---
title: 'ICYMI: BackstageCon & KubeCon NA 2022 Recap'
description: 'We had a great time in Detroit! Learn more about our first dedicated conference to Backstage and KubeCon NA 2022.'
author: Emma White, Spotify
authorURL: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmamckeewhite/
---

## ICYMI: BackstageCon & KubeCon NA 2022 Recap

![blog header image](assets/2022-10-28/preview.png)

What an action-packed and memorable week for the Backstage community meeting up IRL at KubeCon North America 2022 in (unseasonably warm and sunny) Detroit. Let’s see what the community was up to:

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### BackstageCon: A full day of nothing but Backstage

![BackstageCon group](assets/2022-10-28/groupimage.jpg)

We started the week off strong, packing a ballroom for [BackstageCon](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/backstagecon-north-america/) on Monday. It was a smorgasbord of some of our active community members at the first official Backstage conference — as well as some new faces interested in learning more about Backstage! To welcome us, Roadie’s [Martina Iglesias Fernandez](https://github.com/martina-if) and Spotify’s [Suzanne Daniels](https://github.com/suuus) took center stage. Next up, we listened to three keynotes from the event’s top sponsors: Roadie’s [David Tuite](https://github.com/dtuite) enlightened us on how to 10x developer effectiveness for teams, [Dave Zolotusky](https://github.com/dzolotusky) from Spotify discussed developer happiness and [announced](https://www.linkedin.com/posts/spotify-r%26d_backstage-devex-activity-6990305201710587904-SnDQ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop) that [Spotify Plugins for Backstage](https://backstage.spotify.com/blog/spotify-plugins-for-backstage/) are launching soon, and [Valentina Alaria](https://www.linkedin.com/in/valentinaalaria/) from VMware Tanzu talked about how to curate the Backstage experience to enable developer velocity. In between some creative snacks (lemon blueberry popcorn, anyone?) and coffee breaks, we heard from adopters including [Telus](https://backstage.spotify.com/blog/building-for-simplicity-TELUS/), [DAZN](https://backstage.spotify.com/blog/adopter-spotlight/dazn/), HP, US Bank, and more on lessons learned through their adoption journeys, we talked about different ways to leverage data within Backstage, and we discussed new ways to customize Backstage for specific adopter needs.

You can watch all the BackstageCon sessions, talks, and keynotes [here](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLj6h78yzYM2OKySsTuiip3BqmdYZQRnSf)!

### Project Meeting: Building a better Backstage together

![project meeting image](assets/2022-10-28/real_project_meeting.jpeg)

The following day, the Backstage maintainers hosted a lively project meeting, where we engaged with a lot of folks that had been at BackstageCon the day before. Over the course of the meeting, the Backstage community talked through recommended approaches for maintaining your Software Catalog as a source of truth, sourcing internal contributors for organization’s Backstage apps, improving frontend performance in a few plugins, how Backstage maintainers work, and appreciation for the contributions from our community. You can read more detailed notes from the project meeting in the repo [here](https://github.com/backstage/community/blob/main/project-meetings/kubecon-na-2022.md).

### KubeCon: Demos, swag, and standing-room only

And last but not least: three days of [KubeCon North America](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-north-america/)! At KubeCon, the Backstage team met and greeted so many new faces at our kiosk in the Project Pavilion. We ran demos, answered questions, and handed out lots and lots of SWAG!

![maintainer presentation](assets/2022-10-28/project_meeting.jpg)

Spotify’s [Francesco Corti](https://github.com/fcorti) and core maintainer [Ben Lambert](https://github.com/benjdlambert) took the stage on Wednesday to present the Backstage maintainer talk to a PACKED audience. They discussed how core features of Backstage are changing the way end-user developers interact and manage their ecosystem, and encouraged folks to create the future of developer experience with the rest of the Backstage community. If you missed it, no worries! Their talk track will be posted on the [CNCF YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/c/cloudnativefdn).

…and that’s a wrap! What an incredible week. Our growing Backstage community continues to amaze us with its dedication and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to see you all again at KubeCon Europe in The Netherlands! In fact, we’d love to see our adopters give Backstage talks next year (hint, hint). The KubeCon Europe [CFP is open](https://events.linuxfoundation.org/kubecon-cloudnativecon-europe/program/cfp/#overview) until Friday, November 18, 2022.
