In May 2025, I made my very first trip to PyCon, which is the largest annual conference for the Python programming language community. It was held at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
With so many people attending, that also attracted lots of vendors and sponsors to the scene. They gathered inside the Expo Hall.
Newcomers to PyCon had their own orientation session if they made it to the conference in the evening before opening ceremonies.
There were several days of PyCon sessions planned (three of those days were mainly for talks). During each hour of the conference, people had multiple simultaneous sessions to choose between.
Other than “conference talks”, there were also “tutorials”, “open spaces”, “summits”, “sprints”, “lightning talks”, “sponsor presentations”, “keynotes”, “poster displays”, and more!
Each talk brought a unique layer of content and presentation style. One of the speakers, Al Sweigart (creator of PyAutoGUI), wore a giant python puppet to engage with the audience.
There was also plenty of time to talk directly with the speakers. There was even time to take selfies with them.
It wouldn’t be a real PyCon if the creator of Python, Guido van Rossum, wasn’t there himself. Guido was there, and usually surrounded by lots of excited Python developers who wanted to engage in conversation with him.
If anyone ever needed some fresh air, Pittsburgh was right outside.
The hotel closest to the conference center, The Westin, was only a short walk away. There were some nice views of the city from the hotel rooms.
One of the cool things about PyCon 2025 were the “Open Spaces”. These were essentially a way for anyone to give a talk about anything, or just host a meet-up in a room there as part of the conference.
I took that “Open Spaces” opportunity as a way to give a talk about my GitHub repo, SeleniumBase. Probably about 15 people showed up for that over the course of that hour.
Perhaps with the help of that “Open Spaces” session (and all the other SeleniumBase demos I gave during the conference), that traction may have helped fuel SeleniumBase into trending on GitHub shortly afterward.
Overall, PyCon 2025 was a great experience for me: I learned a lot. I got to meet with people in person (which is a big deal because I’ve been working fully remote for awhile). I taught people how to use my SeleniumBase repo. There were lots of great talks (which can be found on YouTube).
Even the Andy Warhol Museum nearby had a Python section.
Not only that, but the secret to the naming behind Python’s BeautifulSoup library may have been revealed. (Located right in the Python section.)
The hardest part was likely driving all the way to Pittsburgh from Boston (and back at the end). At least I didn’t do all the driving each way in one day: I stopped in Scranton, Pennsylvania in both directions. (Yes, that’s where “The Office” takes place!)
Until next time!
