Rebooting the London .NET User Group

Posted by Dylan Beattie on 20 June 2022 • permalink

It’s been a difficult couple of years for tech events[citation needed], but in-person conferences are back, venues and event spaces are open for business as usual, and we’re really happy to announce that the London .NET User Group (aka LDNUG) will be running regular in-person meetings again starting in August.

Here’s a quick FAQ to get you up to speed on who we are, what we’re doing, and how to get involved.

What is the London .NET User Group?

It’s a monthly, free community meetup for people based around London who develop software using .NET and related technologies.

Who’s behind it?

Ian Cooper started the group in 2002, and he’s been running it ever since. Dylan Beattie (that’s me!) has been helping run the group since 2015, and various other people help out from time to time.

Why do you do it?

Three reasons:

  1. It’s a great way to meet people who are working on the same things that you are. Maybe they can help you, maybe they can hire you, maybe you can hire them? Over the 20 years we’ve been running the group, people have found jobs, contracts, employees, open-source collaborators – and made quite a few friends along the way, too.
  2. It’s a great way to hear first-hand from folks who are working with the latest & greatest tech – or who are applying more established technology in some interesting and unexpected ways. Listening to people talk about what they actually did, how they did it, what worked and what didn’t work, can provide a really valuable perspective if you’re thinking about trying out a new technology on one of your own projects.
  3. It’s a platform for speakers to try out their talks and content in front of a friendly audience, figure out what works, and get constructive feedback on their presentations. Many of the people you’ll see speaking at big international conferences did their first talk at a group like LDNUG – and, just as importantly, many of those same “big name” speakers use the group to try out new talks and present new material before submitting it to those same big conferences.

What happens at the meetups?

Folks normally start arriving around 18:30. Around 19:00, we’ll kick off with a few announcements about forthcoming events and interesting stuff that’s going on in the wide world of .NET. We aim to have at least two speakers at each event; they’ll do 45-60 minutes each, with a break in the middle for drinks and chat. Talks should finish by 21:30, and there’s usually a few people heading to a nearby pub afterwards for drinks and chat.

Will your meetups be streamed online?

Probably not. For now we’re relying on companies to provide event space to host our meetups, and live streaming adds a whole extra level of complexity both for the organisers (us!) and for the venue that’s hosting us.

Will your meetups be recorded?

We’re looking into it. We’d love to be able to publish talks and videos on YouTube after each event, but we’re still figuring out the details.

What sort of things do you talk about?

Anything and everything, as long as it’s vaguely connected with building software using .NET. We’ve hosted lots of deep-dive technical talks about things like C# language features, .NET memory management, and performance optimisations. We’ve hosted introductory talks to technologies like Blazor and SignalR, we’ve had talks about related technologies like SQL, frontend development, and node.JS, and we’ve hosted speakers talking about all kinds of topics related to working in development – security, culture, diversity, recruitment.

Can I do a talk?

Sure you can. Submit your talk via our Sessionize, and we’ll be in touch to find a date that works and figure out some details.

I can’t join in person - can I do an online talk via Zoom?

Probably not. For now, we’re prioritising in-person events, with live speakers talking to an in-person audience; after two years of online events we’re all a bit burned out on Zoom talks and “hey, leave a comment in the chat”.

Can I come along and watch?

Yeah, absolutely! Join our Meetup group, follow us on Twitter, and we’ll let you know when we announce new dates.

Can my company host a meetup?

Probably! If you’ve got some venue or event space in central London (zone 1 & 2), and you’d like to invite a few dozen .NET developers to see your offices and meet some of your team, hosting a meetup is a great way to make it happen. We’ve done this many times with companies who are hiring developers, which tends to work out well, but even if you’re not hiring it’s a great way to support the London .NET community.

You’ll need to provide a meeting space, auditorium, or similar, equipped with a projector/TV screen, ideally 1920x1080 HD or better, with HDMI. We’ll need audio in case speakers have music/sound in their presentations, and speakers will need to have their own laptop on stage with them when they’re presenting so they can run live demos.

We’ll also ask you to provide refreshments: water, tea, coffee, soft drinks and snacks. (If you want to provide beer, wine, pizza, buffet snacks, etc. for attendees, that’s very much appreciated, but not required.) Guest access to wifi is normally a good idea too, although we can work around this as long as we know about it in advance. In exchange, you’ll get a chance to show off your offices, tell our attendees a bit about your company and what you’re working on, and feel good about supporting local community events. 😊

If that all sounds like something you’re interested in, drop us an email and let’s work something out. We aim to schedule events at least three months in advance.

Where do I find out more?

All our events are announced via our Meetup group:

We’re also on Twitter:

If you’re interested in speaking, submit a talk via our Sessionize:

If you want to get in touch with the organisers, you can email us here: