CloudFest 2026

Why We Consciously Don’t Have a Booth This Year – and Expect More Than Ever Before

CloudFest is one of the few events where the term “industry meeting” is not an exaggeration. This is where the layer of IT that builds, operates, and sells infrastructure comes together. Anyone who wants to understand where hosting, cloud, and platform economy are heading cannot miss this event.

We participated in 2025 as exhibitors in the start-up area.

The environment was fitting. The organization was professional. The target audience was just right. We had good conversations, built contacts, and gained visibility. There’s nothing we would retrospectively consider a mistake.

And yet, we decided not to book a booth for 2026.

This decision has nothing to do with the event itself – but with the role one assumes there.

Having a booth means being permanently available. Conversations start by the minute, get interrupted, resumed, or deliberately shortened. The calendar dictates the day. Spontaneity becomes the exception. Depth rarely develops because the context constantly changes.

This is precisely where the crucial point lies for us.

CloudFest is not a place for quick lead generation. There are more efficient formats for that. The real value lies in conversations that take time. In discussions that are not reduced to a result after five minutes. In perspectives that only develop when you truly listen.

This kind of exchange is only possible to a limited extent as an exhibitor.

That’s why we changed our perspective.

In 2026, we will be there as participants. Without a booth, without a fixed meeting point, without the pressure to be permanently “on.” Instead, with a clear goal: to understand more, listen more closely, conduct conversations consciously, and not just initiate them.

We want to not only take in the content but also contextualize it. We want to have discussions that go beyond the initial exchange. We also want to speak more intensively with other exhibitors – not between two appointments, but with time and focus.

Because the topics that become visible at CloudFest are not trivial.

The industry is under pressure. Technological dependencies are no longer an abstract risk but an operational reality. Decisions about infrastructure are long since also strategic decisions about control, costs, and room for maneuver. These tensions become tangible at events like CloudFest – not just on the stages, but especially in direct exchanges.

We already saw this in 2025. This year, we want to delve deeper.

At the same time, the truth is also: CloudFest doesn’t just work through content.

It works through atmosphere.

Through situations that are not planned. Through conversations that arise over meals. Through encounters in the evening. Through shared experiences that create connections before business is even discussed.

This is precisely what we are consciously making time for this year.

For good food. For conversations without an agenda. For roller coaster rides in Europa-Park. And yes, also to celebrate ourselves a bit as a team. Not as an end in itself, but because these moments often lay the foundation for the conversations that become truly relevant afterward.

We only skimmed this side of CloudFest last year. This year, we are taking it seriously.

What remains is our commitment not to keep it all to ourselves.

Our Twitch livestream in 2025 showed that this unfiltered view of the event sparks interest. Not glossy, not marketing, but impressions from conversations, moods, and topics as they actually arise on site.

We are continuing this.

📅 Start: 24.03.2026, around 10:00 AM
📍 https://www.twitch.tv/weareayedo

We are taking you along again – directly from the event, without a script, without staging.

Our preliminary conclusion is clear: The value of CloudFest does not depend on whether you have a booth.

It depends on how you use the time.

We have decided to use this time differently this year. Less scheduling, more depth. Less pressure to be present, more attention.

This is not a rejection of exhibiting. It is a conscious prioritization.

And probably the more sensible decision for exactly what we want to take away from this event.