Recap

That was it, the first umbOktoberfest has come and gone. And we can say with satisfaction that our expectations have been exceeded!

As we had started the organisation process rather late in July, it was not really clear whether we would end up hosting the first Umbraco conference in Germany, well, without guests.

But things turned out differently: the hard core of the German Umbraco scene spontaneously agreed to join umbOktoberfest on 31 August 2012 at the Relexa Hotel in Frankfurt am Main. We also had two surprise guests who made this event very special: Niels Hartvig, founder and CEO of Umbraco, flew in from Copenhagen for this special occasion. In addition, Sebastiaan Janssen, the new project manager at Umbraco, agreed to join on short notice as well and took the ICE from the Netherlands to Frankfurt.

In order to give the umbOktoberfest the typical Umbraco spirit that we all love, the arrival of the “Chief Unicorn”, as Niels Hartvig sometimes calls himself, had to be celebrated appropriately. To do this, we chauffeured our guest not in a boring taxi from the airport to the byte5 office, but with a DeLorean, exactly as we know it from the Back to the Future movies. Anyone can imagine that the drive through Frankfurt attracted some attention by passers-by.

The event itself was characterised by a spirit of optimism to make Umbraco a little more popular in Germany. The participants presented various case studies and discussed the findings.

Subsequent open-space discussions covered topics such as community building and responsive design with Umbraco.

The end of the day was our sightseeing tour of Frankfurt and a cozy get-together in a traditional apple cider pub with beer and schnitzel.

The byte5 team would like to thank all participants, especially Niels Hartvig and Sebastiaan Janssen, who supported us very much with their presence.

It has been shown once again that the community is one of the most important arguments to get involved with Umbraco: After all, a high level of mutual appreciation and support are part of the Umbraco brand.

One thing is certain: in 2013, we will host the next umbOktoberfest – well-planned and announced a little earlier.