One of my clients is interested in going to one too to learn more about Filemaker, so we’re thinking of going together. He’s most interested in big ones attended by Claris.
He liked the idea of going to Claris Engage, but their website still lists the 2025 info, and the message there sort of has a “we’re not doing this again” sort of vibe. Does anyone know for sure if they’re going to be doing another Claris Engage in the Spring, and where/when it might be happening?
It looks like Engage U in Belgium is coming up, although that might be too soon for scheduling for us. Are there other larger conferences that will have Claris staff in attendance that are worth considering?
Claris has not yet announced their 2026 conference.
So you guys may check if you can come to EngageU for the time being.
This conference will be close to what people know and love about DevCons.
What area in the world is your client. There are different types of conferences. For decades there was a large FileMaker Developers conference with about 1500 attendees, but that was screwed up when Brad canceled it during Covid, and Brad was not able to rebound and get it restarted. But he did rebrand it (in case you think that is of value) to the name “Engage”. Last year I would estimate it had about 600 attendees, it is now hosted in an Apple campus in Austin, and it is pretty good. But it is nothing like the old Devcons at destination hotels like the Gaylord. There are a number of good conferences in Europe. In the USA we have had the un-conferences like [Pause on Error] which typically has about 100 people and is hosted at a conference center. But it did not happen this year. However, [Full Access] conference is October 20th near San Francisco and is fairly inexpensive (https://fullaccess.us). It is a small conference with maybe 60-70 people and is very techy type conference. Claris maintains an Events page that includes conferences on it that is useful for seeing upcoming conferences: Claris Events
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We’re East Coast US. Travel distance were about the same from western Europe as California, although there’s more of a time zone shift when we go to Europe. October 20 is a little too soon. I saw that on monkey brain software website. I also think that wouldn’t be good for my client. I think we had ideally like to find a conference that has a bigger mix of intro and advanced. So is 600 the highest number of attendees these days at any conference? Does it seem like the main Claris conference might taper out this year?
Well, we are all waiting for Claris to announce something for DevCon, before we can make our plans for 2026. Even if they skip 2026 for whatever reason, I hope they tell us.
Otherwise please consider flying to Europe in November. It's the biggest conference coming close to a DevCon. Big hotel and 200 to 300 people.
if you like >1000 attendees, you may go to Tokyo.
I keep my list of conferences on the website.
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No problem with [Full Access] being too soon. The past several years we had the [Pause on Error] conference was in Georgia. Too bad it is not on because that would be more convenient for you. I’ve never been to the European conferences, but I hear some good things. No one knows what Claris will do about a 2026 conference. We have a new CEO and he may want to do things differently. Last year’s Engage was in March, but Devcon’s had always been in late summers. Lots of questions still!
Claris has announced there will not be an Engage conference in 2026, but hopes to return to the larger conference at a destination hotel in spring 2027: https://partner.claris.com/s/question/0D5Vy00001cACujKAG/looking-ahead-exploring-claris-engage-2027
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Better link to the public announcement:
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Thank you for the update! So the only large English speaking one in the next 10 months or so is the one in Europe?
You may consider joining EngageU (last minute chance for November 2025) or the upcoming one next year. Alternatively you could consider one of the other conferences like the one in Vienna.
I have a list:
We await announcements for Full Access, the CQDF in Montreal, the conference in Australia or New Zealand and a few others.