Top 10 Things Not to Do at KubeCon (If You Want to Actually Enjoy It)

This week, I attended my second consecutive KubeCon, KubeCon EU Amsterdam and it definitely felt like a special one.

I experienced multiple sides of the community: I attended Cloud Native Rejekts and the Maintainer Summit, spaces that are always rich in honest conversations and less crowded than the KubeCon event.

During the Maintainer Summit, I participated at the OpenTelemetry Prometheus unconference session, which I really enjoyed as it aimed to address the current pain points coming from both communities.

I spoke for the first time at both Platform Engineering Day and KubeCon itself.

At Platform Engineering Day, I co-presented “Who Designed That Platform?” with Elif Samedin, a talk that sparked great discussions around platform ownership and developer experience.

Introducing the idea of humans as a platform resonated with the audience and brought a lot of attention.

Then on KubeCon Day 1, I gave another talk on “A Simple Guide to Kubernetes Observability,” bringing this topic to a broader, more beginner friendly audience.

Day 2 was perhaps the most meaningful part of my experience: I led the first-ever CNCF Neurodiversity Community Hub session, helping amplify the mission of Merge-Forward.

The engagement, openness, and energy in that room made it clear how important these conversations are and how much space there is to grow.

One of the highlights of the week was reconnecting with the community from Cloud Native Days Romania. We ended up doing what KubeCon does best, spending time together in hallway conversations, sharing ideas, catching up, and just enjoying being part of the same ecosystem in a different city.

Moments like these remind me that the real value of these events is always the people. And of course, we’re already looking forward to welcoming everyone at the next edition of Cloud Native Days Romania, happening on May 18–19 in Bucharest.

Experiencing KubeCon from both sides — attendee and speaker — gave me a completely different perspective. And, just like in previous events, I still found myself relearning some lessons the hard way: sore feet from the wrong shoes, exhaustion from overpacked schedules.

Overall, KubeCon can be overwhelming even for experienced attendees. So instead of giving you a polished checklist of what to do, I’ll next share something far more useful: the mistakes you should avoid.

KubeCon is one of those events that feels like drinking from a firehose — thousands of attendees, hundreds of talks, endless booths, side events, and after-parties. It’s easy to fall into the trap of trying to do everything… and end up enjoying nothing.

Here are the top 10 things you should absolutely NOT do at KubeCon, if you want to survive, learn, and maybe even have a great time.

1. Don’t Wear Uncomfortable Shoes

Seriously, this is not a fashion show.

You’ll walk a lot. Between halls, booths, side events, and spontaneous hallway chats, you can easily hit 25,000–40,000 steps per day or more.

Dress for comfort, not to impress.
Nobody remembers your outfit, but your feet will remember bad decisions. It happened to me at this KubeCon so I make it the first step to take into consideration.

2. Don’t Create a Packed, Minute-by-Minute Schedule

It’s tempting to plan every talk, every meetup, every coffee.

Don’t.

KubeCon is chaotic in the best way. The most valuable moments often come from: unexpected conversations, last-minute invites, random hallway discussions.

Leave at least 50% of your schedule open. Think of it as “strategic spontaneity.”

3. Don’t Sit in Talks All Day

Yes, the talks are great.
No, you shouldn’t attend 8 hours of them back-to-back.

Here’s the truth: most talks (if not all) are recorded, you won’t retain everything, you will miss networking opportunities.

Hand-pick a few must-see talks, then spend the rest of your time actually talking to people, visiting booths, asking those questions you’ve been waiting for this entire time.

A couple of great talks I attended were “Retroactive sampling with OpenTelemetry: cut 90% distributed tracing bandwidth usage” by Zhu Jiekun and Roman Khavronenko from VictoriaMetrics.

The second talk was “Cutting metrics traffic, cutting costs: the AZ-aware observability blueprint” by Iris Dyrmishi and Rodrigo Fior Kuntzer from Miro.

4. Don’t Ignore Networking (It’s the Real Event)

KubeCon is less about Kubernetes and more about people who build with it.

If you spend all your time consuming content, you’re missing the real value.

Don’t stick only with people you already know, avoid conversations because “it feels awkward”.

Instead ask what people are working on, share your own challenges, follow curiosity, not status.

Reconnecting with old friends, colleagues and having honest conversations it’s worth more in reality.

5. Don’t Skip the Expo Floor

It’s easy to dismiss booths as “just vendors.” Big mistake.

The expo floor is where you can: see real-world demos, talk to engineers (not just marketers), discover tools you didn’t know you needed.

Don’t just grab swag — ask questions.

6. Don’t Forget to Explore the City

KubeCon happens in amazing cities and yet many attendees see only the conference center. Don’t be that person.

Make time to try local food, walk around neighborhoods, visit landmarks. You’ll remember that incredible local dish, that sunset walk, that random café conversation.

7. Don’t Overcommit to Evening Events

Every night, there are dozens of meetups, parties, dinners, “must-attend” gatherings.

Trying to attend all of them is a fast track to burnout.

Pick 1–2 meaningful events per night.
Then rest. Because day 2 exhaustion is very real. It happened to the best of us.

8. Don’t Be Afraid to Skip Things

You will miss things. Talks. Meetups. Conversations. That’s normal.

What’s not normal is trying to compensate by overloading yourself.

Give yourself permission to skip.
Energy is your most valuable resource at KubeCon. Saying no to after parties or dinner and just recharging your body and mind for the next day is actually a smart move.

For me, taking the Monday evening off to recharge was the best thing. I made sure to allow my body and mind to embrace the intense KubeCon that started on Tuesday.

9. Don’t Stay Only in Your Comfort Zone

It’s easy to talk only to people from your company, attend only familiar topics, stick to what you already know.

But KubeCon is the perfect place to explore adjacent technologies, hear different perspectives, challenge your assumptions.

For me, hanging out at the updates on OpenTelemetry panel was a break from the technical talks finding out what this amazing community is currently building but also new ways one can get involved.

10. Don’t Forget to Take Care of Yourself

This is the one people underestimate the most and I’ve definitely learned it the hard way.
Between long days, constant walking, irregular meals, and late nights, your body takes a hit.
Don’t ignore signs of fatigue, skip meals or hydration, assume you’ll “push through it”. And very practically: don’t forget your medicine if you need any, bring a lightweight personal kit (painkillers, band-aids, electrolytes, etc.).
It sounds simple, but it can make the difference between enjoying the event and just surviving it.

Final Thoughts

KubeCon is a marathon, not a sprint.

If you stay flexible, prioritize people over sessions, take care of your energy, leave space for discovery, you won’t just survive it, you’ll actually enjoy it.

And maybe, just maybe, you’ll come back with something more valuable than notes: new ideas, new connections and a fresh perspective on your work.