DrupalCon Lille 2023 Statistics Review

A few months ago, we shared some very interesting statistics of DrupalCon Lille 2023. At the beginning of this year, we revisit some of the curiosities. It's an opportunity to take stock, but above all, to ask the right questions, to prepare for DrupalCon Barcelona 2024.

Sponsors

Another year of more visitors and sponsor boots. The Lille exhibition allowed the public to discover many companies across multiple floors. A total of 14 sponsored sessions took place throughout the event, which is 3 more than in 2022.

While our main sponsors mainly consist of digital agencies, it is noted that there are significantly more website owners (11%) than in the previous edition. Their expectations and goals are more focused on the community and clients (both in terms of visibility and giving back).

Satisfaction is high. No sponsor reported dissatisfaction with the achievement of their objectives. The number, and quality of expected leads are still overwhelmingly meeting expectations. The event is therefore successful in solidifying the connections between agencies, the community, and potential clients. There is no doubt that the upcoming release of Drupal 11 (and the definitive end of life for Drupal 7) will ensure a similar success in the next edition.

Visitors

Overall, the event saw a very large participation with 1286 attendees, 70 more than the previous year. The most represented countries were France, Belgium, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany.

Among all participants, the notable presence of 9 people who benefited from grants or scholarships is particularly interesting, as their number has almost doubled compared to the previous year. This is a strong sign that the community continues its work of inclusion to ensure that everyone can participate. It is important to continue this effort because, as we will see later, questions remain about the strategy to be implemented to prioritize even more inclusivity.

It is primarily a professional audience coming from web agencies. It is especially the first DrupalCon for one person out of three. So, we continue to attract new faces to the community; it is now up to us to figure out how to attract them, but we have no doubt that our motto "come for the code, stay for the community" is still relevant.

The visitor satisfaction rate completely supports this, with over 92% of people giving positive feedback on the program and almost 85% of people willing to recommend the event to a colleague or friend. While the majority of people said they were very satisfied, we can still note a slight shift in ratings towards lower scores. We must not forget the context in which this convention took place. The European community is slowly getting back on track after the COVID period, and we now need to work with new attendance habits for this type of event. That is why it is important for the community to express its expectations so that these moments of exchange and sharing remain as relevant and enjoyable as possible for as many people as possible.

Sessions

In summary, DrupalCon Lille featured 5 tracks, 90 sessions, 6 workshops and panels, 4 keynotes, and 42 BoFs.

There was a significant decrease in participation in the "Makers & Builders" and "Agency & Business" tracks but increased interest in the "Clients & Industry Experiences" and "Open Web & Community" tracks. The most successful sessions remained primarily technical topics, covering various subjects in line with the challenges of the profession and community trends.

It is noteworthy that 9% of our speakers consider themselves as Drupal beginners or curious. This is a new point that emphasizes that we are a living community that regularly renews itself and regularly welcomes new members.

Diversity & Sustainability

Many sustainability actions were taken by Kuoni to make DrupalCon Lille a responsible event. A partnership with Terra Verde Sustainability helped reduce the carbon footprint on a range of factors: Travel & Accessibility, Towards Zero Waste, Catering, Well-Being, and Community.

A particular focus was given to the diversity of the event, both for the accessibility of the venues and through the implementation of various services and attentions such as the baby care lounge, a prayer room, identifiable lanyards to respect the privacy of visitors in our communication, etc.

A topic that deserves questioning and a response strategy is the overall decrease in diversity in the event's program. It is important for us to give more space and visibility to underrepresented individuals in our community. Unfortunately, we lack data to understand what is causing this decline, but we want to anticipate this point for the next DrupalCon.

The scholarships & grants committee will soon publish an article proposing measures to work in this direction. We will continue to work in the future in this direction, and we remain attentive to all underrepresented individuals to amplify their voices in the community.

Thank you again for your participation! DrupalCon Lille 2023 was a great success that cannot be simply summarized by numbers. It was above all a human adventure that cannot be summarized as simply as trends in a synthetic article. Thanks to all the people who made all these changes possible and who continue to work on improving future editions.

You can find the complete report here.