My PyCon 2026 Experience

Welcome back to Cameron's Corner! This past week, I attended my first PyCon in Long Beach, CA. While I have organized and attended regional Python conferences, namely PyData NYC and PyBay, nothing really prepared me for the scale of PyCon.

A selfie of Cameron with his PyCon 2026 badge

My flight to Long Beach was delayed, so I ended up running through the venue with my suitcase just to make it to the Newcomer Orientation. I would strongly recommend attending this session if it is your first PyCon. It makes one thing clear right away: the conference is much more than just the talks on the schedule.

The scale of PyCon really hit me during newcomer orientation. The room was massive, there were probably as many “newcomers” as there were attendees at an entire regional conference I previously attended.

Visually, I must admit that I was "wowed". Vaporwave style posters, bold badges everywhere, branding across the entire space, and a large archway guiding you down into the expo hall. It felt like stepping into a city built entirely around Python.

Day 0 - Arrival and Welcome Reception

Once orientation wrapped up, we went straight into the welcome reception in the expo hall. Sponsors were fully set up, snacks and drinks were flowing, and the space already felt alive.

I recognized a few familiar faces, but most of the reception turned into a simple goal for the night: talk to as many people as possible and keep moving.

The room was big enough that you could drift from group to group without ever really “finishing” it. At the reception alone, I spoke with more than 20 people, bouncing between conversations that ranged from first-time attendees to long-time maintainers, just catching up with each other.

What stood out most was the range of attendees. Some were dataframe enthusiasts like myself, some were brand new to Python, some had been using Python longer and could cite the deep magic to you, some were open source veterans, others were educators, and some were actively looking for their first contributions. Everyone had a different path in, but the shared thread was curiosity.

Day 1 - The Hallway Track Takes Over

I had planned to attend talks and even mapped out a full schedule in the morning. That did not last long.

Instead, I spent almost the entire day on the hallway track, moving from one conversation to the next.

In the morning, I had coffee with a group of people I had just met, then drifted through conversations until I landed in an Open Space on tabular data led by Matt Harrison. We discussed efficient ways to store and process tabular data, along with the subtle differences between popular dataframe libraries.

After lunch, I ended up in a long conversation with Jeroen and Michael from Posit about Great Tables. I originally met them the previous day at the Welcome Reception because I had Narwhals on my badge, and they were handing out Narwhals stickers at the Posit booth. I grabbed one, put it on my laptop immediately, and that turned into a deep dive on dataframe tooling, APIs, and where the ecosystem has been and where it is heading.

Across the day, conversations naturally clustered around data, AI tooling, packaging, open source sustainability, and teaching Python. What stood out was how organic it all felt. People genuinely wanted to share what they were working on.

In the evening, I met up with some PyBay friends for dinner, then returned to the hotel to work on my 3-minute talk for the Maintainers Summit the next day.

Day 2 - Maintainers, Open Spaces, and Lightning Talks

The second full day was somehow just as intense, if not more so.

I started the day in a DevRel Open Space focused on community building in open source. It was helpful to hear how DevRel fits into different organizations and the different strategies people use to balance community work with product and brand goals.

After that, I gave a short update on Narwhals at the Maintainers Summit, which was energizing and seemed to land quite well. People were genuinely excited about Narwhals. A maintainer from Pandera even told me I would likely need to update a slide I had full of our downstream project logos in a few weeks because they are planning to merge Narwhals support.

Later in the day, I attended lightning talks. One that really stuck with me was given by Ned Batchelder, who talked about leaving space for other people in conversation. Not just physical space, but social space. Making room for people who are not as quick to jump in, especially in new groups. That idea has stayed with me.

In the evening, I attended the PyLadies Auction as my friend Inessa Pawson had wholeheartedly recommended it to me. I arrived a bit late, I couldn't seem to stop bumping into people on my way to it, so I had to find a seat in the middle of a packed room. The energy was high, a bit chaotic in a good way, and people were fully engaged while bidding and raising money for a great cause.

I also ended up sitting near several maintainers from the Python packaging ecosystem (conda, pip, pip-tools). That turned into an unexpectedly dense and insightful crash course in how that ecosystem works behind the scenes.

Final Day - Closing Conversations

By the last day, energy was starting to wind down, but the conversations were just as meaningful. I spent most of the day finding all of my new friends and bidding our farewells to make sure I reconnected with as many people as possible before leaving.

Closing Thoughts

Overall, I cannot recommend attending PyCon enough. I went for the talks, but I but fell in love with the community.

Across three days, I had great conversations with 63 people, 55 of whom I had never met before (yes, I counted). PyCon is a great place to put yourself out there. Find a group, walk up, and introduce yourself.

You already have something in common with everyone there: Python.

Ask what people are working on, share what you are building, and keep showing up in conversations. You will find your people. There is a group here for everyone. I'm already planning my PyCon 2027 trip. I hope to see you there!