Philadelphia won the bid to host DjangoCon US

Wharton IT director Tim Allen left DjangoCon 2015 thinking that it was “one of the most transparent, inclusive, well-run conferences” he’d ever been to. (Django being the framework that powers Instagram, Pinterest and, yep, Wharton.)
Naturally, he wanted to bring it to Philadelphia. (Sidenote: Not that he’s looking, but will someone from the city’s Commerce Department hire Allen?)
So he got to work with his teammates at Wharton Computing and put together an exhaustive proposal, detailing everything from former DjangoCon speakers based in Philadelphia, ways to make the conference affordable (skip catering for buy-your-own-lunch from the nearby food trucks) to transportation options for the differently-abled.
Jeff Triplett, lead chair of DjangoCon US, chose Wharton’s proposal because they offered “the best facilities” at a reasonable price, “making the conference more affordable than it’s ever been.”
He added: “Wharton was really flexible on the space, arrangements, and had the overall cheaper bid. For an open-source conference and as a non-profit, this took a lot of stress off of us where we normally have to worry about hidden fees, contract overages, and other sharp objects in traditional venue contracts.”
DjangoCon is from July 17-22. Tickets are not yet available.

We are extremely happy that @Wharton is hosting us! ✨❤️ https://t.co/f7d6J4hL9R

— DjangoCon US (@djangocon) February 10, 2016

One thing that made the DjangoCon bid more difficult was the fact that the Democratic National Convention is coming this summer, Allen said, but the Wharton operations team worked their magic to make the DjangoCon dates work.
Philadelphia has been on a roll when it comes to hosting national tech conferences. Last year, it hosted WordCamp US, the Open Hardware Summit and JS.Geo, to name a few.