One hot day in Brighton.

Over 500 people descended on Brighton in the middle of a heatwave for Create With 2026, and what happened was something special. Honestly, James and I are not professional event organisers. We fell into this because we love this community so much. And we were blown away that everyone properly got stuck in.

Here are some of our favourite bits. 💜

JJ flew in from the US and then did the work of ten people

JJ Englert got on a plane, crossed an ocean, and absolutely earned his air miles. Not only did he give the keynote to open the day. He also ran a packed two-hour Claude Cowork workshop and hosted one of our panels. Three sessions, one very jet-lagged legend. Thank you, JJ.

Everyone in the room shipped an app

Tanveer ran an epic live session on OpenClaw where the whole audience built and shipped their own app in real time. More than 50 apps in a single session. Just watching a room full of people, all communicating with their own AI agent to build things, was a genuinely special moment.

A hackathon for good, with 45+ projects

Harold ran a brilliant Build for Brighton hackathon for three local non-profits, with more than 45 projects submitted on the day. The winners were announced over at the EVOLVE Conference on Friday. One winner for each cause:

• The Moon Guild by Oni Celine, for Over The Moon
• Make Your Mark by Charlie, for Figment Arts
• Apron Community Farm App by Madhu, for Apron Creative

The quality of the builds this year was honestly exceptional, far better than anything we've seen at a hackathon before. Congratulations to the winners, and to everyone who built something that matters.

We tried out Face Hunt, and people loved it

We built a little vibe-coded networking game called Face Hunt and trialled it for the first time. It absolutely took off. People were hunting each other down all day, and loads of new connections got made because of it. Genuinely one of our favourite experiments.

The after party went until 2am

We headed down to the Sea Lanes beach club for the official after party (powered by Make), and it was epic. A DJ, sea views and proper Ibiza energy. For those of you who carried on elsewhere and karaoke'd until 2am, we salute you.

• Tanya Van Gastel, Face Hunt champion and the most sociable person of the day, with 45 matches and more selfies than anyone could count. Enjoy the Stream Deck Neo, Tanya.
• Alex Cooney, Friendliest Booth. Always up for a chat, always welcoming.
• Glide, Best Merch. You know what you did. 😎

At most conferences, a room full of laptops and phones means people are bored, checking social media, replying to emails.

At Create With, it meant the exact opposite. So many people had their laptops out because they were building, shipping real apps and automations during the talks. This was exactly our intention: we wanted a hands-on event that didn't feel like a normal conference. We love to see it.

We read every single piece of feedback that came in, and it made us a bit emotional. A few of the things you wrote:

"Firstly, thank you. It's extremely well organised, great value, and has a fantastic community!"

"Less 'tech bro culture'. Everyone is working on something cool."

"This is the most gender-balanced tech conference I've ever been to, well done!"

That last one means the world to us. Women were strongly represented, and 85% of you said Create With felt more inclusive and diverse than other tech events you've been to. That's the thing we're proudest of.

Our event partner, EVOLVE

A huge thank you to the EVOLVE Conference for being our event partner, and especially to Grace and Steve for all their support. We couldn't have done the Build for Brighton hackathon without you.

Our stage hosts and keynote

Special thanks to Rose and Kelly for hosting the stages and keeping the whole day flowing, and to JJ Englert for crossing the Atlantic to be our keynote speaker.

Our speakers

Every one of you brought it. Generous, honest, no egos, no sales pitches. Thank you Andrew Bryce, Andy Claremont, Artur Mkrtchyan, Dan Porder, David Siegel, Effie Bersoux, George Collier, Harold Dijkstra, Isabelle Amazon-Brown, JJ Englert, Kelly Claus, Máirín Murray, Mariam Hakobyan, Marie Martens, Matt Roberts, Max Haining, Nicolas Carroll, Oana May, Olusegun Akinfenwa, Raj Navakoti, Sofiia Matsiutsia, Stephany Oliveros, Tanveer M, Tanya Van Gastel, Tom Wesolowski and Yaokai Jiang.

Our volunteers

The people who made it all actually run: Matt, Rohith, Sayeda, Tapiwa, Georgia, Chinmay, Brooke, Dave, Karla, Kelly, Rose, Alice, Cynthia, Ryan, Anthony, Ashley, Ed, Gaz, Harold and Vijay. We owe you.

Our sponsors

None of this happens without them: Bubble, Glide, Softr, Momen, Make and DocuPotion. We appreciate you supporting the community and real life events.

And you, our attendees

Some of you travelled from New Zealand, from Bahrain, and loads of you came over from Barcelona. Plenty of you also braved the UK's transport network, politely disregarding the train operators telling everyone not to travel, just to make it there. You turned up in the middle of a heatwave with an open, generous attitude, and you were the event. Thank you, from the bottom of our hearts.