Buzz Interactive at Orchard Harvest 2025: Building community and connection

Buzz is making a global impact after heading to this year’s Orchard Harvest Conference in Prague.

The event, which saw delegates joining from around the world, is completely focused on building and learning within the Orchard Core community - a content management system framework we build all of our applications and websites with here at Buzz.

This year, we were thrilled to be feeding our knowledge back into the tech community, with Development Manager Nick Jackson and Senior Web Developer Alcwyn Parker taking the stage in two separate talks (and an extra panel with Nick) to share the work they’ve done, from redefining the user experience to building powerful forms with ease.

With four members of our team on the road, including directors Paul and Lindsey Axten, they spent two days diving deep into the technical aspects of Orchard Core, how other teams around the world use it and learning more about new features that can be harnessed in the future.

Following the event, Nick said: “I came away inspired by the insightful talks from other speakers, gaining ideas that will help us moving forward.

“This was my first time speaking at a major conference, and it was an incredible experience. I genuinely enjoyed presenting the updates we’ve been making to Orchard Core, and sharing our progress with a wider audience felt both exciting and rewarding.

“Seeing the community’s enthusiasm for the new features made the effort that went into the updates feel even more worthwhile.”

Community played a big aspect in the event, showing how connected and engaged the developers working on Orchard Core are - and how working together can only help build a stronger framework for the future.

Alcwyn said: “It was humbling to see how vibrant the community was and to finally meet the active members who we usually only interact with via discussion forums and discord. 

“Being part of the event motivated me to want to be more active in the community, while conversations with fellow developers sparked ideas that, since arriving home, have already begun to inspire new features in modules I have been working on. 

“Seeing how various companies are using Orchard Core instilled confidence that we are building solutions for our clients using a solid foundation.”

Beyond connecting with the community, the event also gave Buzz a chance to learn tips for fine-tuning performance and explore other applications the framework can be applied to, beyond our current systems.

That said, it was also a great opportunity to see how impactful Buzz’s work already is in the area, with global developers keen to make the most of features and tools already developed by our team.

Paul said: “The realisation that we can make an important difference was a big one for me, and it helped allay some of the anxiety around contributing to the project. 

“There really is nothing else like Orchard. It feels like it’s our duty to ensure more people learn about it and appreciate its incredible speed and flexibility. 

“With the improvements we're making to accessibility and usability, our clients and end users around the world will fall in love with Orchard, just like developers have.”

Don’t worry, the event wasn’t all work! Despite two packed days of talks and demos, some social events were also planned in (including a group dinner and team lunch), and our crew loved diving into informal conversations with the variety of nationalities in the room, as well as catching up with key Microsoft employees. We also had the chance to do some of our own sight-seeing, exploring one of Europe’s (arguably) most beautiful cities.

A huge thank you to Lombiq for organising and hosting such a fantastic event for Orchard Core developers, and we’re already looking forward to the next one!