For the past months we have been very busy working towards an announcement for our 2020 RustFest in the Netherlands, as announced for Q2 of this year. Unfortunately it has now become clear that COVID-19 is throwing a wrench in the works – even with our planning for an event in early June, it is unlikely that the COVID-19 threat will have been contained to a level where we can confidently plan getting together with hundreds of awesome Rustaceans from around Europe and beyond.

After some intense discussion among our team members, here is our current plan: we still want to do a RustFest this year in the Netherlands. However, in order to make it accessible to everyone, even to those who might be geographically constrained due to containment measures, we want to plan both a physical event while also reinventing our event as one that can be experienced from home (or, even better, a local meetup group – COVID-19 willing). In order to make this work well, we will need more time to prepare. Therefore, we are currently planning for having our RustFest in the fourth quarter, with the physical conference happening in Utrecht, the Netherlands.

Future<Output = RustFest::Netherlands>

In the near future, we will start selling tickets and searching for sponsors for a hybrid event. In order for us to make this work, it is very important for us to know how many people are still willing to attend, and what companies are willing to sponsor such an event. In particular, we will ask on our ticket data form if you’re still willing to attend if our team decides we cannot make the physical event work. We will outline what the digital event will look like in future blog posts as we map out what a great digital Rust conference would look like.

We would love to meet you all again – or make your acquaintance – in person in Q4 2020; but if that turns out not to be feasible, it would still be great to bring our community together for an online Rust festival. We hope you will RustFest with us.