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Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018

– Recap

Once a year, Frankfurt am Main becomes the centre of the Umbraco universe. Umbraco-Festival Deutschland returned last week.

Once a year, the German city of Frankfurt am Main becomes the centre of the Umbracoverse. This day was last Friday – when after months of preparations, the Umbraco-Festival Deutschland (UFD) invited both the German-speaking and international community to Frankfurt for the sixth time. Our UFD18 recap.

The Chief Unicorn’s Keynote

80 curious pairs of eyes are directed at Niels Hartvig, founder of Umbraco, as he kicks off the festival day with his keynote. The Chief Unicorn talks about the long way Umbraco has gone since its founding, he speaks about plans and visions. But most importantly, the keynote is centred on one thing: the here and now. With 475,000 live installations and 230,000 active community members, the Danish CMS is still the biggest and fastest growing .NET CMS in the world.

Umbraco is stronger than ever and you can tell. For example, when you look at the headquarter team which almost doubled in members last year. Or when you look at the number of certified partners that monthly join the exclusive group of competent supporters. Or also when you look at the German festival which broke its own record again this year with 80 people attending.

Umbraco-Gründer Niels Hartvig bei seiner Keynote auf dem Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018

© Douglas Robar

Umbraco-Gründer Niels Hartvig bei seiner Keynote auf dem Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018

Another thing that is a big part of the keynote is the much-awaited demo of Umbraco 8 which is expected to be released this year. While the rest of the Umbraco world still needs to wait for Codegarden at the end of May, Niels shows the UFD18 audience exclusive insights to the new functions of v8 already now. Practical additions, important changes and cool new features – we’ll keep being excited!

Rune Strand und Mads Rasmussen bei ihrer Session auf dem UFD18

© Douglas Robar

Rune Strand und Mads Rasmussen bei ihrer Session auf dem UFD18

After a lengthy coffee break, the day full of sessions can definitely start: Rune Strand and Mads Rasmussen from the HQ are the first ones to go. The beloved duo – which UFD veterans know from their keynotes at previous German festivals – picked one of the newest buzz topics for their session: headless. Another talk which is much anticipated was Marcin Zajkowski’s “Scalable High-Traffic Solutions with Umbraco and Azure“. The Pole gives helpful tips and interesting insights – who knows, maybe he will elaborate on his thoughts at UFD’s Polish sister festival in September which he is the organiser of.

A Multitude of Topics

An invigorating meal is just the right thing now. After lunch, the sessions continue with Janus Boye in whose session a heated discussion breaks lose over the future of Umbraco. While Henk Boelman shows how easy it is to use various forms of artificial intelligence with Umbraco, the co-founder of Codecabin, Matt Brailsford, inspires his audience not only with his session “How I Fell in Love with VueJS”, but also with the many doodles on his slides that accompany his talk. Matt also doodled this awesome sketch – his very own summary of Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018. But see for yourself:

Matts Doodle vom UFD18

Matts Doodle vom UFD18

Matt regularly doodles on his Twitter account, too. He is also one half of the Umbraco development house Outfield Digital.

The Last Talks of the Day

The many coffee breaks between sessions leave time for attendees to socialise. Session topics are being discussed further, ideas are drafted. And the final coffee break with miniature cakes in the sunny inner courtyard is exactly what many attendees need before they head of to the final sessions of the day.

Umbraco-Gründer Niels Hartvig im Gespräch mit Umbraco-MVP Matt Brailsford

© Douglas Robar

Umbraco-Gründer Niels Hartvig im Gespräch mit Umbraco-MVP Matt Brailsford

This talk is all about strong partners: The duo Jens Josefsson and Martin Sandvad talks about the fusion of content and commerce. This trend topic is easily and most importantly quickly implemented with Umbraco – using Ucommerce’s newest product, Uccelerate. But Ucommerce’s project is not the only new one presented at UFD: byte5-er Marcel Wege and fellow “gardener” Markus Wortmann of non-profit organisation CMS Garden are presenting the SIWECOS project in their session. SIWECOS provides a free, reliable security check for websites and content management systems.

Lächelnde Gesichter unter den Zuhörern beim Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018

© Douglas Robar

Lächelnde Gesichter unter den Zuhörern beim Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018

“First Class from Start to Finish”

At 6 pm, the last talks have just ended, when outside the session rooms dinner is being set up. In the meantime, UFD host byte5 takes the time to thank all speakers and sponsors – the Umbraco HQ, Ucommerce and non-profit organisation CMS Garden – for their support.

Das byte5-Team bedankt sich bei den Speakern und Sponsoren des Umbraco-Festival Deutschlands 2018

© Douglas Robar

Das byte5-Team bedankt sich bei den Speakern und Sponsoren des Umbraco-Festival Deutschlands 2018

While the after-party is in full swing with delicious snacks from the buffet, a mystery guest joins the crowd. Magician Jennifer Martinez impresses her audience doing close-up magic – leaving some guests completely puzzled. With Umbraco cocktails from the bar and DJ music, festival attendees are enjoying themselves at the after-party. Now there’s finally time to reflect on the day and to tweet personal impressions and pictures using the hashtag #UFD18. When around 10 pm the party comes to an end, the hard core moves on to the party quarter of town. Their destination is a karaoke bar where one or the other unknown talent unfolds.

Die Gäste des Umbraco-Festival Deutschlands 2018 bei der After-Party

© Douglas Robar

Die Gäste des Umbraco-Festival Deutschlands 2018 bei der After-Party

A successful festival day comes to its end – time for a first evaluation. 18 speakers, 14 sessions and more guests than ever before. Just like Niels said in his keynote in the morning: This day is all about the community. It is the heart of Umbraco. And that Umbraco’s community is the friendliest on Earth was proven once more today. But how did our guests like UFD18? “It was an awesome festival! byte5 did amazing work to make it all happen. "First class from start to finish!”

Ein Gruppenbild vom fröhlichen Team von byte5 auf dem Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018

Ein Gruppenbild vom fröhlichen Team von byte5 auf dem Umbraco-Festival Deutschland 2018

Missed a session? All sessions were recorded and will be uploaded to our YouTube channel during the next days! We'll inform you on our Twitter.

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After UFD is before UFD! Anyone who missed the festival this year, should pencil in 5 April 2019 when the only German community conference returns for the seventh time.

We want to thank all our guests for an amazing festival day! A massive thank you to Doug Robar who took all the gorgeous photos! Take a look at his Flickr album to relive the whole day.

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