MSP GLOBAL just wrapped its biggest festival yet, as we welcomed over 2,800 MSPs, IT leaders, cybersecurity experts, policymakers, and hardcore technologists to a theme park on the Mediterranean coast.
If you were there, then try to spot yourself in the recap video. If you weren’t, then here’s just a taste of what you missed…
The experience began with Acronis TRU Security Summit, which was significantly bigger than last year’s partner-focused gathering. That night, the Come2Gather Party rocked the Convention Centre terraces with excellent food, free-flowing drinks, a DJ, and a live band.
That band was The Lords of Uptime, made up of leaders from across the Cloud industry. They were joined by two special guest drummers: Jota, from the party-rocking Barcelona band Serial Killerz; and Marky Ramone, superstar drummer of The Ramones!
The Ramones set was almost like a secret show: those who stayed were treated to an up-close-and-personal concert with a punk-rock legend. Pro tip: next time we tell you to stay for the second set… you should stay for the second set!
Fun, Fun, Fun on Day One
Day 1 highlights included Decoding the EU AI Act with Carme Artigas; who served as Co-Chair of the UN AI Advisory Body from 2023 to 2024, as well as former Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence in Spain. Despite her opening remarks, this session was NOT boring, and was in fact one of the most important sessions at the festival.
The audience also flocked to the Law Enforcement Roundtable on AI-Powered Cybercrime, where some of Europe’s top cybercops discussed the state of Fred-Mario Silberbach, Head of Cybercrime Subdivision for BKA (German federal police) and Salvatore Russo, Brigadier General in Italy’s Guardia di Finanza, brought two different vibes to the table, and you wouldn’t really want to mess with either of them! Silberbach and Russo shed light onto the work that goes into the digital side of law enforcement, how MSPs fit into the equation, and what service providers should do when (not if) they become the victims of a cyberattack.
The Women in Tech panel was like The Avengers of industry leaders, bringing Trice Johnson (First Genesis), Jane Frankland MBE (KnewStart), Cass Cooper (The Channel Company), Melissa Banda (Seagate), and Alona Geckler (Acronis) together to share some inspiring stories and give practical advice to those on both sides of the interview table when it comes to developing a future-ready workforce.
Also, MSP GLOBAL Chief Evangelist Soeren von Varchmin continued his streak of talking to geniuses who are no longer with us—in this case, the digital twin of Alan Turing, father of modern cybersecurity.
The World Server Throwing Association Spanish Qualifier brought even more heat to the already-warm evening.
Servers flew.
Records fell.
Heroes arose.
Dreams came true.
Legends were born.
The Women’s record was destroyed (along with the server) by Diana Van Lueck from ECHO-eG. Also, there was an intense redemption story in there, as last year’s second-place finisher Kieron Moore from Acronis managed to out-throw the seemingly-unstoppable Dierk “The Machine” Zeinecke from GOODLog.
Next stop: the World Server Throwing Championship at CloudFest 2026! Let’s see if Diana and Kieron can deliver at the sport’s most prestigious competition, with the whole world watching…
The ConneXion Party, powered by Acronis, took over the Far West area in Port Aventura for a Country Western-themed party, complete with live music, barbecue, and after-hours partying at a saloon. This was a real sunglasses-indoors-the-next-morning affair, but attendance at the earlier Day 2 sessions was high: you all made us proud!
Day Two: No Signs of Slowing Down
The Elevator Stage was on fire (figuratively, not literally) as the audience enjoyed a mix of new product release announcements and deep-dive panel discussions. We have to do a supercut of all of the stage entrances, as speakers and moderators had a great time interacting with the MSP GLOBAL Lobby Boy. He’ll probably want a raise next year, because things got weird.
Real-Life M&A for MSPs, on the oh-so-academic-looking Expert Stage, covered some of the burning questions that every MSP has at least considered about either acquiring another digital transformation company to expand their own offerings, or selling their own business.
The fireside chat with Whitfield Diffie, co-creator of public-key cryptography, gave the crowd an audience with a true internet legend. It became clear that my own follow-up questions were not as good as those coming from the audience—the house lights came up and the last part of this session took place with no division between the stage and the crowd.
Attendees would have also noticed the Guided Tours cruising around the Exhibition Area, complete with language flags and headsets, making beelines for the partners who could best meet the tour group’s needs. (I don’t want to call them “tourists”, since they were there for work.) It was like those tours at the Louvre, except that the jewels were those of wisdom—and they were given out freely, no need for any heists. Besides multilingual Speed Networking, attendees got to take part in Acronis workshops conducted in English, Spanish, German, Italian, and Portuguese: this is a truly international community, and sometimes it’s just easier to work in the language you grew up speaking.
Meetings, Meetings Everywhere
This was a work trip, so plenty of business was getting done. With 34% of attendees in C-level roles, there were plenty of decision-makers at PortAventura. Those 72 hours are like a full year of working the phones: there’s just no substitute for the in-person experience, especially when it’s built around networking in such a spectacular place. Every chair, couch, high table, counter, and—yes—bar was full of intense and spirited conversation as new relationships were formed and existing ones strengthened.
As the sun set and the wind picked up, the international MSP community closed things down at the Beach Parties, taking place at Infinitum Beach Club and the Hotel Caribe Terrace. In case you were wondering, yes, we DID have a couple of people going into the pool. If you haven’t seen any videos of that, I’m sure you will soon…
Missed the fun, or just want more? Catch up with your community at one of our upcoming events:
CloudFest USA/NamesCon Global
November 5-6, 2025
Ice Palace Studios in Miami, Florida
CloudFest 2026
March 23-26 at Europa-Park, Germany
Register here
MSP GLOBAL 2026
October 21-22 at PortAventura, Spain
October 22-23, 2025 – 
PortAventura Theme Park (Barcelona), Spain