Recommended Conferences/Classroom Training

Good morning,

whilst I have learnt a lot about testing via the web, be it blogs, online courses etc. I’d like to start attending a few testing
conferences as I feel that attending these workshops and meeting like minded people is a good way to learn in addition to what is on the web.

So my question is which conferences have people been to and which ones are recommended? I’m based in the UK but I’m happy to travel
abroad, if necessary, to attend conferences which are highly regarded! Might actually allow me to have a bit of a holiday too!

Andy

Hi Andrew,

Well, UK wise the immediate ones I would recommend are TestBash Manchester and Brighton, organised by Ministry of Testing. I’ve done Manchester once and Brighton twice, and found them to be really good.

https://testingconferences.org/ is a good website for details of testing conferences across the world, and then if there are any you can get to, you could ask about specific ones as you might get a stronger response by asking about them instead of in general.

Depending where you are in the UK, have you looked into seeing if there are any Meetups near you? As whilst conferences are useful, they aren’t very often, and can be pricey. Where with Meetups you have the perks of low cost (if not free, which most are), and generally once a month. It is also easier to network and speak with people as the numbers are more manageable compared to the hundreds that turn up at a conference.

Hey Andrew :wave:

I think any comments by me about TestBash may be perceived as biased but I have blogs about them from before my start date of working for Ministry of Testing. I went to 4 before I became an employee and they were streets ahead of other conferences I attended at the time.

I would second Lee’s comments about https://testingconferences.org/, it’s a really useful site. One thing I also take into consideration when looking at conferences to attend is: Are the speaker’s expenses covered or is it completely pay to speak. Might seem silly from an attendees perspective but it’s a good way of checking that there’s the potential for a very diverse group of speakers. @maaret has a great spreadsheet on this!

In my limited experience of attending pay to speak conferences, the content has the potential to be quite sales pitchy which is totally fine if you’re looking to buy products but I wasn’t at the time.

One conference I don’t see on either of the links is SoftTest in Dublin which is not pay to speak, reasonably priced and had a really good line up last year. It was 2 tracks, one of talks and one for workshops that were first come first served.

I also like attending conferences where I can access the talks afterward. On that note, I enjoyed NTD 2018 because some talks I missed but I was able to catch the recordings afterward.

Leeds Testing Atelier is also a great one to keep an eye out for! A community run, multi-track conference and the tickets are free. Talks there are also recorded and shared afterward.

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Downside with Leeds Testing Atelier is it sells out so fast due to being free and having a great reputation thanks to all the people involved! Which is good and bad at the same time.

The www.questforquality.eu conference is the way to go, really amazing conference in Dublin.