The Story Behind MAUI Day

MAUI Day did not start with a big plan. Like many good community things, it mostly started with a few people thinking: we can probably make this useful, and maybe even fun.

Back in 2017 this was still the Xamarin era. Xamarin had recently become part of Microsoft, and there was an initiative called Xamarin Dev Days. If I remember correctly, it was kind of an event-in-a-box setup. The schedule, slides, and overall format were provided, and you mostly needed people to present it locally.

That was great, but around us we noticed people were looking for something a bit more in-depth. At that point Glenn Versweyveld, Thomas Burkhart, Tobias Hoppenthaler, Kerry Lothrop, and I, Gerald Versluis, had already been working with Xamarin for a while. So instead of running another intro-style event, we decided to make something more focused on people who were already building apps and wanted to go deeper.

We knew some people at Microsoft and checked what we could and could not do with the naming. The advice was basically: don't start the name with Xamarin, but otherwise you should be fine. So the first version became Expert Day for Xamarin, which later got shortened to XamExpertDay.

It started small. Maybe 30 people the first time. Then around 50. Then eventually we filled the venue with about 100 people. For a free community event, that already felt pretty amazing.

Over the years we were lucky enough to have at least one "bigger" name join us for most editions. Although, to be fair, it was not only luck. We often planned the event close to another bigger conference, so speakers who were already in the area could make an extra stop with us. That helped a lot.

Then COVID happened. We did one or two online editions, and those turned out to be a huge success. In a way, those online events also pushed me more into creating videos and helped kick off what became my YouTube channel. After that, Xamarin became .NET MAUI, and naturally we moved with it. XamExpertDay became MAUI Day.

The people involved also changed over time. Some of the original crew moved on to other things, which is totally normal, and luckily new people joined in. That has always been part of the charm of this event. It is not one big machine. It is a group of people who care about the community and make things happen where they can.

For years people would come up to me and say: "We should do a MAUI Day in..." And I always gave the same answer: let's talk. You can use the branding, I want to keep some control over what it is, but I am happy to help and you can run things locally. Most of those conversations stayed conversations.

Until London.

At one of the Cologne editions, some people from the UK were in the audience and said: we should do this in London. Same answer from me: let's talk. But this time they actually followed through. Tony Edwards, Shaun Lawrence, and Clifford Agius helped turn that idea into a real event, and London was a huge success.

Maybe because London is easy to reach, maybe because the timing was right, maybe both. Cologne was already pretty easy to "sell out", in quotes because MAUI Day has always been free, but London was something else. We had a big waitlist and a lot of excitement around it.

That free part is important too. MAUI Day has always been a free event, and that only works because sponsors have been kind enough to help with things like lunch, venues, licenses, products to give away, and all the practical things that make a day like this possible. Huge shoutout to everyone who supported us over the years. It is not always the most visible part of the event, but it is a big reason we can keep it accessible for everyone.

And while we are talking about things that make MAUI Day feel like MAUI Day, a special shoutout has to go to Steven Thewissen, our resident graphic designer. If something needs to look good, whether it is the socials, the website, the badges, or anything else we suddenly decide should probably not look like a developer made it, Steven is usually the person making that happen.

From London, some of that crew became more involved in the core group as well. Later we got in touch with Jakub Florkowski and Michał Pobuta, who really spearheaded bringing MAUI Day to Kraków, Poland. We planned it close to Update Conference in Kraków, so David and I were already there, and that helped make it happen.

This was exactly what I had always hoped for when I said "let's talk." Not just taking the same event and dropping it into another city, but bringing in the local community to shape it with us. People who know the place, know the audience, and care enough to make it feel like it belongs there. That matters, because the best part of MAUI Day is not just the talks, the venue, or even the badges. It is the vibe in the room. The informal setting, the honest conversations, the feeling that everyone is there for the same reason. You can try to bring that to another city, but you never really know if it will click in the same way. In Kraków it did, and I think Jakub and Michał being there with their local community is a big reason why. It made bringing that MAUI Day feeling to Poland feel natural.

And now it keeps growing in a very organic way. Through people in the community we got connected with folks in Macedonia who are eager to build more community traction there, both in general and around .NET MAUI specifically. That edition will probably be a little different from the ones we have done so far, but that is also the point. MAUI Day should fit the local community, not the other way around.

Why it works

I think the real power of MAUI Day is that it is informal. It is not huge. Sessions are not recorded. People talk openly. Speakers, attendees, community members, and people from the product teams are all in the same room. Everyone feels a bit more free to ask honest questions, share what works, and also share what does not.

That direct line is incredibly valuable. People get to hear what is being worked on, and at the same time we get honest feedback from people who are building real apps with this technology every day.

That is what makes it special to me. It is useful, but it is also just a lot of fun. People travel from all over the world, not only to speak, but also to attend. That still blows my mind a little bit.

So no, there was never a grand master plan behind the locations or the growth of MAUI Day. It just happened step by step, with good people, good timing, and a community that keeps showing up.