Laracon EU 2023 in Lisbon
Lisbon Instead of Amsterdam -- A First
Laracon EU has been held annually since 2014 -- usually in Amsterdam. But 2023 was different: for the first time, the conference moved to Lisbon. And after years of following the event from afar, I was finally there in person.
Laracon EU is the largest European conference for Laravel developers. Hundreds of developers from around the world come together to attend talks, exchange ideas, and learn from one another. For us as a specialized Laravel agency, it is the most important event on the calendar.
Not Just for Experts
What surprised me most: Laracon EU is not a purely technical conference. Sure, there were deep-dive sessions on testing, performance, and architecture patterns. But topics like work-life balance, inclusion in the tech industry, and dealing with imposter syndrome were equally part of the agenda. That is what makes this conference special -- it speaks to the whole person, not just the developer.
Some talks that particularly stood out to me:
Nuno Maduro on the future of Pest -- the testing framework we now use in every single project
Freek Van der Herten on Spatie packages and how to make open-source work sustainable
Taylor Otwell with the keynote on Laravel 10 -- the version that significantly modernized the framework
Why We Attend Conferences
You could argue that everything discussed at a conference can be found online. True. The talks are recorded, slides are shared, discussions happen on Twitter. But that is only half the story.
The real value lies in the conversations between sessions. At the coffee stand, over lunch, in the evening over a drink. That is where you learn how other teams solve similar problems. That is where you hear about packages that were not yet on your radar. And that is where you get honest feedback on your own architecture decisions -- from people who truly know what they are talking about.
For us as an agency, this feeds directly into our project work. Best practices we pick up at Laracon make their way into our code reviews and sprint planning. This is not some abstract professional development investment -- it concretely improves the software we build for our clients.
Lisbon Delivered
The move to Lisbon was an experiment -- and it worked. The city has a different energy than Amsterdam: warmer, more relaxed, with a growing tech scene. For me, Lisbon 2023 was the perfect introduction to the Laracon world -- and definitely not my last visit. A year later, it was back to Amsterdam: Our recap of Laracon EU 2024.