Our Call for Proposals is now open and will close on June 30th, 2025.
Talks will be 25 minutes in length (with no in-session Q/A).
Here are some general guidelines and advice for crafting for your proposal. Also check out our sample proposal for a general outline and expectations.
At one-track conferences, there’s only one talk on stage at a time. Most of our audience will be in the same room, hearing the same talks. That means your talk could be heard by anyone from students taking their first steps in Python, through to seasoned professionals who actually develop the language and frameworks that Python developers use every day.
Try to craft your proposal to appeal to a wide range of developers and skill levels. This doesn't mean your topic can't be highly specific; an interesting topic delivered with enthusiasm can inspire people to want to learn more, even if they have no experience in that area. But you should avoid proposing a talk that might require too much in-depth technical knowledge to appreciate, or that might only appeal to beginners in the field.
Talks will be no more than 25 minutes. The best 25-minute talks leave your audience with an understanding of why your topic is important, and why you are enthusiastic about it. They should leave your talk knowing what to research, what's important in your topic area, what's not, and a curiosity to learn more.
Make sure your proposal convinces our program team that you can fill 25 minutes of time, and that you aren't trying to cover too much ground in too little time.
Everyone at PyBeach will be there because they like Python, so the talks we select will be interesting to those people. This doesn’t mean your talk has to be about Python, but that people who like Python should find value from your talk. If your talk doesn't naturally have a Python angle, you don't need to force one in: we'd rather see the enthusiasm you actually have for your topic.
On the other hand, the less your talk is about Python itself, the more clear you should make it to us why your talk will be interesting to people who attend our conference.
Our review team will likely have to look over many proposals in a very short timeframe. They're doing their best with limited information to figure out which talks will collectively make the best program possible.
Good talk descriptions are usually three to six paragraphs (comprising around 200-400 words total).
Your proposal needs to give the review team enough information to understand what the audience will learn, and why you're the right person to share that knowledge. However, being too information-dense can be difficult to read, and might make it harder for a reviewer to understand what bits you really care about.
Don't hold back "spoilers": if a detail is missing from your proposal, our reviewers will assume that you won't be talking about it. There are sections for private notes where you can leave information for the reviewers that the audience won't see when we publish your talk. These private notes are in addition to your abstract, but filling that section densely with notes will make it harder for time-strapped reviewers to figure out what you're talking about.
Be enthusiastic, and communicate your enthusiasm in your proposal. Show us why you care about your topic, and why we should too.
The initial phases of review are judged anonymously: our reviewers will not know who you are, and we will redact any mention of your own name, the names of your employer, or any non-essential information that could identify you to a reviewer.
Make sure that your proposal stands out just as well if you don't mention those details.
VM Brasseur maintains a repository of public speaking resources, which can help you make better proposals.
This guide was largely copied from North Bay Python's Speaking Information Page.