You know what it takes to make Summercon happen every year? An army of volunteers!
Free admission, cool swag, and bragging rights — do you think you have what it takes?
Summercon 2026
CFP Open 2026
It is once again time to submit your proposals for Summercon presentations.
We admit that we have a lot of latitude in how we schedule speakers, but generally presentations fall into two categories: short (25 minutes), and long (55 minutes).
We tend to favor technical presentations that are geared around offense, but we’re open to all good ideas. Please build in time for spirited Q&A.
We invite you to review what we look for when selecting a presentation here, but here’s the quick summary:
- Technical
- Novel
- Irreverent
- Revels in the Journey
- Sticks it to the Man
- Engages the Audience
- Fits into the Allocated Time
Please submit your proposals using our Google Form.
Deadline: Saturday, May 15, 2026 11:59PM (EDT, because we’re in New York)
The Lineup
This is a page for the Summercon 2026 lineup.
WHAT MAKES A GREAT SUMMERCON PRESENTATION?
With the opening of the Summercon 2023 CFP, here are a few friendly tips for what makes a great Summercon presentation. These seven points represent the kinds of things that we are evaluating when we look at CFP proposals.
- Technical
- While we occasionally incorporate talks of a non-technical nature, almost every presentation that shows up at Summercon is deeply technical. They’re not sales pitches, and they’re not about righting societal wrongs. So if you’re planning on submitting a talk about why people should buy your company’s particular security snake oil, or why your company has the best culture (and you can too!), you’ll have more success somewhere else.
- Novel
- From time to time, in the interest of getting important content in front of the best audience in the world, we let people present something they’ve already shown at events of lesser stature. But we prefer totally new presentations instead of rehashed talks. New content has a better chance of getting shown on the Summercon stage.
- Irreverent
- While the presentations are technical, successful Summercon presentations get their point across is through non-traditional means. This is not the place to read slides. One memorable presentation used an Android-shaped piñata as a prop. Another invited participation through an AA-meeting style format. The sky’s the limit (within the limits of our code of conduct, of course).
- Revels in the Journey
- If you like talking about the trials and tribulations of research, we are all ears. Even though your final results may be super polished and look effortless, everyone knows you had at least three major setbacks and went down two totally worthless paths before you arrived at a good solution. Share those. People love that, especially our speaker selection committee.
- Sticks it to The Man
- Despite all the sponsorships, corporate attendance, and more buttoned-up nature of Summercon (see our Code of Conduct, which is totally reasonable, by the way), we are still, at heart, a hacker conference. Challenge authority. Show you’re not a patsy for The Man. Fight the Power.
- Engages the Audience
- Summercon speakers are a special breed, because Summercon attendees are a special breed. Prepare to have people call out your mistakes, heckle if you’re less than prepared, and generally push your buttons. Successful presentations channel this misplaced audience enthusiasm. We still fondly recall a choose-your-own-adventure presentation, where randomly selected audience members got to dictate the direction of the talk. Engage your audience, and they won’t turn on you. (This can be good life advice, too.)
- Fits into the Allocated Time
- We cannot overstate this: fill the time, generally 45 minutes of speaking with 10 minutes of Q&A. Our speaker selection committee has been around the block, so if you’re going to try to pretend that a six hour seminar fits into 55 minutes of speaking slot, it’s probably not going to get selected.
We look forward to your submission!
Summercon 2026 is GO
Early Bird tickets for America’s Oldest Hacker Conference are now live.
We’re back at Littlefield next June with two days of sharp research, bad jokes, good people, and the kind of glorious chaos only Summercon can deliver.
Get your ticket: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/summercon-2026-tickets-1486402011429
Sponsors: planning for 2026 is already underway. If you want to be part of the ecosystem, reach out —
[email protected]
See you in Brooklyn!
OUR CODE OF CONDUCT
It’s been a long, strange year. Since some of us are going to be in the same room together for the first time in eons and might have forgotten about the normal social contract that exists in shared spaces, we’d like to remind everyone of our Code of Conduct.
Many years ago, Summercon published its first real code of conduct. This was kind of a landmark, since the Summercon team has always prided itself on a certain amount of constructive chaos. That early code of conduct looked like this:
If you love anarchy, want to break things, set off fire alarms, or generally behave like a twelve year old, you probably should stay away–even if you are a twelve year old. Especially if you are a twelve year old. It’s not that kind of event, and we’re not those kind of people. Even though we’re a group of hackers, breaking the law is still illegal.
If you’re interested in meeting your peers in the security world, meeting some of the finest people you’ll ever know, putting names to faces, and learning about the latest trends in security analysis, we’d love to see you. Mingle, socialize, make lifelong friendships. That’s what we’re all about.
We still believe in that.
But the world has grown. And while we still love that constructive chaos, we’ve grown a lot, too. We want everyone to have a good time. And because not everyone knows what that means, we’ll be very clear:
Summercon is dedicated to providing a harassment-free conference experience for everyone, regardless of race, color, national origin, religion, age, sex, gender, sexual orientation, or disability. We do not tolerate harassment of conference participants in any form. Sexual language and imagery is not appropriate for conference talks or exhibitors. The conference reserves the right to eject anyone who engages in behavior that is threatening or patently offensive to the community, regardless of whether it occurs at the conference venue, parties, or online.
Conference participants violating our rules may be thrown out of the conference without a refund at the discretion of the conference organizers.
If you are being harassed, notice that someone else is being harassed, or have any other concerns, please contact a member of the conference staff immediately. Anyone wearing a red Summercon Staff shirt is empowered to intervene.
In case you don’t feel comfortable approaching a member of the staff, call us at 720 586-4225 (720 586-HACK) so that you can speak directly with the conference organizers about your concerns.
TL;DR: Not to be all heavy or anything, but top legal minds tell us we should say this: we reserve the right to eject anyone at any time for any reason at the sole discretion of the conference organizers.
Thanks for listening. Sorry if this harshes anyone’s mellow, but it’s easier to have a good time when everyone knows the ground rules. Have fun, everyone!