Through the (DrupalCon) Looking Glass

When Vienna was announced as the DrupalCon Europe 2025 city already at DrupalCon Barcelona 2024, my colleague, Oliver Berndt, turned to me immediately and said “next year will be expensive”. Yes it was for drunomics, but it was also a major opportunity for us, as the drunomics team came together to help in many aspects. As a result of our volunteering activities, drunomics achieved Gold Certified Drupal Partner status early in 2025 and we decided to become Gold Sponsor at DrupalCon.

As many know, I had the privilege along with Dan Lemon to be the Track Co-Chair for DrupalCon Barcelona in 2024. I was not even back home from that event when I was working with a few other talented individuals in order to plan the 2025 International Splash Awards and the Splash Awards: Germany & Austria events that, in my opinion, could both be celebrated at DrupalCon Vienna. After several talks with Imre Gmelig Meijling and also with Nico Grienauer, Niklas Franke and Christian Ziegler, we had a rough financial plan and several options sketched out. Many (and I do mean many) meetings later, we had a go to have the International Splash Awards at the Venue at DrupalCon on Tuesday evening, and another go to have the Regional Splash Awards: Germany & Austria together with the official DrupalCon Community Party at Palais Wertheim on Wednesday evening. 

In parallel, the preparations for the program team were already well underway. Together with Aikaterine Tsiboukas and Antonella Severo from the track team, we had a very productive Birds of a Feather (BoF) at DrupalCon Barcelona, which yielded valuable insight as to how we should shape the program for 2025. One main takeaway: more technical talks and fewer marketing / content / community talks (although we were reminded that these are also important). Also, the speakers needed to be given more importance in the selection process, yet still allow for newcomers and for new perspectives. It was not an easy path to navigate. In the end, the people I spoke to showed me that we largely met our goal.

The entire week was intense and exhausting and yet extremely fun and rewarding. I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

On day 1, things got off to a fast-paced start when we set up the drunomics booth. We became a proud Gold Sponsor of DrupalCon this year. The most adventurous part was the process of driving to the grocery store to load up on tons of Manner Wafferl and Almdudler, both of which seemed to be a hit at the Con. We had more than a couple repeat customers for these goodies.

At the same time, visitors could learn about mossbo, our SaaS product for companies who need a website cloud-based solution. More about that at the website. Wolfgang also presented mossbo at the sponsors stage on Thursday.

This deserves its own blog entry. Coming soon.

Petra Morawa-Zechner’s passion for Green UX clearly showed at DrupalCon Vienna. She updated a talk she gave for drunomics in 2024. The statistics that she quotes are sobering, in the hope of raising awareness and the impact of Green UX design. Watch her DrupalCon presentation here.

Wolfgang and Bálint Kléri teamed up to give an incredible talk titled JavaScript frontend development with Drupal Canvas: Beyond Decoupling. They present examples of how to use Drupal Canvas with Lupus Decoupled Drupal and edit JavaScript components directly in the browser’s code editor. It is an efficient method for styling your website. Also worth watching.

Approximately half of the proposed sessions for DrupalCon dealt with AI. Of course not all of these made it in, mostly because we had a wide range of topics with extremely valuable talks and limited space. Drupal CMS 2.0, as well as Drupal Canvas, also took front-stage at the Con. We were able to have a plethora of thought-provoking discussions, e.g. The Web in 2035 as well as Vera Herzmann’s Neurodiversity Keynote. Both of which I highly recommend.

Well, now that we have seen each other," said the unicorn, "if you'll believe in me, I'll believe in you.

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

As stated earlier, it was not clear IF the International Splash Awards could be organised for DrupalCon. After all, Imre had been attempting to restart them since 2019. In the end, we got approval. Hilmar was tapped to lead the Jury. The submission platform that Kuoni used was adapted to accept project proposals for the awards. Trophies and certificates were ordered, and the event space was secured.

Due to my involvement from the beginning, and the fact that I had experience as a wedding DJ and speaking in front of large crowds, I was requested to moderate the event. Being able to moderate this event was simply awesome, especially since I had Marine as co-moderator. Dries (Buytaert) also came on stage and commented that the awards were extremely valuable to marketing Drupal. Baddý (Breidert) stated several times that the awards themselves were a reason that several of their clients chose to attend DrupalCon. The Splash Awards is a way to recognize outstanding achievements of Drupal projects throughout the year. drunomics’ CTO, Wolfgang Ziegler, also joined the international Jury, led by Hilmar. Two other colleagues, Liopold Novelli, from Slovenia, and Petra Morawa-Zechner, from Austria, were also selected to join the jury. It consisted of Jurors from around the globe.

drunomics had one nominated project, mossbo, and it took first place in the Apps & Tools category!

I daresay you haven't had much practice. When I was your age I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes, I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

Working long hours together with Nico Grienauer & Christian Ziegler (acolono), Niklas Franke (Factorial), Thomas Renner (webshapers), Ingo & Alex (lowfidelity), we made what at one point seemed impossible a reality. The Splash Awards: Germany & Austria were hosted by Drupal Austria at Palais Wertheim. Immediately following we had the Official DrupalCon Community Party. It gave DrupalCon Vienna a whole new dimension.

Several companies, including drunomics, and individual contributors chipped in at DrupalCon on Friday to sponsor the Drupal in a Day course, which was both coordinated and sponsored by Hilmar. Over 60 students came from the surrounding area to learn how to install & develop with Drupal in the matter of a few hours. At the same time, those students were able to take breaks with many of the developers who were busy smashing Drupal Core bugs and collaborating on Drupal modules & initiatives.

Like at every DrupalCon, there was a trivia night. It was held at the cool Gleisgarten, a restaurant not even a stone’s throw from my apartment in Vienna. The moderation was top (Marine was wrangled in again for that together with Alan Burke). Although Marine claims I did not try to bribe her, I very much did, but she had a drink already and as such, she advised me to bribe one of the other moderators instead. My team still only took the middle ground despite my efforts. The judges did remind us several times that bribes were a way to earn points.

‘When I use a word,’ Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, ‘it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’

― Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There

Having the opportunity to be Track Co-Chair, this time with Aikaterine, has been an honour. I am also grateful for the track leads, Aikaterine, Antonella Severo, Will Huggins, Surabhi Gokte, AmyJune Hineline, Alex Johnston & Mark Casias, as well as the entire track team. It is thanks to their many hours of volunteering that the program at DrupalCon is as good as it is. Also a special thanks to Gábor Hojtsy for consulting me on the Drupal CMS track. It is a lot of work, coordinating 30+ reviewers and balancing the review scores with individual speaker contribution and experience, balancing topic coverage with timeslot constraints, balancing content offering with the diversity of speakers. We will see in the coming weeks if the feedback reflects what I observed. But now it is time for me to pass the torch, as Aikaterine and Will will take up the roles as Track Chairs for DrupalCon Europe 2026 in Rotterdam! I look forward to attending again.

• Video Green UX in the Age of AI: Digital Products for a Sustainable Future by Petra Morawa-Zechner
• Video JavaScript frontend development with Drupal Canvas: Beyond Decoupling by Wolfgang Ziegler and Bálint Kléri
• All published DrupalCon videos of the presentations (several of which are amazing!)
• LinkedIn Post by Wolfgang Ziegler
• All shared photos via flickr
• A short recap video.
• Splash Awards International website.
• Splash Awards: Germany & Austria website.
• Sept 2026: Rotterdam