On October 4, 2024, the global DevOpsDays Organizer Summit took place in Antwerp, bringing together organizers from DevOpsDays events around the world. Our team from DevOpsDays Zürich delivered a presentation titled “Bigger is Not Always Better.” I was not able to attend in person due to another conference, but my co-organizers Nadine and Dirk absolutely rocked the stage. Here is the story of why we decided not to scale our sold-out conference.
The History of DevOpsDays Zürich#
DevOpsDays Zürich started in 2017, triggered by folks from the DevOps Meetup group who said “Let’s do a DevOpsDays in Switzerland.” They found that venues in downtown Zürich were expensive, so the first event took place at the Alte Kaserne in Winterthur, about 20 minutes by train from Zürich. The venue was perfect: the right price, breakout rooms for Open Spaces, and capacity for about 250 people.
With 12 organizers and 4 supporters, the first edition attracted around 200 attendees. By 2018, it was sold out at 250 people, and the team decided it was time to scale.
The Scaling Experiment of 2019#
In 2019, the event moved to the Arena in Spreitenbach, a much larger venue booked for 600 people. Over 500 attendees showed up. But the numbers tell the real story: the core team grew to 16 organizers, and onsite supporters jumped from 4 to 19. Finding those supporters meant asking friends and family, people who had nothing to do with organizing conferences or even DevOps, but who were needed to guide attendees, manage registration, and keep things running.
It was clear for all the organizers: this was stress. Not only does a new venue mean re-evaluating Wi-Fi, catering, and logistics, the sheer size requires finding and instructing many more people.
The COVID Pivot and Return#
Then COVID struck. In 2020, the team organized five online sessions across the Tuesday evenings of September. Despite many registrations, attendance was disappointing. More importantly, the online format completely missed what makes DevOpsDays special: the spirit of connecting people, the Open Spaces, and the sense of community.
The team paused until late 2021, when Switzerland’s situation allowed a cautious return. They went back to the Alte Kaserne, required vaccination and testing, and sold out immediately. The feedback was overwhelming: people had missed the in-person community connection.
A Trend of Selling Out Faster#
The pattern since the return has been striking:
- 2022: Sold out, two weeks before the event
- 2023: Sold out, seven weeks in advance
- 2024: Sold out, nine weeks in advance, with a waiting list of over 100 people
Every year, the discussion within the organizer team comes up again: “We should scale. The universe expands, why don’t we?”
Why We Chose Not to Scale#
Instead of going with a gut feeling, we did what DevOps people do: we applied a rigorous tradeoff analysis using the architectural tradeoff method. Two organizers spent an evening with two pizzas evaluating all options:
- Stay at current size
- Choose a new, larger location
- Go back to the bigger venue
- Add live streaming
- Go hybrid
- Change the food concept
- Host the conference twice per year
- Scale out to multiple Swiss cities
Each option was scored against weighted criteria. The result confirmed the gut feeling: don’t scale.
The Alte Kaserne offers critical advantages that are hard to replicate elsewhere:
- Affordable pricing as a city-owned venue
- Multiple rooms on three floors, ideal for Open Spaces and workshops
- Trusted partnership with the venue team who even cook the food and take care of the organizers
- Infrastructure investments like Wi-Fi repeaters and video connectors that stay in place year after year
Community Comes First#
The heart of the decision is the DevOpsDays Zürich vision:
“DevOps community around 200 kilometers around Zürich who wants to learn, network, and share. The DevOpsDays is a two-day onsite, single-track conference that has top topics, networking opportunities, like-minded people, and is inspiring, motivating, intense, and holistic. Unlike commercial conferences, our conference has heart and soul.”
The ticket price has remained stable since the beginning: CHF 250 for a two-day conference including lunch, an evening event with food and drinks, workshops, and top international speakers. When the conference has money to spare, it goes to organizations that support refugees entering the IT industry or that bring underrepresented groups, especially girls, into contact with technology.
As Dirk put it:
“We are not doing this for the money. This is what we do on our day jobs. This is what we do because it’s fun, for the kicks. It’s such an awesome conference and we have such an amazing team.”
The Stable Core Team#
The organizer team has been stable for at least three years. Each core member has a clear responsibility, and there is a buddy concept where every new joiner has someone to guide them. Responsibilities can shift, giving people the chance to learn new roles while having support.
Planning starts right after the summer break. By the time the current conference ends, the date for the next edition is already confirmed and announced. This gives the team stability and a clear planning horizon.
Mitigating Without Scaling#
The team is not ignoring the demand. Instead, they are exploring targeted mitigations:
- Day tickets so people who can only attend one day free up capacity
- Better early-bird timing to give everyone a fair chance
- Adjusted overbooking strategies to account for no-shows
Key Takeaways#
- Bigger is not always better. A community conference can create more value by staying intimate and focused than by chasing scale.
- Use data, not gut feelings. The tradeoff analysis confirmed the intuitive decision, giving the team confidence and a shared understanding.
- Community over commercialization. Keeping ticket prices affordable and donating surplus to good causes builds trust and loyalty.
- Invest in your venue relationship. Long-term partnerships with a trusted venue reduce risk and improve quality year after year.
- Stability in the core team enables institutional knowledge and smooth operations, even as new members join.
- The DevOpsDays Zürich is proof that you can be sold out nine weeks in advance and still choose quality over quantity.