| TL;DR: At a partner roundtable during OpenSearchCon last year, a community member pointed out that Apache Lucene no longer had a dedicated conference. Since Lucene is the engine that powers OpenSearch, we expanded our Search track into Search & Apache Lucene—a dedicated space for relevancy tuning, analyzers, scoring, and deep technical dives. The result: a surge of high-quality CFP submissions and a stronger, more inclusive conference. Join us in San Jose, September 22–24. |
At its core, OpenSearchCon has always been about the people who build, maintain, and push the boundaries of search technology. We strive to create an environment where the brightest minds in the industry can share their wins and their lessons learned. But sometimes, the most important feedback doesn’t come through a post-event survey; it happens right in the room.
The community speaks
During a partner roundtable session at OpenSearchCon North America last year, we were discussing our session tracks. At the time, our Search track description was focused heavily on the operational and architectural side of the OpenSearch ecosystem. This is how it read:
“The Search track explores how you can revolutionize your use of OpenSearch with sessions on performance optimization, serverless architectures, workload management, and machine learning integration.”
It was solid—but during the discussion, someone raised a compelling point: “The Apache Lucene community no longer had a dedicated, standalone conference. Should we expand OpenSearchCon with the Lucene community?”
That question stuck with us. Apache Lucene is the foundational library that powers OpenSearch—you can’t have one without the other. If its practitioners, library maintainers, and relevancy experts needed a dedicated conference home, OpenSearchCon should be it..
Expanding the CFP
We took that feedback to heart immediately. We realized that by focusing primarily on OpenSearch as a platform, we were missing the opportunity to celebrate the engine under the hood and the brilliant community that builds it.
For our upcoming Call for Presentations (CFP), we didn’t just add a bullet point; we completely redefined the track to center on Search & Apache Lucene. Here is the new vision for that category:
Search & Apache Lucene: Connect with other search and relevance practitioners with demos, deep dives, or new and novel techniques for building rich search applications. Master Lucene, the search engine library that powers OpenSearch – from relevancy tuning and efficient matching to analyzers and scoring.
The impact of community feedback
The response to this change has been incredible. By explicitly inviting the Lucene community into the fold, we’ve seen a surge of high-quality CFP submissions that dive deep into the “how” of search; the math, the linguistics, and the core indexing logic that makes modern applications possible.
This shift represents more than just a name change. It’s a commitment. We want OpenSearchCon to be the premier destination for anyone who is passionate about the art and science of search, whether you are managing a global cluster or writing custom analyzers for the Lucene core.
Looking ahead
To everyone who has submitted a talk, shared a technique, or challenged us to be more inclusive of the broader ecosystem: Thank you! The Lucene community is a vital part of our history and our future. We are excited to see this track continue to grow, and we can’t wait to see the deep dives and novel techniques that will be on stage this year.
Ready to go deep on search? OpenSearchCon North America is coming to San Jose, September 22–24. From Lucene internals to production-scale clusters, there’s a track built for you. Explore the session schedule and register today—we’d love to see you there!
