Drupal Association blog: DrupalCon Barcelona 2024 brings the open source Drupal community together 

DrupalCon, the main event about the digital experience platform Drupal, was held this year in Barcelona, Spain, from 24-27 September. DrupalCon unites thousands of people from around the globe who use, develop, design, and support the Drupal platform. Over 1,300 digital experts and Drupal professionals gathered to exchange ideas, work on the Drupal project, and propel Drupal innovation. 

On 24 September, Founder and Project Lead Dries Buytaert gave an inspiring keynote about developing an exciting new product – Drupal CMS. Dries shared a progress update on the timeline of Drupal CMS, showing a demo of the current state, the event-building and SEO capabilities, and the acceleration of site building through AI tools. This will allow Drupal experts and potential end users to drastically change how they build websites, using prompts to create in minutes what used to take days. 

A three-day program of over 100 sessions

DrupalCon Barcelona hosted over 100 workshops, presentations, and several exciting keynotes in a packed three-day program. After the Opening Ceremony, the Women in Drupal Awards were held, recognizing the incredible impact Drupal has on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. Winners Pamela Barone, All Petrovska, and Esmeralda Tijhoff took home the awards, acknowledging their accomplishments in the Drupal community. 

For almost ten years, the results of the Drupal Business Survey have been presented at DrupalCon. The Drupal Business Survey, organized by the Drupal Business Network, has been collecting data from Drupal service providers and agencies from all over the world. On 26 September, insights from the 2024 survey were shared in an informative session. While the digital industry is not unaware of worldly events that impact economy and sales, many agencies are excited about Drupal CMS. Over 70 digital agencies working with Drupal came to gather to review and work on their strategy for 2025 and beyond. 

In the Expo Hall, DrupalCon Barcelona attendees learned more about the Ripple Makers membership and Drupal Certified Partners at the Drupal Association booth. Ripple Makers is the revamped Drupal Association Membership, supporting driving innovation and adoption of Drupal as a high-impact digital public good. The Drupal Certified Partner program recognizes and awards agencies that demonstrate significant innovation, philanthropic leadership, and contribution to the Drupal project. To learn more about the Drupal Certified Partner program, visit the Certified Partner Program page on Drupal.org.

Driving Drupal innovation through collaboration

The Drupal Association Board got together the weekend prior to DrupalCon for their bi-annual in-person board meeting. Topics of discussion included Drupal CMS, its roadmap, and the overall strategy and ambitions for Drupal. They held their public board meeting on Wednesday at DrupalCon to announce the newest Board Members: Alejandro Moreno, Sachiko Muto, and Stella Power. During the public meeting, CEO Tim Doyle also announced the launch of a new program, Adopt-a-Document. 

On the last day of the conference, Drupal experts stayed for Contribution Day, where they worked on Drupal’s next exciting innovations. Drupal’s community has over 100,000 passionately committed users driving innovation of one of the world’s largest open source projects. Many social events occur in the evenings at DrupalCon, including Drupal’s pub quiz called Trivia Night on Thursday. 

At the closing ceremony, the city for DrupalCon Europe 2025 was announced: Vienna. 

About the Drupal Association

The Drupal Association is a nonprofit organization focused on accelerating Drupal, fostering the growth of the Drupal community, and supporting the project’s vision to create a safe, secure, and open web for everyone. The Drupal Association also administers Drupal.org on behalf of the Drupal community. You can also support the continued success of the Drupal project by getting involved. Learn more.