BarCamp Philly 17

Walk into most conferences and someone hands you a schedule that got locked months ago. Walk into BarCamp Philly and the schedule is a big empty grid on the wall. By mid-morning, it won’t be.

That’s an unconference. The people who show up build the program themselves, the morning of the event. Anyone can propose a session — you write your idea on a card, pitch it to the room, and everyone votes with stickers on what they want to hear. Ideas that draw interest get a room and a time slot, and that empty grid turns into a full day of talks and workshops that didn’t exist two hours earlier. When Technical.ly previewed our 15th event, the board filled with 60 sessions across six time slots. Or as organizer Tim Allen put it in Technical.ly: “a day of programming collaboratively built by the people, for the people.”

Drinks and snacks: Your admission includes morning drinks and a light continental breakfast (first come, first served!) — we encourage you to bring a refillable water container to take advantage of refill stations througout the event venue. Lunch is not included in your admission, but we encourage patronizing nearby vendors during the planned lunch break.

Merch! This year, we're offering attendees more choice by splitting merch from the admission donation. During registration, you can choose official BarCamp Philly merchandise to be shipped directly to your preferred address for an additional donation. We expect items ordered before September 17, 2026 to ship before October 1, 2026, so you'll get them in time for the event. Items ordered after September 17, 2026 will ship from our fulfillment partners on a rolling basis, with a 10-14 business day turnaround for most orders. Merch will be available to order until October 21, 2026. T-shirts will include sponsor logos on the back — those designs will not be finalized until September 17, 2026. Although orders are nonrefundable and final, the event organizers will facilitate a peer-to-peer merch swap during the event for attendees who would like to switch sizes or colors.

Ordering multiple sizes of the same shirt? Our ticketing form will assume that all shirts in an order will be the same size. If that's not the case for you, please use our merch stand to order individual items in any of the listed sizes. You don't need to register for the event to order merch this year.