Workshops are now two hours, and capped at forty

Workshops were the most popular and the most criticised part of Summit 2026. The sessions themselves scored well, but getting into one meant arriving early and hoping, and ninety minutes rarely left time to finish the exercise. We have changed both things for 2027.

Two hours, in the Lab

Every workshop now runs for two hours, in the Lab on the first floor. There are workshops on both days, and each one belongs to one of the five tracks. They are built around a single problem that you work through from start to finish with your own laptop, and they all end with something you can take back to your team: a working prototype, a review checklist, a revised plan.

Two hours sounds long until you are in one. We asked last year’s workshop leaders what they would cut to fit ninety minutes, and nearly all of them said “the bit where people actually try it”. This year that part stays.

Forty seats

The Lab seats forty, so that is the cap. It keeps the room small enough for the person running it to reach every table, and we will have a second helper in the room for anything over twenty people.

How booking works

• Conference and team passes include one guaranteed workshop seat. You choose it at checkout, and you can change it until 1 May.
• Early-bird passes can join the waitlist for up to two workshops. If a seat opens up, we email you and hold it for 48 hours.
• Scholarship holders get a guaranteed seat too, chosen when we book your travel.
• On the day, any seat that is not claimed ten minutes after the start is released to the queue at the door.

We will publish the full list of workshops and their leaders in January. Each listing will say what to install beforehand and what level it suits, so you can choose before the good ones fill.

If you book a seat and cannot come, please release it. Someone on the waitlist will be very pleased.

What this means for the rest of the programme

Longer workshops mean fewer of them, but nothing else in the schedule changes shape. The Main Stage and the Studio run as before, and the coffee and lunch breaks stay at the same times, so a workshop never makes you miss lunch.

You can see what each pass includes on the tickets page. If you have already bought an early-bird pass and would rather have a guaranteed seat, you can upgrade for the difference at any time.