An older man in a knitted cap and a long white beard mid-sentence, a rack of brushes behind him
31 people · 184 sessions · 09.00–21.00

Who is on

Nobody here is a keynote. They are filed by the hours they are standing up, because that is the only thing you need from this page.

Haruo Kinoshita is on
Thu13.00Reading Room · 24
Sat15.00Reading Room · 24
Sun12.00Pitkali Vaults · 420
Everything he is on →
Reading Room, Thursday 12.44 — sixteen minutes before his first sheet
Six of thirty-one

Everyone on this page is working that week, not visiting

The rule has not changed in six editions: you lead a session about the thing you actually do, and you stay for the whole day you are on. The other twenty-five are in the grid.

A man with a white beard in a pale shirt, half turned away, standing in front of stacked sheet material
12.30Sat · Marsamett Wharf · 70 seats

Faisal Baradei

Marine fitter · the harbour ferries · 29 years

Keeps four ferry engines running on a budget that assumes three. On the Saturday he has the smaller of them stripped on the quay by 12.30 and bolted back together by 14.00, which he says is twenty minutes slower than it should be.

Wed 16.00 · Marsamett Wharf · 60 minSat 12.30 · Marsamett Wharf · 90 min
A woman with braided hair and folded arms standing on a steel walkway above a works floor
11.30Tue · Hall B · 180 seats

Nkechi Oyelaran

Water systems · city network · 11 years

Runs the pressure side of a network that loses a third of what it carries. She brings the real loss figures, which no utility publishes, and the three cheapest things that would fix half of it.

Tue 11.30 · Hall B · 40 minThu 14.00 · Hall B · 60 minSat 10.00 · Fanal Courtyard · 40 min
A woman in a black lab coat and safety goggles standing with arms folded beside a large press
14.00Sun · The Print Works · 40 seats

Ivana Pereš

Print technologist · third generation at the works

Her grandmother set type in the same room. On Sunday she prints the 2028 grid in front of forty people and takes corrections off the floor, which is why the sixth edition has four fewer mistakes than the fifth.

Thu 09.30 · The Glasshouse · 180 min · +€14Thu 19.00 · Pitkali Vaults · 40 minSun 14.00 · The Print Works · 120 min
A man bent over a cluttered workbench under a single lamp, a dismantled record player in front of him
11.00Fri · Hall B · 180 seats

Pawlu Sciberras

Repairs amplifiers · 31 years in the same back room

Has opened more dead equipment than anyone we know and refuses to say which brands fail most, which is itself an answer. Brings four of them to the Tuesday talk and does not fix any of them in front of you.

Tue 13.00 · Pitkali Vaults · 40 minFri 11.00 · Hall B · 90 minFri 16.00 · Hall B · 60 min
An older woman leaning forward at the head of a table, speaking to people out of frame
10.00Sun · Pitkali Vaults · 420 seats

Marguerite Dowling

Production manager · ran this programme for four of its six years

Reads out, in public, every mistake the week made: the sessions that started late, the room that was too hot, the person who was turned away at five past and should not have been. It takes an hour and it is the best-attended Sunday session we have.

Wed 11.00 · Reading Room · 40 minThu 20.00 · Reading Room · 60 minSun 10.00 · Pitkali Vaults · 60 min
A man working at a dim bench in a low-ceilinged workshop, tools hanging on the wall behind him
10.00Wed · The Print Works · 12 places

Toma Erceg

Leather and case making · 18 years · two apprentices

Twelve places, three hours, and you will finish with one object that works. He will not let you start until your knife passes his thumb test, which costs most people the first forty minutes.

Wed 10.00 · The Print Works · 180 min · +€14Wed 14.00 · The Print Works · 180 min · +€14
Rows of empty chairs in a large bright hall, set out and waiting
03 — before anyone arrives

Thirty-one people, eleven rooms, one printed sheet

31people leading sessions
19of them live inside the city walls
€400flat, per person, whatever they do
From the fifth edition
I have given this talk at four conferences and nobody ever asked me what it cost. Here the second question from the floor was the invoice.
Faisal BaradeiMarine fitter · on Wednesday 16.00 and Saturday 12.30

What we pay

Four hundred euro, flat, whoever you are and however long your session runs. Travel inside the islands, and a bed for the nights you are on. We have turned down two people who wanted a fee for the name rather than the session, and we will keep doing that.

How we choose

Anyone can propose. Four of us read everything in one sitting in November, out loud, with the names covered. The only question is whether the person does the thing. Eleven of this year's thirty-one came in through the open proposal and had never spoken anywhere.

What we will not do

No sponsored sessions, no product on stage, no panel of four people agreeing. If your session needs a slide deck longer than nine slides it is not a session, it is a presentation, and the Vaults are the wrong room for it.

Proposals for 2028

Open from 1 September, closed 31 October, read in one November afternoon

Three hundred words, no biography, and tell us the one thing you would show. We reply to everybody by 20 November, including the 180-odd we cannot take.

Propose a session
214proposals read for the sixth edition
31taken, of which 11 had never spoken anywhere
20 Noveverybody hears back, yes or no
Thirty-one people, six days

You cannot see all of them. Pick the hours.

Day pass €18 · six-day pass €74 · bench sessions €14 on top, twelve places each.

Buy a pass
Read the grid
The hours they are on
184sessions across six days and eleven rooms
31people leading them, 19 from inside the walls
07of them are on more than three times
03talks a day recorded, audio only
19of them live inside the city walls and walk in
214proposals read for this edition, 11 taken from strangers
€400flat, per person, however long the session runs