PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2026

Making the Case: Attend PGConf.EU 2026 With Your Employer's Support

Attending a conference requires an investment e.g. time away from work, and money to cover the ticket, travel, and accommodation.

Here are some arguments that we know work well, take the letter template below, adapt it as you wish and ask your boss.

Remember if you don't ask, you don't get.

The key points you could highlight to your employer:

• I will come back with practical knowledge I can apply immediately. Sessions cover real production challenges: performance tuning, autovacuum, backup strategies, high availability, configuration, and zero-downtime operations. I will return with techniques applicable to our systems, not theoretical knowledge.

• I will get ahead of PostgreSQL 19 before it ships. PostgreSQL 19 is expected later this year. The programme includes dedicated sessions on what is changing and how to prepare. Attending now means our team can plan and test in advance rather than reacting after the release.

• I will be able to ask questions directly to the people who build PostgreSQL. PGConf.EU is one of the few places where I can have direct conversations with PostgreSQL core contributors and committers. When we hit a production issue that documentation does not answer, that access matters.

• I will learn what actually works in production at other organisations. The hallway track and social events are where engineers share real experience: what failed, what fixed it, and what they would do differently. This kind of knowledge does not appear in any documentation or online course.

• I can build a programme around what our team needs. Four tracks cover DBA operations, application development, Postgres internals, and community. I will attend the sessions most relevant to our current work and come back with answers to the problems we actually have.

• I can go deeper on specific topics on Community Events Day. Friday 23 October offers focused summits and working groups on observability, Kubernetes, PostgreSQL training, and more. A full additional day to go deep on areas directly relevant to our team, available as an add-on.

• I will raise our company's profile in the PostgreSQL community. PGConf.EU brings together engineers, companies, and contributors from across Europe and beyond. Being present puts our company in the room where the conversations that shape the PostgreSQL ecosystem happen.

Letter Template

Still not sure how to communicate these points to your manager?

Here is a draft letter to adapt and make the case in your own words:

Dear [Manager's name],
      
I would like to request approval to attend PGConf.EU 2026 (PostgreSQL Conference Europe), taking place 20-22 October in Valencia, Spain.

PGConf.EU is the largest PostgreSQL conference in Europe. It runs once a year and brings together database engineers, application developers, and PostgreSQL contributors from across the world.

Making it a unique chance for me to interact with the people who build PostgreSQL and learn directly from them. This year marks PostgreSQL's 30th anniversary, making it a particularly significant edition.

What I will learn and bring back

The conference has five tracks covering: DBA, App Developer, Postgres Internals, and Community. Sessions directly relevant to our work cover topics including:

 * [autovacuum tuning]
 * [backup and high availability]
 * [performance bottleneck identification]
 * [zero-downtime operations]
 * [advanced SQL]
 * [application-level sharding]
 * [AI integration with PostgreSQL]
 * [choose what applies to your work from the program: 
    https://www.postgresql.eu/events/pgconfeu2026/schedule/#start]

I will return with practical knowledge I can apply directly to [current project or team challenge].

Why this conference, and why now

PostgreSQL 19 is expected later this year. A significant part of the programme covers what is changing and how to prepare, meaning attending now puts our team ahead of the release rather than catching up afterwards.

This is also one of the few events where I can have direct conversations with PostgreSQL core contributors and committers, the people whose work powers our production systems. That level of access is not available at general technology conferences or through online learning.

Attending also puts [company name] in the room where the conversations that shape the PostgreSQL ecosystem happen, among the engineers and organisations driving it forward.

Costs

 * Conference ticket (standard): €420, inclusive of VAT
 * Travel: [your estimate]
 * Accommodation: [your estimate]
 * Total: [total] (aprox)

I am happy to share a written summary or give a short internal session to the team on my return.
Registration is open now. I would like to confirm attendance [by date], in case tickets sellout.

Thank you for considering this,
[Your name]