I went through 11,476 tech events listed in Waterloo Region since 2009 to find out what people used to show up for, what COVID took, and what has come back.
The third floor of Builders Club during Waterloo Agentic's first fireside chat, October 16, 2026
On Tuesday, the Tannery on Charles Street has two tech events in it. In the morning there is a defence supply chain workshop in the event centre, which I tried to register for after registration had closed. In the evening there is Startup Drinks KW at Abe Erb, on the ground floor of the same building. I'm going to that one.
Looking for something to replace the workshop sent me down a rabbit hole. I could find meetups, AI demo nights and founder workshops on Builderloo's calendar every week, but no founder pitch nights, and I wondered whether the region ever had many. WatCamp has kept a public calendar of local tech events since 2009, and its calendar file still holds every listing back to the first one. I downloaded all 11,476 of them and sorted them by year, type and room.
11,476tech events listed since 2009
1,216in 2017, the busiest year
40in person in 2021
534in person so far in 2026
The nights on King Street
A decade ago most of the region's tech nights happened in a bar or in someone's office. Startup Drinks Waterloo met at Chainsaw on King Street North 60 times between 2010 and 2015. Waterloo's Python group held its PyDrinks at Death Valley's Little Brother, up the street, more than 80 times. Nerd Nite KW filled the Rum Runner and then the Boathouse in Victoria Park with 50 to 80 people a month, with nights like Sharknerdo in 2013, Yuri's Night at Kwartzlab in 2014 and a Halloween edition at the Apollo Cinema in 2015. Communitech held its Tech Jam job fair at Bingemans, and companies like Shopify, Square, D2L and Vehikl lent their offices to user groups almost every week.
DevHouse Waterloo is the easiest way to follow it all. It started in 2009 in the AideRSS offices on King Street South, moved into the Communitech Hub in 2011, then to Art Barn, then to Boltmade in 2014 and to Shopify in 2016. In 2019 a DevHouse night at Shopify was getting 44 to 54 RSVPs.
In-person tech events on the WatCamp calendar, by year
20151,015
20161,172
20171,216
2018947
2019987
2020326 more went online218
2021395 more went online40
2022106
2023224
2024336
2025529
2026to November 1534
When the offices emptied
In 2020 almost everything went online, and most of it never came back. The groups that disappeared were mostly the ones that had met in a room someone else paid for. When Shopify went remote in May 2020, DevHouse lost its room and spent the next two years on a video call. Company offices hosted 82 listed events a year before COVID and host about 8 now. The library maker nights and THEMUSEUM's tech workshops, around 400 events between them, stopped. The HackerNest tech socials, which had 159 people RSVP for one night in August 2019, held their last one in 2022.
The one that stood out to me the most is Tech Jam, the tech job fair Communitech held at Bingemans from 2015 to 2019. Nobody in the region has run a public tech job fair since, at least not one in the calendar.
Where in-person tech events happen, events a year
2015 to 20192022 to 2026
University and college campuses322 to 73
Hubs and incubators170 to 153
Libraries and museums140 to 8
Pubs, cafes and restaurants108 to 27
Company offices82 to 8
Community centres and halls51 to 5
Makerspaces23 to 11
The region's hubs are the part that held up. Communitech, Velocity, the Accelerator Centre, Builders Club, Catalyst Commons and SPUR hosted about 170 listed events a year between them before COVID, and they host about 153 now. When the offices and libraries stopped lending rooms, the hubs became where the region meets.
Some of it was gone before COVID
A lot of what people remember fondly had already ended by 2016. Startup Drinks left Chainsaw after its last night in 2015, Nerd Nite faded after 2016, and Ignite Waterloo held its last event in 2014. Then in November 2024 new organizers rebooted it as Startup Drinks KW at Arabella Park on Belmont, and it has met there most months since. Tuesday's is at Abe Erb in the Tannery.
2009
DevHouse starts in the AideRSS offices
2014
Ignite Waterloo's last event
2015
Startup Drinks leaves Chainsaw
2016
DevHouse moves into Shopify
2020
Shopify goes remote and DevHouse moves online
2022
HackerNest KW's last tech social
2024
DevHouse lands at Builders Club, and Startup Drinks reboots
2026
Startup Drinks KW comes to the Tannery
The pitch nights I was looking for
They turned out to be rare all along. The calendar has about five founder pitch competitions a year before COVID and about five now, and almost all of them belong to the schools, like Velocity's pitch finals, which had more than 400 people watching in 2013. The ones open to founders who weren't students, like Communitech's Manulife Smart Tech Challenge in 2014 or TELUS Pitch Waterloo in 2019, were never common, and they have been rarer since. Founders get on stage in other ways now. Techtoberfest at Communitech has a founder showcase (and had Investorhaus in 2024), the Accelerator Centre's Innovation Showcase on November 10 has 40 of its startups, and StartupCamp at Builders Club had 22 founders pitch in one night in September 2025.
Chloé Archambault of Quantacet and Michael Litt of Garage Capital on the quantum panel at Techtoberfest 2026, with moderator Tobi Day-Hamilton
New rooms, and some old nights back
DevHouse found its room again in 2024, at Builders Club on King Street West in Kitchener, and a lot of other grassroots groups landed there with it. CivicTechWR has run a hacknight there every week for more than two years, and AI Tinkerers, KW GameDev, StartupCamp and Builders Club's own Wednesday sessions meet on the same floors. The Accelerator Centre and Catalyst Commons host more events than they used to, and Communitech brought back Startups & Beer.
What people meet about has changed too. Founder events and hack nights are the two kinds that grew, and AI went from 2 events in 2016 to 124 so far this year.
The opening slide at AI Agents × Company OS at Builders Club, October 22, 2026
“
We're bringing back a Waterloo Region staple, Startups & Beer.
Communitech's event page
Talks draw smaller crowds than they did in 2019, often a third to a half as many RSVPs. The socials are the exception. Communitech's Startups & Beer had 148 people go, almost exactly what HackerNest drew in 2019.
What I'd still like to see
Counting the events WatCamp misses, the region has maybe two thirds of the tech nights it had before COVID, and the number has grown every year since 2021. The gaps I noticed are a tech job fair, a big social for people who work in tech but aren't founders, and a pitch night off campus for founders who want to meet the region's funds. If you used to run one of the groups that ended, or you'd show up to any of these, reply to The Weekly or write to me through the contact page.
A selected membership and clubhouse in downtown Kitchener for founders, operators and students making something real, with Wednesday sessions open to anyone.
