From Local Meetups to a Global Data Celebration by the Sea
- AFo Team
- 5 hours ago
- 2 min read
This post was written by
Juanjo Luna, MVP for Access and main organizer of the event
Rafael Andrada (McPegasus), former MVP and in the organization team
Since 2004... or maybe 2005 (hey, even digital memory has bugs 😅), a unique community of Microsoft Access users and developers in Spain has gathered every year. Madrid was our go-to city, Valladolid hosted us once, and in 2024 we made a bold move to Valencia with eventoaccess.es, bringing our forms, queries, and VBA magic to the shores of the Mediterranean. What started as an “Open Day” evolved into a full-on long weekend –welcoming new tools like Excel and Power BI into the mix.
And then came 2025… and wow, talk about a double upgrade! (Think of it as a Service Pack for the event 😄). The meeting went fully international, welcoming attendees from as far as Seattle, Washington DC, Cuba, and Argentina.
We hosted over 50 sessions and speakers – including 28 Microsoft MVPs. Of the 120 people, around 30 were from Access. 8 presentations were exclusively Access and 10 were Access in combination with other technologies.
Focusing on Access alone, we had four MVPs in attendance: Armen Stein, Luke Chung (who also joined as a Diamond sponsor through his company FMS), Xavi Lloberas, and Juanjo Luna. Juan Soto couldn’t make it in person, but IT Impact supported the event as a Gold sponsor. We also had two former MVPs joining: McPegasus and José Bengoechea.
And Access didn’t stay in its corner – this year, it shared the stage with other tools that are right at home on modern Windows desktops: SQL Server, Microsoft Fabric, Artificial Intelligence, and Azure. Quite the lineup!
Sure, there are plenty of tech events out there. But the International Data Event in Valencia – eventodedatos.com – is something different. From Thursday afternoon through Sunday, speakers, attendees, tech crew, and even guests and family members all stayed together at the same hotel. That’s right: one big community. Poolside chats, beach breaks, paella feasts… and over three and a half days of non-stop tech talk. It’s like a summer camp for data nerds – where even the geekiest debates are met with laughter, applause, and a shared sense of belonging.
