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‎docs/blog/posts/2025-conference-recap.md‎

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---
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title: 2025 Conference Recap
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date: 2024-05-14
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categories:
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- Conference Updates
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authors:
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- masonegger
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---
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The annual PyTexas Conference was held at the Austin Central Library April 11 - 13, 2024 in Austin, TX.
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It was fantasic year, with new record breaking events.
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We're excited to share some behind the scenes data with you.
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<!-- more -->
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## PyTexas 2025 Conference
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The 2025 conference was one for the memory books.
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From fantastic speakers, generous sponsors, and an always welcoming Community, the conference was alive with conversation and friendship.
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It was great to many people this year returning, wearing their PyTexas shirts from previous years, as well as seeing them bring their friends to come enjoy the conference.
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Without any further ado, let's discuss PyTexas 2025.
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## What Was New This Year?
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PyTexas has a philosophy of incremental change.
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### Live Captions
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During the pandemic many conferences moved to virtual formats, and as they
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returned to in-person activities, they included a hybrid experience. PyTexas 2020
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was originally planned as an in-person event that shifted to virtual out of necessity.
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In 2021 the organizers decided to take a hiatus and evaluate the situation again
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in 2022. In 2022, PyTexas was the first Python conference globally to come back
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in-person in March, just prior to PyCon US in Salt Lake City. At that time, funding
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and staffing were _severely_ limited, so we were unable to do a hybrid experience.
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These limitations continued into 2023, leading to a in-person only conference for
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both years.
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However, in 2024, we were finally staffed and financially stable enough to experiment
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with a hybrid conference. We decided to take a more novel approach and run our
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hybrid conference through the [PyTexas Discord Server](https://discord.gg/jNPAbcNukj).
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We have been building a community on Discord since 2022, which now hosts our virtual
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meetup, so we thought it would be a good experiment to hold our virtual conference
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there.
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We are happy to report that our hybrid conference was a success. We sold 43 virtual
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tickets, and attendees who had an in-person ticket were also able to join the virtual
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experience. We had many in-person attendees thank us for this experience, as some
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had to step out for brief periods and were still able to attend the conference.
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One thing we strived for this year was to blend the in-person and virtual experience
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as much as possible so attendees from both would be able to interact with each other.
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We did this a few ways. First, we encouraged people to chat in a conference-specific
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Discord text chat. Both in-person and virtual attendees engaged with each other
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and bridged the gap. We were very pleased with the level of interaction that was
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occurring. Next, we used [Slido](https://www.slido.com/) for all speaker questions.
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This decision was highly praised by both attendees and speakers alike. Slido
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allowed us to have attendees, either remote or in-person, ask questions
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to the speaker during their talk. Other attendees could see these questions and
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upvote the ones they also wanted to ask. We had our organizers moderating the
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questions and approving them prior to being visible, which allowed us to ensure
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safety for our speakers and attendees. The questions were then asked _into the
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microphone_ on stage by our emcees, allowing the speaker to answer and the question
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to be recorded on video. This sped up our Q&A portion and made speakers feel
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more comfortable answering questions.
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Overall, the hybrid experience was a success, and we look forward to continuing
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with it in the future.
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###
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Tutorials are not new to the PyTexas Conference, but it is the first time we've
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had tutorials since 2017. Long-time attendee, speaker, and Keynoter
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[Andrew "Pandy" Knight](https://www.pytexas.org/2024/schedule/tutorials/#def-test_my_code_with_pytest)
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and organizer [Mason Egger](https://www.pytexas.org/2024/schedule/tutorials/#def-test_my_code_with_pytest) delivered the tutorials this year. We did not hold
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an open CFP for tutorials this year, but instead preselected our presenters. We made
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this choice because we weren't sure what the turnout would be for the tutorials,
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so we decided to select people who are known PyTexas regulars who would attend
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either way and were willing to take the gamble on attendance.
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Fortunately, tutorials were a smashing success. We sold 97 tutorial tickets this year,
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which were an add-on to the main conference and gave access to both tutorials.
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Nearly every tutorial ticket holder checked in and attended at least one tutorial,
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with the vast majority attending both.
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The community reaction to tutorials was universally strong and we're excited
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to bring tutorials back next year. We're still deciding if we're going to open
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a CFP for tutorials next year, but signs are trending in that direction.
