This month I broke my non-conference-attendance streak of 10 years and returned to Stir Trek for their 2025 conference. I attended live sessions concerning topics that are relevant to what I’m presently developing at work, ranging from Blazor components to ensuring proper accessibility in web sites. I branched out to other points of curiosity that didn’t strictly apply to what I’m currently working with but was interested about, such as the anatomy of a container that’s run in tools like Docker. As expected, the talks were great, and the conference was a hoot. Though in an era where a talk or information is just a livestream or online video away, why attend conferences at all? Can’t you get all that same information online in the comfort of your own home, on your own schedule?
The immediate answer to this question might be “the educational content relevant to my career!”, which is a solid reason by itself. Many conferences post this material online after the fact, though. So what leads us to these conferences? Why take the time to travel and pay for these trips?
My hot take is that it’s about more than the content presented.
What Draws Us to a Conference?
Live Physical Interaction
This one is filed under the ‘obvious’ banner, though can’t be understated. Interacting with speakers directly, before, during, or after their talks, allows interaction that is at best limited in a virtual capacity. I say this as someone who does live streaming regularly. Yes, in virtual meetups you can have text or even two-way voice chat. But there’s more to human communication than the information conveyed, and being able to have a more natural back-and-forth with someone in person brings something that can’t be emulated over the web. There’s a certain je ne se quoi to it.
Improving Your Development Skills Through Communication
A software developer’s profession involves more than sitting at a keyboard and punching out code. Communication is a vital component to our jobs, whether it be requirements gathering, tempering expectations, or describing and explaining deliverables (and whatever limitations may have been found during development). Attending live conferences in a room filled with other software developers lets you mingle and “talk shop” without the pressures of deadlines or TODO items hanging around. The “water cooler” style chats that, try as we might, don’t really occur in a remote working environment, can bring value to one’s development journey that goes beyond coding ability.
Speaking of the water cooler…
Remote Coworkers Mingling
Hopefully, you like the folks you work with. I do! At Stir Trek this year I got to meet several coworkers for the first time, and other past coworkers (and current friends) that I hadn’t seen in a while. Even though it was just for a day, it was great to meet everyone in person, and it showcases another benefit of attending a conference that others in your crew are also attending. Hanging out, learning together, catching up, it’s all great stuff (not to mention good for one’s social health to do).
For me, however, the biggest boon to attending live conferences is:
The Hallway Track
Conferences tend to have various tracks of organization, depending on size. You might have a track on UI/UX, a track on backend development, a track on The Cloud, etc. The Hallway Track is an unofficial one but has been present in every conference I’ve attended. Bumping into strangers, or familiar folks, in the hallway, and striking up conversations. These can, of course, range from just shooting the breeze to diving deep in on dev-related topics (stemming from the sessions of the day or otherwise). These get-togethers in the hall can last as long as an actual session!
These conversations, in my opinion, bring out the best that developer conferences have to offer. See a familiar face in a crowd? See a speaker and want to dive deeper into the topic they spoke of? All that and more is possible in the Hallway Track
Conclusion: Go to a Conference!
Hopefully by reading this post, you get enthused to try attending a developer conference if you hadn’t previously, or if it’s been a long time. There are barriers to entry (from expense to travel) but see if you can’t find a way to make it to one if it’s feasible for you. In addition to the “obvious” reasons to go (learning new things that can apply to your work), there are other benefits that might not be evident from the conference’s listed schedule or itinerary. Give it a go, and you see me, step up and say hello!