Conference

Backstage at Durham HPC Days 2026

The Things I Never Noticed Before

Eva Fernandez Amez July 2026

First day at a conference, you arrive...

First day at a conference, you arrive. Maybe to a city that you have never visited before. On your way to campus, you make a mental note: "that’s the monument I read about that I should visit" and "that’s the local restaurant my colleague told me about". You tell yourself you’ll definitely have time to explore later. Deep down, you already know that probably won’t happen.

You arrive at the conference venue and immediately recognise some familiar faces. Or maybe not. Maybe the first people you bump into are ones you have never met before. Or maybe you have only come across them through their LinkedIn profile. It’s fine, it’s a Monday morning and, in case you forgot, still the first day of the conference, so you are full of energy and your social battery is fully charged. You register, get your name badge, maybe even one of those old-fashioned printed programmes - you are committed to saving as much paper as possible, but kind of miss the feeling of taking notes on your programme and drawing a massive circle around those sessions you know you would like to attend. You sort of promise yourself not to lose it.

With a fresh coffee cup in your hand, you head to the first workshop. The speakers are very good and you already have a few ideas you will be bringing back to your team. Lunchtime - goodness, you did not realise how hungry you were! Keynote session, science talks. Another coffee break - who would have thought that you would end up talking to that person you saw coming from the train station earlier today? Dinner, social time. It’s already 7pm and you are exhausted.

On your way to the exit, you suddenly overhear some of the conversations at the registration desk:

“Yes, we can move this session to this room.”
“One of your speakers couldn’t make it in the end? No worries, we will update the website.”
“Can someone please update the catering numbers for tomorrow?”
“We will find a meeting room for your team, no problem.”

And suddenly, it hits you. While you’ve been enjoying the day, a group of people has been making sure that every room was ready, every speaker knew where to go and every last-minute problem had a solution before most people even knew. And that is when you wonder how much work goes into making a conference feel effortless.

What I Didn’t Notice Before

Hi, I’m Eva, and this retelling is a fairly accurate description of what could have been going through my mind at a conference I attended a year ago. When I used to attend these events, I sometimes took for granted the amount of work that goes into them, and how much of a difference it makes to the overall experience.

A little over a year ago, I had the opportunity to help with the hybrid setup of Durham HPC Days 2025. Having never been involved with this conference before, it was a great introduction to the community (and my first real contact with the Digital Research Infrastructure landscape, which would later shape my current role in the community). After that, I had the opportunity to work more closely with the Durham and CAKE teams to help bring Durham HPC Days 2026 to life.

Durham HPC Days started as a small reunion of colleagues, and as a result, its organisation has traditionally stayed within the community and operated in a fairly informal way. However, the growing level of interest over the past few years has clearly pushed it towards a more structured, professional conference format.

There are many aspects of the conference we could talk about, but today I would like to take you behind the scenes. Here are a few things I discovered after joining the organising team, together with some fun facts and little details that you might have missed during this year's conference.

Did you know that...?

Hybrid conferences require a bit more planning than just adding a video call. Microsoft Teams Webinars work surprisingly well for hybrid sessions. While other platforms allow you to set up registration-based events, not all institutions have access to them. If your institution uses Microsoft tools, Teams Webinars are a solid option. They allow you to run in-person sessions while speakers join online and present directly from their own devices, avoiding the need to send slides in advance. Fun fact: this year alone, we ran more than 30 sessions, with over 90 speakers and more than 200 attendees on some days.

Mobile-friendly design for your website really matters. No matter how polished your conference website looks on a laptop, it is essential to ensure it works properly on mobile devices. Most attendees will check the programme on their phones, so investing time in accessibility and responsive design makes a real difference to the user experience.

Even though planning started back in September, we held bi-weekly meetings running for the six months leading up to the event. These were led by the CAKE team, who helped advise on best practices and coordinated the many different sessions and activities taking place across the conference.

The programme extends well beyond the lecture theatres. This year, we complemented the technical sessions with a combination of morning walks, early morning runs, poster sessions and evening dinners in the green areas around the venue. All of these activities need to be factored into the conference logistics as much as the official programme. After all, if you’re inviting people to a 6:30 am run, you definitely need to make sure at least one volunteer is awake and ready to get going!

The music at the conference social on the Tuesday had a local connection too. The musicians who led the ceilidh evening are part of a local band from the North East. When they are not bringing HPC Days attendees onto the dance floor, some of them can often be found performing traditional carols during the Christmas events at Beamish, The Living Museum of the North.

The illustration used across the conference branding and stickers is based on a real street in Durham. It depicts Saddler Street, one of the city's oldest streets, named after the Sir Ralph Saddler, a Commissioner for King Henry VIII in Durham. Some of the people joining the morning walk team had the opportunity to pass through it and get some nice pictures.

The NetDRIVE 2026 Summer School was held alongside HPC Days, giving the PhD students attending the opportunity to participate in some of the conference sessions and tutorials. During the event, the summer school participants created posters, which were then showcased as part of the HPC Days programme on the Friday. Running the two events concurrently created a more welcoming and friendly atmosphere while providing excellent networking opportunities for early-career researchers.

This year, we received outstanding support from the Wolfson Research Institute for Health and Wellbeing, who helped us with many aspects of the logistical organisation behind the event. Durham University has been making a big effort to bring together the expertise and strengths of its different institutes, and this collaboration was a great example of what can be achieved when different communities work together. A big shout out to them for helping make this edition possible!

Food trucks, beer and good company: sometimes that’s all you need. While most conferences tend to include at least one formal conference dinner, that was (deliberately) not the case for HPC Days. We wanted to preserve the “homemade” feel of the first editions: this is almost a week-long gathering of friends and colleagues that share the same passion. And, as with most things in life, sometimes simpler is better. Instead, dinner was provided by DDC Event Catering (our local North East food truck company), while traditional seating arrangements were replaced with picnic benches in the gardens surrounding a small lake near the conference venue. June evenings in Durham are among the best times of the year to enjoy the outdoors, and this was something we wanted to make the most of.

None of the above are probably mind-blowing revelations, but they are the small details that make an event like Durham HPC Days feel smooth, welcoming and, hopefully, memorable. Most attendees will never notice them - and that's kind of a sign that everything has gone to plan.

So, what's next for Durham HPC Days? Well, we don't have all the answers yet. What we do know is that we want to keep bringing the community together, creating opportunities for people to share ideas, start collaborations and meet new faces.

After all, I am sure of one thing: the next time I arrive at a conference as an attendee, I'll look at the registration desk - and all the volunteers running around behind the scenes - a little differently.