New immigration rules for those visiting the UK from overseas
This is an FYI for you to be prepared and should not be taken as absolute advice or assumed 100% accurate. Please check any requirements carefully and verify for yourself.
If you will be travelling to the conference from outside the UK, please be aware of new immigration rules that have come into effect starting January 2025 - but with different rules coming in at different dates.
Visitors to the UK who previously did not need a visa may be required to obtain an ETA (Electronic Travel Authorisation) in advance of their travel. This is similar to other systems already in place in other parts of the world, such as the ESTA (USA) or eTA (Canada).
To quote from the Home Office's blog:
- Eligible non-Europeans need an ETA to travel to the UK.
- Eligible Europeans can apply from 5 March 2025 and will need an ETA to travel from 2 April 2025.
Note that the date for Europeans falls during ACCU week. For others, it is already in effect.
More information, and to apply, visit this page on gov.uk.
T-Shirt design competition for 2025
If you've been coming to the ACCU conference for a few years you may remember that a long-running tradition was the T-Shirt design competition. We didn't manage to run the competition last year, but this year it's back!
We want a design to put on the front of this year's shirt. If you like you can also provide the theme for the back, too. Traditionally this includes the names of all the speakers. You don't have to do those all yourself (although you can). You can do as much or as little of the back as you like - we'll work out the rest.
We can work with black or white shirts, as well as other colours (let us know if you're thinking of a different colour, and we'll see what we are able to use).
Of course all designs must be in keeping with our Code of Conduct, and in the spirit of our inclusive community. If in doubt just let us know what you're thinking of.
If it's a competition what can I win?
The selected winner will get a free ticket to the conference dinner on Thursday evening as well as two free t-shirt's featuring their design.
When does it have to be in by?
You have until the end of the day on Friday 28th February to get your designs in.
And finally ...
We thought it would be fun to create an archive of previous year's shirt designs. We know that many of you have been keeping your ACCU Conference t-shirts in good condition for many years. If you get a chance please send us photos of any ACCU shirts you have (ideally front and back, on a plain surface), along with your permission for us to potentially publish the pictures in the future (and please also let us know if we can give you an attribution or not).
All designs, photos or questions should be sent to admin@accuconference.org.
The 2025 ACCU Conference schedule is here!
As we end the second week of the year, I don't know about you, but I'm still writing 1996 on my cheques!
But a new year, of course, means looking forward to another ACCU conference - and we're now ready to announce the full schedule, including workshops.
The schedule
Head on over to the schedule page for the high level schedule, and click through for the details.
You'll notice that, in a break from tradition, this year we are running from Tuesday to Friday! That's right, one weekday earlier than previous years. We've been finding that Saturday attendance has been declining precipitously - especially since we got back from the pandemic. So this is an experiment - do let us know if you have strong opinions either way.
Workshops
We're also trying something different with workshops. Our on-site, pre-conference, workshops are one-day only (on Monday). But we also have a two-day workshop running, online, over the weekend before the conference - as well as two one-day workshops on the Saturday a week after the conference.
If that sounds hard to follow, head over to the workshops page for all the details.
The rest of the format is unchanged! We have 54 presentations, four keynotes and three lightning talk sessions - as well as the unmissable conference dinner (on Thursday evening this year)!
Keynotes
We have a fantastic and inspirational set of keynote speakers for you:
Anastasia Kazakova
Khalil Estell
Daisy Hollman
Matt Godbolt
Cheapest prices
Don't forget, ACCU members get cheaper rates - so if you're not already a member then sign up today. It remains cheaper to pay for an ACCU membership, then buy your tickets at the member rate, than to buy full price.