Wagtail and Django join forces at PyConUS 2025
Bringing together Django ponies and Wagtail birds made a powerful team of champions for Python web development
Rather than flying separately, the Django and Wagtail communities decided to flock together at PyConUS to raise awareness of our Python-powered web development packages. By collaborating, we increased awareness of our tools and our communities within the broader universe of Python programming and showed attendees that Python's strengths go beyond data science and machine learning.
Here are some highlights and photos from our favorite parts of PyConUS.
Ponies, wagtails, and spaceships were in demand at the opening reception
The Django Software Foundation (DSF) had a booth in the exhibit hall this year, and they very generously agreed to share their space with Wagtail. We had a full sticker parade of Django ponies and Wagtail birds set out for the opening night reception and hundreds of people packed the exhibit hall to enjoy drinks, snacks, and a chance to catch up with their Python friends.
Many existing Django and Wagtail fans stopped to collect stickers along with several new people who didn't realize that Python web frameworks existed. They were thrilled to learn that they could use Python for building websites too. Multiple Django and Wagtail community members took turns sitting at the booth and championing our favorite software throughout the night and throughout the weekend. We even raised some money from kind-hearted folks who decided on the spot to provide some financial support to the DSF!
Wagtail and Django took the big stage at the lightning talks ⚡
Three community members got to share Django and Wagtail on one of the biggest stages at PyCon during the lightning talk sessions. On the first night, Meagen Voss shared how a goat GIF with a high frame rate caused some chaos on her Wagtail website in Maaah! How I Killed My Site with a Goat GIF. Then, during the Saturday morning session, Eric Matthes showed off his simplified deployment package in django-simple-deploy: Deployment for Djangonauts with deadlines and Mario Munoz discussed the Django ORM in ORM? OMG!! Their talks put Wagtail and Django in front of hundreds of attendees who laughed and learned about topics ranging from fire data to archery during these rapid-fire talk sessions.
Packed open space on Python web dev tools
At PyCon, attendees can reserve space and host their own meetup sessions called Open Spaces. On Saturday, Jeff Triplett and Meagen Voss co-hosted a packed open space session on Python web dev tools that drew a large crowd of people who were new to using Python web dev as well as some existing fans who were curious about the latest developments for Wagtail and Django.
Two other Django community members hosted Open Spaces as well the following day. Eric Matthes brought together people who were interested in the django-simple-deploy project and Peter Baumgartner hosted a session on High-performance Django for people who are interested in getting the most efficiency out of their Django projects. The Open Spaces gave Djangonauts and Wagtailers a chance to meet each other, connect, and share the latest tips and tricks they have for producing excellent web projects.
A fun evening at the PyLadies auction
Wagtail and Django had the opportunity to participate in one of the most fun traditions of the PyLadies annual auction. In the past, when the PyLadies auction was short of their funding goal, some brilliant person decided to sell the auctioneer's pen. Now, it has become tradition to auction off the pen plus whatever bits and bobs the audience piles on top of the pen as "last-minute" donations.
This year's pen lot included several Django and Wagtail stickers along with a very coveted Wagtail enamel pin. Other items in the pile of loot included a chocolate biscuit, a Dunkin Donuts loyalty card, a museum pamphlet, a set of juggling balls, a two-dollar bill, and much much more! This random collection wound up raising $2,100 for PyLadies and will support Python mentoring for women and girls around the world.
Wagtail poster on low-emissions websites drew a crowd
Vince Salvino and Thibaud Colas created a poster on building low-carbon websites with Wagtail. During the poster session, there was a continuous stream of people visiting the poster. So many, that Vince almost lost his voice talking to them. People enjoyed seeing the research Wagtail has done on sustainability and loved hearing that there were steps they could take (like offering dark mode) that could lead to measurably fewer emissions. Several of them also came over to visit Meagen at the Wagtail + Django community table where she answered their questions and walked them through live demos.
Other things we loved about PyCon
We need to take a moment to gush about the talks because the organizers picked some real winners this year. Cory Doctorow's opening keynote and his call to build the better Internet humanity needs to thrive ended in thunderous applause as it should have. Hynek Schlawack's talk, Design Pressure: The Invisible Hand That Shapes Your Code drew a huge crowd and he demonstrated how unfortunate patterns can make their way into your code architecture despite well-intentioned attempts to follow best practices. The final keynote of the conference by Dr. Kari Jordan on creating stronger communities ended with a soulful singalong that got everyone singing, "We are family! We are the Python community!" There were also SO many talks on accessibility this year that we couldn't go to all of them. We approve of this trend! This Talk Has Been Disabled by Dawn Cooper was definitely a highlight and real-world examples of accessibility fails and wins in software design.
So MANY volunteers and organizers to be grateful for!
This event wouldn't have been half as amazing without all of the efforts of the PyConUS organizers, the Python Software Foundation, and the volunteers who made the DSF booth happen. We'd like to shout out, in alphabetical order, Thibaud Colas, Abigail Afi Gbadago, Peter Grandstaff, Jacob Kaplan-Moss, Marcelo Elizeche Landó, Baptiste Mispelon, Vince Salvino, Jeff Triplett, and Meagen Voss for making our hit stickers happen and for staffing the booth so that people could get all their burning Django and Wagtail questions answered. There were several other people who came and went throughout the conference. So if your name is missing, please let us know! We appreciate each and every one of you for being enthusiastic community champions!
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