Blender Conference 2026 Draws 700 Attendees to Amsterdam as Blender Marks 20 Years of Open Movies

Blender published its recap of Blender Conference 2026 on 13 October. The event ran for three days at the Felix Meritis venue in Amsterdam, with more than 700 attendees from over 50 countries and 126 speakers across four stages. Blender counts more than 100 hours of content.

Some figures say something about who uses the software now. More than 60 percent of respondents come to the conference as part of their job, and 79 percent plan to return next year. Satisfaction with the programme stayed extremely high and rose slightly on last year, although some attendees found the schedule too dense to see everything live. Recordings went up quickly on PeerTube and YouTube.

The top rated talks are a good guide to what working artists want to learn. They included Nathan Vegdahl on colour science, Calvin Romeyn on the VFX of A24's Backrooms, a talk on 2D comic style in 3D, Bao-Thinh Dinh on real-time viewport cheats, Nacho de Andres on motion sculpting as a new animation paradigm, and a session on OpenPBR and interoperable materials. Colour, look development and practical shortcuts sit at the top, which matches what we see in client work.

This was also a celebration year. Blender marked two decades of open filmmaking with an installation that showed each of its seventeen open movies as a pillar holding the film frame by frame. Visitors could take a frame home with a QR code that jumped to that exact second of the film. A screening followed at de Balie with directors and artists in the audience.

For a UK studio, the useful part is that the talks are free to watch. If you do one thing, start with the colour science talk, because a render and a filmed shot only sit together when their colour pipelines agree. The recap links to the full playlists, and the best sessions will repay an hour of your week.