On Pause in 2022

We believe that Accento in Karlsruhe is unique. In 2019 we had a cool location, the best attendees and partners, a great atmosphere, and an international and (if we may say so ourselves) impressive speaker line-up. In the subsequent years, we wanted to build on that and turn Accento into a gem in the German and international Java community.

Then COVID-19 happened. We organized two online conferences in 2020 and 2021 and while we're happy with what we hosted, we begrudgingly realized that they didn't stand out. There are just too many online conferences out there that are doing really cool things that we are too small to compete with. And since it was never our goal to organize Just Another Conference, we came to the conclusion that we want to focus on in-person events in the future.

Unfortunately, after another high-incidence winter and in the midst of the largest COVID wave yet (albeit with a much milder variant, thankfully), we're not confident that it makes sense to organize an event in fall of 2022. Will Omicron be the last variant and can we prevent another wave? Can events take place without social distancing rules? Can speakers and attendees travel freely? Will it be responsible and fun to have an in-person event? We suspect some of those answers will be "no".

So with a heavy heart, we concluded to pause Accento in 2022. We're hoping for a calmer winter that gives us and you the confidence that an in-person event in fall of 2023 will be enjoyable.

— Uta & Nicolai