Thomas_Rother initiates a plan to organize a European meetup for Discourse operators at the Chaos Computer Club (CCC) Congress in Hamburg, scheduled for December 2026 (40C3). Referencing a previous attempt at 39C3, he notes that the venue has moved to Hamburg Messe, offering more space. He links to the official Call for Participation. Bas clarifies the event title, while Thomas_Rother requests an “Event” category to track participants, noting that the larger venue increases the likelihood of securing a room.
Ethsim2 expresses interest, citing experience running a self-hosted Discourse instance, and suggests a temporary text-only notice in the discourse_docker launcher to reach self-hosted operators who don’t frequent Meta. However, terraboss raises significant concerns regarding cost and accessibility, noting that 39C3 tickets were expensive and sold out quickly. They propose an informal, open meetup in a café outside the official venue to avoid ticket barriers, allowing anyone in Hamburg to join.
Thomas_Rother supports the café idea and seeks feedback from CDCK (mae, hawk). He argues that a presence at Europe’s largest hacker event could benefit the Discourse project, especially in Germany. Tris20 agrees, highlighting CCC’s importance for engineers in Europe and sharing CCC media resources.
mae responds that CDCK requires confirmed attendee numbers before committing resources or offering promotional support. In response, Thomas_Rother creates a poll to gauge interest for a meeting outside the official CCC location (dates: Dec 27–30, 2026), emphasizing that tickets are not required for this proposed format. Falco mentions that Discourse staff (including pmusaraj) are active in the European open-source community, having attended the Fairtech Summit and Open Source Summit, and plan to attend FOSDEM 2027.
Recent updates indicate continued demand: fnark suggests meeting in spring/summer due to ticket scarcity for 40C3, while Thomas_Rother confirms he also lacks a ticket, with the third sales round approaching. The community remains interested in gathering, but logistical hurdles like ticket availability and cost persist.
Unfortunately responses were limited. Maybe my request was a bit too late then, but let’s try again: the call for the 2026 congress “40C3” is out now and the location will have more space as they are moving from the CCH congress center to the Hamburg Messe at https://www.hamburg.de/freizeit/maerkte-und-messen/messen/messehallen-323044
Would be nice if we could create an “Event” entry at meta, seems that I am not allowed to do so. Then we could collect possible participants …
As the new location at the Hamburg fair has much more space than last year, there is also a better chance to get a room for a personal meeting of people from the Discourse community.
I’m now seriously considering coming to 40C3 from the UK this year. The December dates work much better for me than something during the university year, and I’d definitely be interested in a Discourse operators/community meetup if one can be organised.
As I mentioned in the earlier thread, I previously ran Physics with Ethan, a small self-hosted Discourse instance in the UK. That server has since been repurposed as a Speedify server, but I remain particularly interested in self-hosting, integrations/plugins, smaller community-run sites, education, and the longer-term operation of Discourse communities.
I also think having an Event entry or some other simple way of recording likely attendees would be useful. Even a rough indication of numbers would make it easier to see whether there is enough interest to request a room.
Another possible way of reaching self-hosted operators, if the Discourse team considered it appropriate, might be a temporary text-only notice in the discourse_docker launcher during rebuilds, linking to this topic. Something very unobtrusive such as:
Discourse community: European operators/supporters are discussing a possible meetup at 40C3 in Hamburg, 27–30 December 2026. See: https://meta.discourse.org/t/chaos-computer-club-congress-in-hamburg-40c3-december-2026-call-for-participation/412300
That would reach people actively maintaining self-hosted instances who may not regularly follow Meta, and it could simply be removed or expire after the event. I’m not sure whether using the launcher for a community notice like this would be considered appropriate, but it might be worth considering as a very low-cost way of making the idea more visible.
For reference, the earlier discussion and poll are here:
Thanks for pushing this, Thomas, and for the update on the venue.
I’d like to raise one concern: the cost. For 39C3 the standard ticket was €190, supporter tickets went up to €300, and tickets sold out very quickly (usually within minutes). If 40C3 prices stay in that range, add travel and a hotel stay between Christmas and New Year’s, and attending easily costs well over €200. Many of us run Discourse communities as volunteers or on open-source budgets, and I doubt most operators have that to spare, especially these days. The ticket shortage alone could keep people out.
So here is a counter-proposal: an open, informal meetup in a nice café or restaurant in Hamburg, ideally on 27 or 28 December. Anyone attending the Congress can drop by, and everyone else can join without a ticket. The cost would be just a coffee or a meal. If the group prefers, a date outside the holiday week would work too.
Very good idea! I will be at 40C3. I could help finding a (cheap or free) location elsewhere in Hamburg, aside from the official 40C3 site. We have 219 views for this thread today and only 7 likes. Some more feedback for this idea from the community would be nice.
And, unfortunately, there was no statement from CDCK side yet - @mae@hawk- what do you think?
I am just curious about your opinions. A “real life gathering” of people working with Discourse at the largest hacker event in Europe can be useful for the whole Discourse project. Can we expect some kind of promotion from CDCK if we organize a meeting of Discourse operators at or “around” the 40C3?
Not sure I can attend, but I second that Discourse should have some kind of presence around CCC. Outside of Germany it doesn’t have such a large footprint, but within Germany it’s very well known by engineers. In particular those who love to tinker with stuff, and have a community around the things they build - some of whom also have related jobs and decision power at enterprise companies and startups here.
Videos for all talks of the current and the previous CCC events are available at
The main talks on the various main stages at CCC always have an english translation and international speakers use english already. Here in Europe the CCC is the most important hackers meeting, comparable to DEFCON in the US. A good overview is available at
Here is a poll to collect possible participants for a meeting of Discourse self hosters, operators and developers at the 40C3 Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg, Germany. Location will be somewhere in Hamburg and outside of the official CCC location at the “Hamburg Messe und Congress”. Thus people would not need CCC tickets to participate. If we can collect enough people, we can further discuss the organisation of the meeting.
Friendly reminder, as the 40C3 time slot after christmas is coming nearer …
I would offer to organize a meeting somewhere outside of the 40C3 location (Hamburg Messe), so that people would not necessarily need a 40C3 ticket to attend.
So far I could not get a ticket for 40C3, not in the voucher phase and not in the 1st and 2nd ticket sales. Maybe in the the 3rd. But I doubt it. My counter proposal is to meet in warmer times, in spring or summer next year. More easy going, less stressful than 40C3, more inviting.
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