A First Big Update
Ten months until HeartConf. We’re counting down! It feels like a lifetime away, but snap your fingers and another month has passed. Last June I took the train up to Mechelen to see the Lamot Congress and Heritage Center with my own eyes. Two weeks later the contract was signed, and the real work to make HeartConf a reality could begin.
A lot has been done already. After confirming the venue, the next step was to develop a fresh house brand. HeartConf builds on the legacy of Heart of Clojure, but has a new name, venue, and scope. Like a Pokémon evolution, it’s bigger and better, while still sharing clear similarities with its predecessor.
The brand style for HeartConf 2027 is uncompromisingly bold. Thick lines, bright mustard yellow, hot pink that jumps off the page. It reminds us that technology can still be fun and exciting, welcoming and inspiring. It’s also meant to remind us that, at the end of the day, technology is human. Technology is techne, it is art. It is humans making choices, to the delight, or the detriment, of others. We have so much we need to talk about, which is why we are bringing people together under one roof, for two days of talks, discussion, and genuine connection.
A New Hope Home
The first edition of Heart of Clojure took place at Hal 5 in Leuven, an old railway workshop hall turned community and event venue. The second edition we added Het Depot, an old cinema turned concert hall. The extra real estate allowed us to have a dedicated community space, our reified hallway track, while giving our speakers a proper stage to shine.
For HeartConf we followed the river Dijle to Mechelen, a charming Belgian city which in the late 15th and early 16th century served as capital of the Habsburg Netherlands. For two days we’ll make ourselves at home at Lamot, a former brewery which is now a fully decked out congress center. It’s a major upgrade, while retaining the old industrial charm, in a picturesque, historic setting.
Lamot has no fewer than nine different spaces at our disposal. A beautiful auditorium. A spacious bar area where we’ll house sponsors and hold breaks. There are two more big spaces, one of which will be the Reified Hallway Track, the other we’ll use to host a second conference track. Take the 3D tour to explore the venue yourself!
So far we have one of the other spaces earmarked for a Quiet Room, a space with the vibes of a library. No screens, hushed voices, the ideal place to decompress if you’re feeling overstimulated. There are some ideas of what to do with the others, but nothing final yet. We’ll certainly revisit this topic in future newsletters!
Tickets go on sale this Sunday!
At this point HeartConf is an empty box. It’s a good box. We made it look pretty, and we know it has space for lots of amazing content. Over the next nine months that box will fill up. With speakers, attendees, and sponsors.
Ticket sales will go live on Sunday, the 18th of October, at 10:00am Belgian time. We’ll have a limited block of Early Bird tickets, and experience shows these go fast, so don’t sleep on it.
Personal (B2C) tickets will go on sale for €349, business tickets (B2B, with VAT invoice) are €499. Early birds will go on sale for €299. All tickets include two days of talks and activities, and catered lunch.
The call for speakers is expected to go live around mid November. You’ll be able to send in proposals across multiple topics and tracks. Expect an update by then about the themes and topics we’re especially interested in for this edition.
Looking for Sponsors
Sponsors are essential for a conference like HeartConf, and sponsors that can commit early count double. They give us the budgetary headroom to truly make this an extraordinary event. It allows us to spend more on the finer things in life, like food and drink, but it also means we can consider bringing in speakers from further afield, or with a bigger public profile. Sponsoring allows us to record talks and offer them online, free of charge.
We’ve put together a number of attractive packages. One of the great things about moving to Lamot is that we have much more space. This means a lot more attractive floor real estate to offer to sponsors. It’s a major upgrade over the previous two editions, one that we hope potential sponsors will appreciate.
If you or your company is considering sponsoring, then do get in touch!. Tell us what’s important to you, as a sponsor, and we’ll do our best to accommodate.
If you’re not in a position to sponsor yourself, but you have a warm contact that you can introduce us to, then please do get in touch as well.
Picture of Mechelen
To wrap up, enjoy this picture I took last week, of Mechelen’s central market square, with the St. Rumbold’s tower in the background.
