Bristol Databricks Meetup: Feb 2026
Details
Alright Bristol, we’re finally here.
We’re buzzing to launch the Databricks Bristol Meetup and get the Bristol Databricks community together. Huge thanks to iO Associates for being our host and cheerleader in Bristol, and to Advancing Analytics and Databricks for backing the group and helping us build something that’s genuinely useful for practitioners.
Expect a relaxed evening of good people, practical Databricks chat, and networking (the kind where you actually meet people, not just collect LinkedIn connections you’ll never speak to again). Whether you’re deep in Spark, living your best Lakehouse life, or just Databricks-curious, you’re very welcome.
What to expect
- A friendly, community-first meetup (no sales, no nonsense)
- A quick Databricks “what’s new” segment to kick things off
- A keynote from Databricks
- Drinks, pizza, and plenty of time to chat with other data folks
Agenda
5.30pm – Arrival + networking drinks
6.00pm – Introduction from Simon Whiteley, followed by What’s new in Databricks
6.20pm – The Metadata Marathon: How three projects are racing forward – Holly Smith (Staff Developer Advocate, Databricks)
With the enormous amount of discussion about open storage formats between nerds and even not-nerds, it can be hard to keep track of who’s doing what and how this actually makes any impact on day to day data projects.
Holly will take a closer look at the three big projects in this space; Delta, Hudi and Iceberg. They’re all trying to solve for similar data problems and have tackled the various challenges in different ways. Her talk will start with the very basics of how we got here, what the history is before diving deep into the underlying tech, their roadmaps, and their impacts on the data landscape as a whole.
7.00pm – Drinks + pizza + networking
Venue
Hosted at iO Associates, Bristol. (St Bartholomew's House, Bristol BS1 2NH)
Spaces will be limited, so please RSVP. If you can’t make it, do update your RSVP so someone else can grab your spot.
Who should come?
- Data engineers, analysts, scientists, platform folks, architects
- People building on Databricks (or evaluating it)
- Anyone into modern data + AI and learning from others doing it for real
