DrupalCon Europe plays an important role in moving Drupal forward. However, with waning attendance and financial losses, it’s time to find a new path forward so it is sustainable and continues to provide unique value. This blog proposes a better path forward for hosting a sustainable and valuable DrupalCon Europe . This blog is part of a series that includes:

We are now at the end of our blog series. Thank you for digesting so much content. Determining the strategic direction for a region’s event is rather complex and there are many facets to understand. It was important to us to share all of the details with you.

The Drupal Association is a mission-based organization and not a business that makes purely financial decisions. Rather, we employ staff who are personally invested in achieving our mission. We feel it is imperative to find the best way to serve the European community and we took great care over the last several months to find a path forward that would achieve this.

We don’t see this exercise as just determining an event’s strategy, but how can we further the special and profound human experience that takes place when Drupalers come together in person.

In the end, we see that Europe needs a clear goal for DrupalCon so that the energy put into creating it truly strikes at the community needs, strategically moves the project forward in a sustainable way, and creates the human experience that Europeans want. Currently, the community is expressing competing goals. We believe that the European community is best suited to determine what the region needs DrupalCon to achieve, and especially because of the feedback from the community discussions, we want to give the region more agency to drive DrupalCon’s programming.

A Little History

The Drupal Association became an official 501(c)3 U.S. non-profit in 2011, and our first focus was hosting DrupalCon London (ok, Croydon). Since that time, Drupal events have grown and matured, like DrupalCamp London, Dev Days, and Frontend United. We are thrilled to see Drupal events in Europe doing so well and we are thankful for the volunteers who are making that happen.

What this maturity likely means is that Europe has the ability to drive DrupalCon Europe forward, tailoring it more closely to the region’s needs. We just need an operational model that allows us to give the event to the community without negatively impacting the community.

When DrupalCon was produced by the community before DrupalCon London, the event became too big for volunteers alone to manage. It put a lot of strain on the community. That’s why the Drupal Association took over event production. In the process, we managed to professionalize the event, but we also applied a US model and we know that doesn’t feel authentic to attendees. The waning attendance and sponsorship reinforces that the event is not meeting needs, and the financial losses and staff working at over-capacity highlights that we are applying the wrong operational model.

It is time to break the mold and approach DrupalCon Europe completely differently. I believe the best approach to explore is a licensing model. That’s a contractual term for giving an entity the right to run a DrupalCon.

Licensing DrupalCon

There may be several operational models to explore and I want to hear about them from you. Until then, I’d like to share why we should consider the licensing approach.

Licensing gives the European community the agency they have asked for so they can create an event that is more European and has more desirable content. Once we get this model to work in Europe, we can leverage this creativity so other regions and countries can have DrupalCon too, like China, India, Australia, Brazil, or Costa Rica. This change expands DrupalCon’s reach and impact, moving the project forward in a strategic and global way.

While I have the rough concept in mind, I don’t have all the answers on how to license DrupalCon, but here are some broad brush strokes:

We want to give DrupalCon to a community-based entity that has proven event experience and demonstrated ability to serve the community. The entity needs to be grounded in the community so they can decide how to best serve the region’s needs and move the project forward in the right ways.

The Drupal Association would have some requirements that protect the brand experience such a Driesnote to kick off the event, the venue needs to meet certain needs like accessibility, the Code of Conduct must be applied so the event remains welcoming, there is diversity in speakers and attendance, and the official DrupalCon branding is used.

The Drupal Association would also have financial and reporting requirements, but we need to feel our way through what this looks like. We encourage the event organizer to make the event profitable and we would apply a license fee schedule as they become more sustainable.

The Drupal Association wants the event organizers to have freedom to tailor the event to the region’s unique needs. What Europe needs may be completely different from what Brazil needs, should they want their own DrupalCon as some point. The event organizer would pick who the target audience is, the programming structure, etc.

