Behind the Scenes of DrupalCamp Ottawa 2025: How This Free Event Came Together

If you’ve ever worked with Drupal—whether writing lines of code, editing content on the back end, designing page layouts, or just trying to figure out why something won’t save—you’ve probably wished you had someone else in the room who understood what you were looking at. That’s what DrupalCamp Ottawa offers. Not a formal seminar. Not a product launch. Just a room full of people who actually get what it’s like to use, build, and improve Drupal day to day. On May 2, 2025, that room will be the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

DrupalCamp Ottawa isn’t limited to developers. It draws in UX specialists, designers, content strategists, accessibility experts, and people just starting with web development. It also brings together sponsors, service providers, and organisations who rely on Drupal to power serious infrastructure. It’s the kind of event where someone from a government department might end up talking shop with an open-source maintainer over coffee. And what is the price to be in the room this year? Free.

That decision wasn’t automatic. Salman Jaffery, a developer at Coldfront Labs Inc. and the organiser behind DrupalCamp Ottawa 2025, told us that the team initially considered adding a small fee to help scale the event.

“Initially, we were looking into how we could make this event bigger. One of the immediate blockers to that goal was the financial side. We had a look at what other events were doing, and we decided to incorporate a small surcharge of $20 to the event.” 

But it didn’t last.

“Afterwards, we found that a price of any kind on the event would be a blocker for most. So we shifted back to a FREE model. However, we were really able to do so only after the huge help from our sponsors as we were able to double the number of sponsors from the previous year.”

The commitment to keeping it accessible runs through the rest of the planning, starting with the venue itself. The Canada Science and Technology Museum was chosen not just for its capacity, but because it’s one of the few places that allows both formal sessions and casual networking to coexist. 

“It’s an amazing venue, both from accessibility as well as it’ll give us the room to properly do a conference and allow for networking at the same time. Finding a big enough venue to do both is really challenging,” 

Salman told us. 

While the museum’s exhibits aren’t built into the camp’s schedule, attendees will have full access to them throughout the day as long as they wear their name badges.

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What’s at the heart of this year’s camp is what Salman and the team call “All Things Drupal”—a theme that’s been carried over from the last two years, not because they didn’t want to change it, but because it still fits.

 When we asked why the theme hadn’t shifted, Salman told us,

“Our theme for the last three DrupalCamps has been ‘All Things Drupal’ because Drupal has changed a lot over the last several years and has matured quite a bit. It’s spreading and growing at an alarming rate (in a good way). So we wanted to keep the momentum going in the same direction.”

Salman also told us the three guiding goals from day one were to make it bigger, make it easier for people to network and form real connections, and build the conversation around both new technologies, like AI, and ongoing priorities such as accessibility. He explained that the balance of those two, in particular, is especially important now. 

"We wanted to focus on accessibility and AI for this conference as the two are becoming increasingly more in demand. Drupal has matured quite a bit in recent years which has allowed for accepting new technologies to be incorporated into it. One of the areas that is becoming even more important with the advent of AI is accessibility.”

He continued.

“With AI driven features comes a host of new features and ways to interact as well as enhance existing feature sets with AI generated alt text, descriptions, and other generators and enhancers. But there are also other concerns with AI and limitations so we wanted to highlight the pros and the challenges.”

That’s also why accessibility isn’t just a breakout topic—it’s central. Kat Shaw, the camp’s keynote speaker, has built her reputation testing Drupal themes and working directly with organisations like the National Federation of the Blind. Salman confirmed that her keynote was chosen deliberately. Yes, they wanted accessibility to be the centre and focus of this event.

Still, the camp doesn’t assume everyone’s coming in with a developer’s background. For those just starting out, Drupal 101 kicks off at 8:15 a.m.—a crash course designed to familiarise people with the basics. A live demo session follows that, “Mastering Content Management in Drupal,” that walks attendees through creating and editing content in real time. Salman shared that these sessions were designed to give new users enough grounding to engage with the rest of the day.

While most of the pre-event planning has been handled directly by Salman, he estimates that about 90% of it, on the day of the event, is a group effort. Volunteers play an essential role in making the event run smoothly. Kathryn Carruthers will be serving as MC to keep energy up and sessions on time. Other volunteers will handle registration, guide attendees between rooms, and help keep the presentation spaces clean and distraction-free. Salman said he’ll be overseeing logistics—monitoring AV, checking in with sponsors, and making sure presenters have what they need.

The sponsors don’t just make the event possible—they’re built into its structure. Salman told us the team worked hard to offer real visibility that goes beyond a logo. 

“When approaching sponsors, we’re trying to convey the community-building aspects as much as possible. We’re also offering various packages to allow for greater visibility and presence.”

Platinum sponsors, for instance, are given five minutes to speak before the keynote, get breakout rooms named after their company, and see their branding featured across slides, printed materials, and emails.

“But beyond the tangible perks, what we really offer is connection. Sponsors get direct access to a highly targeted audience of developers, decision-makers, and digital professionals. It’s not just exposure, it’s a chance to build relationships, demonstrate thought leadership, and align with an open-source, community-driven ecosystem,” 

he added. 

“In short, we work to make sponsorship feel like a two-way partnership, not just a transaction.”

There’s also a raffle—a tradition for DrupalCamp Ottawa—and this year’s prize is a Logitech MX Master 3s mouse. Salman told us the reasoning was simple. 

“We’ve always given away a raffle prize of some sort, and this year is no different. We chose the Logitech MX Master 3s for a number of reasons. Number one, of course, is that it’s just the best mouse currently available. I’ve used it, and a number of my colleagues have used it and given it high praise. Honestly, we wanted to give something that would be used and remembered.”

Other interactive touches are designed to help attendees get more out of the day. There’s a DrupalCamp bingo card to encourage conversations and exploration. Later in the afternoon, there’s an unconference session and Evolveux—spaces for collaborative discussion and open-ended ideas that don’t always fit into a formal track. Salman told us those moments were just as important as the keynotes and demos.

When we asked what makes Ottawa’s Drupal community stand out, he pointed to a mix of local passion and national support that’s shaped its identity.

“Ottawa has a surprisingly vibrant and active Drupal community. What makes it unique is the strong blend of passionate local developers and institutional investment, particularly from the federal government, which has deeply embraced Drupal as a platform for its digital infrastructure. We’re home to some incredibly talented contributors who maintain core modules, build distributions like DrupalWxT, and give back to the broader ecosystem. That commitment to open source is a real point of pride here.”

At the end of our conversation, we asked what he personally hopes people take with them when they walk out of the venue. His answer wasn’t about tech.

“Honestly, I just want people to leave feeling a little more connected; to each other, to the community, and maybe even to why they got into tech in the first place. DrupalCamp isn’t just about learning new tools or picking up a skill; it’s about sharing space with people who get what you do, who care about open source, and who want to build cool things together. If someone walks away with a new friend, a renewed sense of motivation, or just that good feeling you get after a day of nerding out with kindred spirits, that’s a win in my book.”

That mindset—open, practical, and community-first—is what defines DrupalCamp Ottawa. It’s not just a series of sessions. It’s a reminder that open-source work isn’t something you do alone. Whether you’re there to learn, connect, or just figure out what Drupal even is, this is a space that’s been built with all of that in mind. And all you need to do is show up.