Oh, oh! I love FOSDEM. I live in Brussels and love the city, I want to make a couple of recommendations for people coming to visit:
1. DON'T RELY ON CARS. Traffic is awful here. Brussels is bikeable, has shared scooters and shared bikes as well as a fairly solid public transport infrastructure.
2. I recommend finding a hotel either in the city center, or near the Merode area (east of Parc du Cinquantenaire). Don't try to get a hotel near the ULB (the venue) itself... it's not the most exciting part of the city.
3. While you're here, take a moment to visit other cities in Belgium such as Mechelen, Leuven, or even Antwerp. They're a cheap and short train ride away (20 mins for Mechelen/Leuven, 40 for Antwerp).
Also if you have any questions feel free to ask them here I'll check back in a little while.
Can you recommend some low budget district, with cheaper restaurants hostels ,etc..
I don't mind if it's 20 min more commute in the morning.
I want to come with a group of students from Berlin and we have to do it on a shoestring budget
FOSDEM has a page with [practical info](https://archive.fosdem.org/2023/practical/accommodation/). I don't know the policy of the uni during the event but it might be useful contact the FOSDEM people and ask if it's possible to setup camp in the uni for the wk? There are a lot of empty rooms during the weekend after all and the students are on holiday at that time.
+1 to this. I'm from Leuven and would visit FOSDEM yearly - until I moved to Canada ~3 years ago. For tourists going to Belgium to attend FOSDEM, definitely stay a couple of days to explore what's around BE. It's a small country so relatively easy and cheap to travel around. :)
With any luck, I might be able to travel to Belgium around Feb and attend FOSDEM in-person this year.
I understand this point from a tourist perspective but if you stay over for a longer time, you'll realize there's just that much more to do in cities like Brussels or Antwerp.
1. DON'T RELY ON CARS. Traffic is awful here. Brussels is bikeable, has shared scooters and shared bikes as well as a fairly solid public transport infrastructure. 2. I recommend finding a hotel either in the city center, or near the Merode area (east of Parc du Cinquantenaire). Don't try to get a hotel near the ULB (the venue) itself... it's not the most exciting part of the city. 3. While you're here, take a moment to visit other cities in Belgium such as Mechelen, Leuven, or even Antwerp. They're a cheap and short train ride away (20 mins for Mechelen/Leuven, 40 for Antwerp).
Also if you have any questions feel free to ask them here I'll check back in a little while.