet Tide (the owners of ExpressionEngine) are always a great bunch of guys and girls and are always up for open discussions… and beers in a good old London pub in Islington. Who wouldn't be after all?!
And all the attendees - both regulars and newbies - ranging from web designers, web developers, business owners, design agency people and all sorts… are always friendly and accommodating with their questions, opinions and advice.

I find it a really intense few days and always come away with great new info and methods about using EE and running a business. I always meet great people and gain new friends and business partners.

This is my 4th EECONF, the first of which I've been involved with the organising side of things. Previously I have given a presentation myself… which I always got a huge buzz from… but this time I thought I should focus on the ‘running', which turned out to be a wise move.