The Christchurch Hacker Conference runs 18-20 November 2026 at Majestic on Durham - a decade-old, community-run infosec gathering pairing a training day with two days of technical talks.
The Christchurch Hacker Conference returns for its 2026 edition from 18 to 20 November at Majestic on Durham in central Christchurch, under the theme "Welcome to the Clown Show". The opening day, 18 November, is a dedicated training day, with two days of technical talks following on 19 and 20 November. The organisers confirm dates, venue and programme on the official site at https://2026.chcon.nz/, with the full session schedule published on Pretalx.
CHCon is a community-run event and one of New Zealand's longest-standing information-security gatherings, held annually in Christchurch since 2016 (including the 2022 "Canterbury Hacker Camp" variant). The 2026 site footer names the operating entity as Swamp Chicken Cyber Industries Ltd., the company through which the CHCon community runs the conference. Its consistent decade-long run has made it a fixture of the South Island infosec calendar.
The conference is pitched at the practitioner end of the security community. Aggregator listings describe an audience of security analysts, penetration testers, security engineers, IT managers and security consultants, with students and early-career professionals explicitly welcomed. The format pairs a hands-on training day with two days of talks: the 2026 training line-up includes Digital Forensics and Incident Response (Jess Kearns), Secure Application Design and Coding (John DiLeo), a practical networking workshop on VLANs, mirror ports and MAC filtering (David Robinson), and a cyber tabletop exercise (Stephen Coates). The Main Hall talks span offensive and defensive topics, from router exploitation and permission-gap research to AI-driven security and health-sector security, closing with an after-party and networking session.
Majestic on Durham sits in the Christchurch central city on Durham Street, within the compact CBD grid that puts hotels, hospitality and the conference floor within walking distance for delegates. Christchurch is served by Christchurch International Airport, roughly a 15-20 minute drive from the central city, giving domestic and trans-Tasman attendees straightforward access. Central-city accommodation is clustered within a short walk of the Durham Street area, and the flat CBD layout keeps delegate movement between venue, lodging and evening functions simple - practical context for a multi-day event with training, talks and a late networking programme.
CHCon anchors the South Island on New Zealand's technology-events map. As a durable, community-driven security conference running continuously for a decade, it draws practitioners from across the country to Christchurch each November and reinforces the city's standing as a host for specialist tech gatherings - a steady, repeat-visitation event of the kind that sustains NZ's business-events sector beyond the main Auckland-Wellington corridor.
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