About the conference
PyCon AU 2024 will be held from 22nd to 26th November at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre (MCEC) in Narrm/Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
If you’re new to our event, you might also want to read about the culture of PyCon AU.
Specialist tracks
The first day of PyCon AU will be dedicated to specialist tracks. These tracks, also known as ‘miniconfs’, are curated by smaller specialist groups within Python community, and allowed for more in-depth talks on the subject.
PyCon AU kicks off with a day for attendees interested in specialist fields. It runs just like a main conference day, any attendees on this day are welcome to attend talks from any or all of the tracks, you can pick and choose and the talk schedules will line up nicely to let you do that.
Each track is organised by specialists in their field, the talks are selected by the track organisers in coordination with the program committee.
Conference main track
This is the core of PyCon AU, as each day kicks off one of our amazing keynote speakers, followed by breakout tracks of talks on a diverse range of Python related topics. There will be a mix of beginner friendly and advanced talks on both technical and non-technical topics, and with multiple tracks there’ll always be something you’re interested to see.
The end of the day brings everyone together again for a hilarious and informative round of lightning talks (submission of lightning talks topics will be open during the conference).
Workshops
Workshops on Monday 25 November are free to attend, made possible through support of the presenting sponsors.
Workshops are new in 2024 and are deep dive, hands on learning experiences facilitated by experts from the sponsoring organisation. It’s important that you register for each workshops to secure your seat.
Learn more about registering for workshops.
Development sprints and social events
Python wouldn’t have gotten to where it is without a welcoming community of developers building cool things together. The development sprints are an open space for people to work on projects with a particular focus on open source projects.
The sprints are a place for everyone, from experienced open source contributors, to interested first-time contributors, and anyone really! Maybe you want to hang out and try out an idea you have, maybe you’d like to find collaborators for a project you want to start, maybe you’d like someone to help you through your first attempts at open source. We’ll provide tables, chairs, wifi, power and a community of supportive developers.
About PyCon AU
PyCon AU is the national conference for the Python programming community, bringing together professional, student and enthusiast developers, sysadmins and operations folk, students, educators, scientists, statisticians, and many others besides, all with a love for working with Python.
PyCon AU informs the country’s Python developers with presentations, tutorials and panel sessions by experts and core developers of Python, as well as the libraries and frameworks that they rely on.
We are independent and not-for-profit
PyCon AU is a labour of love, run independently of commercial interests by an all-volunteer team. The legal and financial structure is provided by Linux Australia Inc., a not-for-profit body registered under the Associations Incorporation Act (NSW) 2009.
We also operate our program selection and sponsorship processes with a very strict “editorial firewall”. Sponsors and other commercial organisations don’t get a say in what talks we select or other editorial decisions we make, none of the talks on our program paid money to be there, and anything that happens on our stages that does come from a sponsor is clearly communicated as such.
All of this lets us run an engaging, high-quality event, while offering ticket prices far more accessible than many other commercial events of a similar size.
Past PyCons AU
PyCon AU is typically held in two year blocks at the same city, with some variation in 2020–2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
- 2010, 2011: Sydney, NSW
- 2012, 2013: Hobart, TAS
- 2014, 2015: Brisbane, QLD
- 2016, 2017: Melbourne, VIC
- 2018, 2019: Sydney, NSW
- 2020, 2021: The Internet
- (PyCon AU was not held in 2022)
- 2023: Tarntanya/Adelaide, SA
- 2024: Narrm/Melbourne, VIC
Videos from previous years can be watched on the PyConAU YouTube channel.