I’ve been to a lot of conferences over the years. PgConf EU, PostgresOpen, too many pgDays to count, and even more none Postgres conferences (OSCON, Strangeloop, Railsconf, PyCon, LessConf, and many more). I’ve always found Postgres conferences one of the best places to get training and learn about what’s new with Postgres (in addition to Dimitri’s recent book, more on that below). They’re my regular stop to catch up on all the new features of a release before it comes out, and often there is a talk highlighting what is new with a simple easy to understand summary once released.

I just got back from PGConf EU a little over a week ago and it was a great time. I’m sure we’ll see some rundowns of it start appearing on Postgres planet. But, as far as I’m concerned PGConf EU is in the past (unless your counting next year which is in Berlin-in which case I’ll see you there). For me it’s time to look to the future and there are a number of upcoming pgDays I’m looking forward to.

The first two I want to highlight are separate events, but you’ll notice they’re scheduled nicely for you to easily attend both. With a day in between for travel you’ll find that many speakers and attendees depart one and head straight to the other. It makes for an easy opportunity to visit two cities, see two different communities, and yet not have to spend too much time traveling. The first is Nordic pgDay in Helsinki. It’s coming up on March 24. The second is pgDay Paris on March 26. Both of these are great single track conferences. If you’re in Europe of fancy a trip to Europe I recommend giving them a look, and even better the CFPs are open so consider submitting.

Another pgDay I have to mention is right in my backyard. pgDay SF I’m particularly excited for a few reasons:

• San Francisco is very much a central tech hub, which means a great chance of learning from folks at many many interesting tech companies in attendance
• Just like Nordic and Paris this is a single track conference, which I’m a personal fan of because you can have continuity between talks and shared conversation with other attendees
• The venue! If you’re not from the bay area you may not be aware, but Swedish American Hall is well known music venue within SF. It’s had many famous artists over the years and now pgDay SF joins the ranks.

This isn’t an exhaustive list of course, just a few on my personal list that I hope to make it to. If you’re there and see me make sure to say hi!

If you’re looking for a deeper resource on Postgres I recommend the book The Art of PostgreSQL. It is by a personal friend that has aimed to create the definitive guide to Postgres, from a developer perspective. If you use code CRAIG15 you’ll receive 15% off as well.