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## Attendance
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2024 was a record breaking year for ticket sales. This year we sold 319 attendance
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tickets. We sold 276 in-person tickets and 43 virtual tickets. We initially set
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our capacity at 250 in-person attendees, then had to increase it two weeks prior
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to the conference to 275. Somehow, we had an off-by-one error and wound up selling
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276 in-person tickets. Of the 276 tickets sold, we had 229 attendees check in.
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### Statistics
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**Location**
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![Attendee Location chart](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/Location2024.svg){: width="500"}
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![Attendee Texas City chart](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/TexasCity2024.svg){: width="500"}
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* **81.5%** of attendees were from Texas
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* **59.2%** from Austin
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* **14.1%** from Houston
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* **12.7%** from Dallas - Fort Worth
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* **9.9%** from San Antonio
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* **4.2%** from other areas in Texas
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* **13.9%** are from other states within the United States
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* **4.6%** were from outside the United States
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**Roles**
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![Attendee roles chart](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/roles2024.svg){: width="500"}
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* **42.8%** - Software Engineer
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* **11.6%** - Students
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* **8.7%** - Marketing/Sales/Business
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* **8.1%** - DevOps
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* **6.4%** - Data Science
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* **5.2%** - Hobbyist/Enthusiast
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* **4.6%** - Executive/Senior Leadership
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* The rest consists of ML Engineers, Security, People Managers, Product Management, QA
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**Experience**
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![Attendee experience chart](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/years2024.svg){: width="500"}
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* **11.6%** - Less than 1 year
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* **24.9%** - 1 to 3 years
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* **20.2%** - 4 to 7 years
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* **20.2%** - 7 to 15 years
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* **23.1%** - 15+ years
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**Orders by Day**
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![PyTexas Orders By Day](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/PyTexas-2024-Ticket-Sales.PNG)
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A few conclusions we've made based on ticket sales this year and years prior:
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* You have your "regulars" who attend every year. They will take advantage of
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early bird sales.
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* Announcements drive ticket sales. We saw noticeable increases after we announced
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keynotes, tutorials, speakers, etc.
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* The largest increase was after we released the talk schedule.
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* You will still sell a majority of your tickets in the month leading up to the event.
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## Sponsors
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Sponsorship in the return to in-person conferences world have been few and far
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between. We are immensely grateful our sponsors this year,
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[Temporal Technologies](https://temporal.io) and [AppSignal](https://www.appsignal.com/)
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for their support. We also want to thank the [Python Software Foundation](https://python.org)
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for their generous grant.
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Without them certain portions of our event would simply not have been financially possible.
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### Statistics
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This year we brought in **$12,750** from sponsorships and grants. We reached out
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to roughly 50 companies this year to sponsor PyTexas. When they responded, the
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response was usually:
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* We aren't sponsoring events right now.
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* You aren't big enough for us to consider.
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* We haven't finalized event plans, we'll get back to you.
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We publish this information not to shame companies who aren't sponsoring. We
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understand the current economic climate. We write this so that other conference
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organizers who are experiencing the same thing don't feel like it's just them.
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It's everyone.
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## Finances
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PyTexas 2024 cost **$36,657.59** to operate. The largest budget items for us
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were venue, catering, A/V, and our after party. We sold 319 tickets of varying cost,
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including add-ons such as shirts, tutorials, and the after party, and made **$36,545.00**
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in gross revenue (prior to fees). To the best of our knowledge, this is the first
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year that ticket sales were able to completely fund the conference. This was possible
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due to the increase in capacity for in-person, plus the addition of a virtual ticket.
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All excess funds from this year will be used to fund ongoing PyTexas programs such
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as the meetup, infrastructure costs, and any future PyTexas event (such as the [PyTexas 2025 Conference](https://pytexas.org/2025)).
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## Speakers
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This was by far one of the most exciting speaker lineups we've ever had! We continue
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to get compliments on how good the talks were and how much everyone enjoyed them.
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This year we were overjoyed to invite [Lynn Root](https://www.roguelynn.com/)
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and [Carol Willing](https://www.willingconsulting.com/) to keynote this year. Both
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gave _phenomenal_ keynotes that people kept raving about.
