(EEConf - the only technical conference with a Beatles cover band!)
This past October, three members of the Creative Arc team packed their bags and hopped across the pond to attend the ExpressionEngine 2025 conference (EEConf) in London. Building on the enthusiasm from last year's event in sunny San Diego, we were eager to exchange ideas with our peers in Europe and immerse ourselves in the latest insights shaping the world of ExpressionEngine and web development.
A Conference That Combines Learning and Community
One of the biggest reasons we love attending EEConf is the opportunity to break out of our daily workspace and recharge with fresh thinking. The blend of learning, networking, and good company makes for a memorable and deeply beneficial experience every year.
The conference was held at the sprawling Business Design Centre which, despite being a massive facility, had meeting room that was sized perfectly for our event.
London delivered on all fronts: a packed agenda featuring expert-led sessions, a variety of social events, and even a group outing to a women’s soccer match at the historic Stamford Bridge Stadium—home to Chelsea FC—which was a definite highlight!
What We Learned
This year’s presentations touched on everything from deeply technical coding walkthroughs to broader development strategies designed to help teams collaborate more efficiently and work smarter across the board. It was clear that the diversity of topics—and the depth with which they were covered—reflected the evolving needs of the ExpressionEngine community, where developers, project managers, content strategists, and sysadmins are all striving to improve both workflows and outcomes.
Topics Spanning the Spectrum: Whether the discussion was about practical project management techniques or the more experimental world of AI-assisted “vibe coding” (yes, that’s a real approach gaining traction!), the conference offered a wide range of engaging and highly relevant sessions. Attendees were exposed to both high-level architectural thinking and hands-on technical insights—from optimizing databases and improving server performance to enhancing client communication and debugging faster with modern AI tools. A few standout sessions included:
- Tom Jaeger, CEO of Packet Tide and owner of ExpressionEngine, shared his vision for the platform’s future—focusing on community growth, open development, and performance improvements. He discussed transparency, sustainability, and empowering developers to shape the product and why collaboration is key to its success.
- Freek Van der Herten (Spatie: Antewerp, BE) covered practical PHP and Laravel techniques that boost productivity and code quality. He showcased lessons from building tools like Mailcoach and Flare, sharing real-world patterns developers can use immediately.
- Travis Smith (Hop Studios: Calgary, AB): showcased a lightweight utility that helps editors see when pages were last updated and who made changes. The tool offers an easy way to track stale content, especially on large, multi-author sites. With minimal technical setup, it boosts accountability and keeps websites current. This seemingly simple technique can dramatically improve collaboration—especially on larger teams.
- Geoff Cowan (Orionesque: Devon, UK ): Took us under the hood of server optimization. His walk-through of techniques for improving page load times and reducing time-to-first-byte (TTFB) offered practical tips we can immediately bring back to our hosting environments and clients.
Bringing It All Home
Every year, EEConf strikes the perfect balance of education and community. We're already putting some of our learnings into practice—and not just the technical ones. Being surrounded by talented peers from across the globe helps recharge our creativity and reminds us how important it is to stay connected in this fast-moving field.
We’re grateful for the opportunity to represent Creative Arc on this international stage and can’t wait to see where EEConf takes us next year.