Clearly there are many details to work out if we go down this path. However, we can look to other Open Source Software projects who use this model to gain insights and best practices.

It will take time to set up this structure. The Drupal Association needs to work on this internally and as we mentioned before, we have a serious capacity issue that prevents us from working on this initiative while also producing DrupalCon.

The only way to free up staff capacity to work out a long-term solution is for Drupal Association to not host DrupalCon Europe in 2018.

DrupalCon Europe 2018

“What? Did she really just say what I think she said?” Yes, it’s true. I did say that the Drupal Association will not be hosting DrupalCon Europe in 2018. It doesn’t feel good saying this and I labored over this decision with others on the board and in the community for a long time. But, sometimes you have to take a step back to take a big step forward. Europe deserves a better DrupalCon that feels authentic and meets their needs. And countries around the world deserve access to this very special event.

We know that these changes could feel like Europe is being abandoned or not supported as much as the U.S. We empathize with those who may feel this way and that is certainly not what we want to convey. I want to be clear that the Drupal Association will definitely support Europe in 2018.

Supporting European Drupal Events in 2018

European Drupal events are strong and make a big impact. They are important Drupal contribution and adoption engines and we want to give those engines more fuel in 2018. In order to do that, the Drupal Association commits to the following:

Dries will keynote some European Drupal events

Drupal Association will aggregate and market European Drupal events to our lists and through our channels

Drupal Association will email our sponsors, encouraging them to sponsor camps

Drupal Association wil host 2-3 community organizer virtual round tables to foster knowledge sharing and problem solving.

What are other ways we can support Europe in 2018?

Here are some other ways we can support Europe in 2018. Let us know if these ideas could better serve the European community:

Camps bid to host DrupalCon Europe 2018. Camps have very similar programming to a DrupalCon and Dries could provide a Driesnote, While this is a viable option to keep DrupalCon alive in 2018, event organizers pointed out that this has some downsides to consider.

The camp will need to cap the attendance to the size for their venue.

Even though the expectation would be to run the camp as usual with the additional DrupalCon elements like a Driesnote, organizers and volunteers could get burnt out, and that helps no one.

Camps bid to be the “Official Camp of the Region in 2018”. I’m sure we can come up with a better name, but the idea is that camps bid for why community members should come to their camp. Then they get the “Official Camp To Go To in 2018” status and the Drupal Association will help promote that camp. Community organizers felt this idea has some merit because: It doesn’t put pressure on camps to be something more. They can produce the program they are used to providing. Of course, more people may attend that camp and the organizers have to be prepared for this - or know when and how to cut off registration so they are not overwhelmed. We create a new concept that can be leveraged in other regions



What do you feel is the best way to serve Europe in 2018? We want to hear. Tell us in the comments section and or meet us in the meetings listed below.

What About DrupalCon North America?

Community members asked me why we are only making a change to DrupalCon Europe and not to DrupalCon North America. It’s a good question. The simple answer is that DrupalCon North America is financially stable and growing. It provides 45% of our total revenue and that funds Drupal.org. The Drupal Association needs to be very mindful that changes don’t impact this important funding source.

Learn More at DrupalCon Vienna

Again, thank you for taking this journey with us to understand the challenges we have been facing with DrupalCon Europe and how we can solve them, together. I am encouraged by the many community members who have helped us and I look forward to moving this discussion forward in person at DrupalCon Vienna.

Please join me at the following sessions to discuss 2018 and beyond:

Community Summit

BoF 1

Tuesday from 10:45-11:45 - Galerie 5-6

https://events.drupal.org/vienna2017/bofs/drupal-associations-support-europe-2018

BoF 2

Tuesday from 14:15-15:15 - Galerie 5-6

https://events.drupal.org/vienna2017/bofs/explore-new-model-drupalcon-europe

Drupal Association Board Meeting

Wednesday from 11:45 - 13:00 - Business Suite 3-4 and you can dial in via zoom

Post DrupalCon Virtual Meeting