Five confirmed in-radius events. Two of them land on a Saturday.
Only Sat 28 March (CSLabs hackathon) and Sat 24 October (KIKK Festival) put a tech anchor on a dinner Saturday inside the radius. The other three confirmed events fall mid-week. FOSDEM on Sat 31 January is the strongest stretch-the-circle candidate at ~45 km.
The Saturday-pairs, up close
Two events anchor a Saturday inside the 30 km circle. A third — FOSDEM — sits 15 km past the line but covers the right Saturday and is the country's biggest open-source weekend.
KIKK Festival (15th ed.)
NAMUR · ~20 KM · DIGITAL-CULTURE FESTIVAL
Five days of pro conferences, a ~60-installation digital-art trail through central Namur (KIKK in Town), a designers' market on Place d'Armes and kids' workshops on gaming, sound tech and robotics [8][9]. Sat 24 Oct: KIKK by afternoon, 30-minute drive to Liernu for dinner.
CSLabs Hackathon — "Hack the Narrative"
UNAMUR FAC. D'INFO · ~20 KM · 48 H HACK
48-hour hackathon at the UNamur Faculty of Computer Science on Rue Grandgagnage [12]. Theme: digital-literacy through Black-Mirror-style fiction. Free with €20 refundable deposit; non-coders welcome [13]. Sat 28 March is the full hack day — meals on-site, the dinner is a deliberate escape.
~45 KM · BRUSSELS
FOSDEM 2026
ULB SOLBOSCH · ~45 KM · FREE · ~8 000 ATTENDEES
Largest BE open-source event of the year. Free, no registration. ~45 km / 50 min drive from Liernu [5] — the strongest argument for stretching the circle. The Saturday session 31 Jan pairs cleanly with the same-evening dinner [15].
~850 ATTENDEES
Mind & Market Forum LLN
AULA MAGNA, OTTIGNIES-LLN · ~22 KM · STARTUP FORUM
Invitation-only workshops in the morning; public access from 12:45 with pitches and AI demos in the afternoon. ~850 attendees, 100 startups, 80 partners [10]. Flag only if the trip can flex mid-week.
AI · 15:00–18:00
EU AI Week @ TRAIL
TRUSTED AI LABS, LLN · ~22 KM · 3-HOUR SESSION
Three-hour slot at TRusted AI Labs ground floor, Place du Levant, Louvain-la-Neuve. Talks, project showcases, networking with AI researchers and industry leaders [11]. Useful only if you're already in the area.
CYBERSEC · 1 DAY
ICSECS — Software Eng. for Cybersecurity
NAMUR · ~20 KM · ACADEMIC CONFERENCE
International Conference on Software Engineering for Cybersecurity in Namur on 23 January [14]. Confirm registration is open before planning around it — the listing is from an aggregator, not the conference's own page.
The 30 km circle, calibrated
| Anchor city | Distance from Liernu | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Gembloux | ~10 km | ✓ in |
| Namur | ~20 km | ✓ in |
| Louvain-la-Neuve | ~20 km | ✓ in |
| Wavre | ~25 km | ✓ in |
| Charleroi | ~33 km | ✗ close |
| Brussels | ~45 km | ✗ out |
| Antwerp / Mons | ≥70 km | ✗ out |
2026 tech events
that pairs with dinner
Year-round venues to check closer to the date
The in-radius cadence is driven by three hubs whose public agendas churn faster than annual conferences — where ad-hoc tech evenings, AI demos and meetups appear.
TRAKK
CENTRAL NAMUR
"+Tech" evenings, FabLab open days, KIKK-adjacent workshops — 3 000 m² creative-tech hub jointly run with UNamur and KIKK [16].
TRAIL @ UCLouvain
LOUVAIN-LA-NEUVE
AI labs that hosted the EU AI Week slot above — recurring talks and project showcases [11].
WSL incubator
GEMBLOUX / LLN / NAMUR
Tech-entrepreneur incubator across all three in-radius cities — startup pitch nights, investor demos [17].
UNamur NaDI / PReCISE
NAMUR
Multidisciplinary digital research institute (big data, AI, security) — public seminars and PhD defences [18].
A6K / E6K Charleroi
~33 KM · OUT BUT CLOSE
Regional tech & industry hub; the E6K training-campus extension lands through fall 2026 [19]. Check their calendar near the trip dates.
Devoxx Belgium
5–9 OCT · ANTWERP · ~85 KM
National flagship dev conference but ~85 km away [20] — different trip.
Straight-line vs road. "Within 30 km" is measured straight-line from Liernu; actual driving distance is 5–10 km longer through the rural road network east of Gembloux [1].
KIKK window. Some sources gave conflicting KIKK 2026 windows (22–25 vs 21–25 Oct); the 21–25 range matches KIKK's usual Wed–Sun cadence [8].
ICSECS. The listing is from an aggregator [14], not the conference's own page — confirm registration before planning around it.
Restaurant. Dinner anchor is the 2-star L'Air du Temps in Liernu (Éghezée, Namur province) [2].