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From teaching Python, to AI/ML, to DevOps, to using Python for audio, this year
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we had something for everyone.
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### CFP Statistics
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CFP submissions this year broke yet another record of ours, the most submissions
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to our CFP. Here's some stats:
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* 103 submissions from 81 speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds.
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* 5 indicated they were first time speakers
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* 59 indicated they had never spoken at PyTexas before
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The vast majority of our CFP submissions came in within the last few weeks of the
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CFP
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![CFP Submission Graph](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/CFP-Submissions.svg)
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#### The Prevalence of DevRel
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Due to the recent anecdotes and social media posts about Developer Relations
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professionals dominating conference speaking slots, we decided to ask our speakers
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if they were considered "Professional Speakers", meaning they work in Developer
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Relations, Sales, Marketing, or any part of their job requires them to speak
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at conferences.
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**This year we only gathered data, no decisions about acceptances were made based on this data.**
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* 16/81 speakers submitted to PyTexas responded to "Are you a professional Speaker" with yes
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* 21/103 proposals are from this group
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* 4 speakers had talks initially accepted out of an 18 slot lineup
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* 3 of these speakers declined or had to cancel, along with 3 others who do not consider themselves professional speakers
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* In the filling of these 6 rejections, 2 more professional speakers were accepted
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* This leads us to a final of 3 speakers who consider themselves professional speakers out of 18 talks that are scheduled, leading us to ~17% of our conference being made up of professional speakers.
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**Tutorials and Keynote Speakers are not included in this calculation.**
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### Speaker Statistics
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We had a _great_ selection of diverse speakers this year. Here's a more in-depth
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breakdown of this years speakers:
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#### Speaker Race/Ethnicity
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![Speaker Race Statistics](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/speaker-race.png)
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* **63.6%** - White/Caucasian
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* **22.7%** - Asian/Pacific Islander
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* **4.5%** - Jewish
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* **4.5%** - Black or African American
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* **4.5%** - Hispanic
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#### Speaker Gender
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![Speaker Gender Statistics](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/speaker-gender.png)
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* **59.1%** - Male
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* **31.8%** - Female
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* **4.5%** - Non-binary
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* **4.5%** - Prefer not to say
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#### Speaker Professional Role
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![Speaker Role Statistics](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/speaker-role.png)
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* **27.3%** - Data Scientist
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* **18.2%** - Developer Relations
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* **13.6%** - DevOps
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* **9.1%** - Academic (Teacher, Professor, etc)
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* **9.1%** - QA
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* **9.1%** - Machine Learning Engineer
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* **4.5%** - Senior Leadership
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* **4.5%** - Cyber Security
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* **4.5%** - Student
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#### Speaker Location
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![Speaker Location Statistics](../../assets/images/blog/2024-conference-recap/speaker-location.png)
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* **86.4%** - Outside of Texas but within the United States
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* **13.6%** - Texas Resident
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## Opportunity Grants
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Every year we offer opportunity grants to community members who request assistance
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to attend PyTexas. In 2023 we provided a total of $1000 to two members of our community so
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they could attend. This year we were proud to be able to **more than double** the
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amount of money we were able to disperse. This year we provided a total of $2500 to five
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individuals to attend, all of whom came from under represented communities in tech!
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While we weren't able to provide financial assistance to every applicant, we
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were able to provide free virtual tickets to every person who applied for assistance
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so they could watch and interact with the conference, regardless of their location.
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## Conclusion
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2024 was by far our most exciting and largest PyTexas event yet. It was heartening
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to surpass our pre-pandemic numbers, and not by a little, but a **lot**. We're
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excited to continue to see the Python community in Texas grow and to continue
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providing events for the forseeable future. All recordings of the talks can be
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found on the [PyTexas 2024 website](https://www.pytexas.org/2024/schedule/full_schedule/)
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or on our [YouTube Channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rAMLQkY7TZM&list=PL0MRiRrXAvRjMAfx42eiokiAmfclUX-6S).
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[PyTexas 2025](https://pytexas.org/2025) dates have already been set, we'll
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be returning to the [Austin Central Public Library](https://library.austintexas.gov/central-library) April 11 - 13, 2025.
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We hope to see y'all there!
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