A wall-calendar for the Nuance pilgrim · Year ahead, in conferences
2026★★
Ten IT conferences inside a 30 km arc around Duffel — pinned to the one Saturday night that matters.
Eight Saturday-Nuance candidates 2026
Feb
21
dataMinds Sat.
same-day
same-day
May
16
after Techorama
(ends Wed 13)
(ends Wed 13)
Jun
13
after DDD + BCT
densest week
densest week
Sep
26
after BruCON
(ends Fri 25)
(ends Fri 25)
Oct
10
after Devoxx
(ends Fri 9)
(ends Fri 9)
Oct
17
after Smashing
+ dataMinds
+ dataMinds
Nov
7
after Automation★
long weekend
long weekend
Dec
12
after CloudBrew
year-closer
year-closer
January
— quiet —MTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
February
1 event · 1 Nuance SatMTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21dataMinds Sat
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
March
— quiet —MTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
April
— quiet —MTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
May
2 events · 1 Nuance SatMTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7Connect IT
8
9
10
11Techorama
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
June
2 events · 1 Nuance SatMTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8DDD Europe
9
10
11+ BCT
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
July
— summer hush —MTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
August
— summer hush —MTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
September
1 event (+training) · 1 Nuance SatMTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21BruCON tr.
22
23
24BruCON
25
26
27
28
29
30
October
3 events · 2 Nuance SatMTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5Devoxx
6
7
8
9
10
11
12dM+Smash
13
14
15Smashing
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
November
1 event · 1 Nuance SatMTWTFSS
1
2
3
4Automation★
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
December
1 event · 1 Nuance SatMTWTFSS
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10CloudBrew
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
★ Same-day bundle
Saturday 21 February
dataMinds Saturday runs 08:45–18:00 at Thomas More De Vest in Mechelen — free, one day, Microsoft Data Platform community talks. The only conference on this list that is a Saturday.
Walk to Mechelen station, hop one stop to Duffel, taxi to Nuance for 19:00. Same-day pairing, no second night.
★★ Densest week of the year
Saturday 13 June
DDD Europe (Queen Elisabeth Hall) and BC TechDays (Kinepolis) both end Friday 12 June. Three days of overlap, two venues 4 km apart, ~1,500+ combined delegates.
Stay Friday night in Antwerp, Saturday is yours — KMSKA, the Plantin-Moretus, then 25 min by car to Nuance.
The ten conferences, in order — click a name for the official site
Thu 7 May · 1 day · 08:30–18:00
Antwerp Expo, Hall 1 — ~10 km
Cyber, AI, digital-transformation, cross-sector.
Mon–Wed 11–13 May · 3 days
Kinepolis Antwerpen — ~22 km
Medieval Edition. .NET, Azure, AI, DevOps. ~1,800 attendees.
Mon–Fri 8–12 Jun · workshops + conf
Queen Elisabeth Hall, Antwerp Centraal — ~16 km
Co-located with Data Mesh Live.
Thu–Fri 11–12 Jun · €825 early-bird
Kinepolis Event Center, Antwerp-Noord — ~22 km
MS Dynamics 365 Business Central. 1,150+ from 46 countries (2025).
Thu–Fri 24–25 Sep · training 21–23 Sep
Lamot Mechelen + Novotel — ~9 km
Offensive / defensive security, hacker con.
Mon–Fri 5–9 Oct · 5 days
Kinepolis Antwerpen — ~22 km
From Developer to Builder. Agentic engineering, AI tooling, JVM.
Mon–Wed 12–14 Oct · 19th edition
Lamot Mechelen — ~9 km
MS Data & AI platform.
Mon–Thu 12–15 Oct · 4 days
The Bourla theatre, Antwerp centre — ~17 km
UX, web design, CSS / JS, a11y, performance.
Wed–Thu 4–5 Nov · 2 days
A Room with a ZOO, Flanders MCC — ~16 km
Europe's largest test-automation conference.
Any Saturday, 19:00
Kiliaanstraat 8, Duffel — 0 km
Two-Michelin-star, chef Thierry Theys. 42 covers in a former bank.
Cross-reference: the dev.events curated index lists the same 7 Antwerp + 3 Mechelen events plus DevFest (Mons) and NG-BE (Ghent), both outside the 30 km ring [15].
Recurring communities — meetup-shaped fillers
Smaller free or near-free evening sessions. Useful when your weekend wraps a weekday meetup, especially if you're already in town for one of the majors above.
Venue cheat-sheet — eight buildings carry the whole year
| Venue | City | Hosts | From Duffel |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kinepolis Antwerpen | Antwerp-Noord | Techorama · Devoxx · BC TechDays | ~22 km |
| Antwerp Expo | Antwerp-Berchem | Connect IT | ~10 km |
| Queen Elisabeth Hall | Antwerp Centraal | DDD Europe | ~16 km |
| The Bourla | Antwerp centre | SmashingConf | ~17 km |
| Flanders MCC (Room with a ZOO) | Antwerp Centraal | AutomationSTAR | ~16 km |
| Lamot Mechelen | Mechelen centrum | BruCON · dataMinds Connect · CloudBrew | ~9 km |
| Novotel Mechelen | Mechelen | BruCON training | ~9 km |
| Thomas More De Vest | Mechelen, 500 m from station | dataMinds Saturday | ~9 km |
Note. Lamot Mechelen is the single most-used venue in the 30 km ring — three majors per year plus regular smaller events. From Lamot it's a five-minute walk to Mechelen station and one train stop (~5 min) to Duffel — faster than driving back to a hotel in Antwerp.