Is the event free to attend?

Yes, the event is free. No ticket purchase is required, though you should register via Meetup so the organisers have a headcount for pizza and drinks.

What time does the talk start?

Doors open at 6pm for pizza and drinks. The talk itself starts at 6:45pm and the event wraps up around 8pm.

Do I need any prior knowledge of messaging systems?

The abstract says the talk suits both those new to messaging and those looking to refine existing patterns, so no deep prior knowledge is required.

Is there anything on after the main event?

A group typically heads to either the Brewery Tap or Editors Draft after 8pm. The venue is decided by a vote on the night.

talk · one-off

Beyond Pub/Sub - Advanced Messaging Patterns

Name: Beyond Pub/Sub - Advanced Messaging Patterns
Start: 2026-06-25T17:00:00.000Z
Location: Enablis

Fix broken messaging patterns in distributed .NET systems

When

Thursday 25 June

Time

17:00

Venue

Enablis

City Centre

Price

Free

Reserve a spot →

Kevin Smith comes to Leeds Sharp on Thursday 25 June to deliver "Fixing Broken Messaging: Pitfalls, Failures, and Solutions" — a talk aimed squarely at engineers who've hit the wall with distributed systems messaging and want to know why things went wrong.

The session covers the most common messaging mistakes: excessive locking in handlers, oversized event payloads, bad deduplication strategies, and leaning too hard on request-response when event-driven would serve better. Smith will show how these problems erode scalability and reliability, then walk through how to avoid them. Examples will use .NET and MassTransit, with a focus on building event-driven architectures that hold up under real load.

Kevin Smith is a Principal Software Engineer, Microsoft MVP and MongoDB Champion. Day-to-day he works on .NET and TypeScript applications running on AWS and Azure. He also runs dotnet York and dotnetsheff, two community groups in the North of England, and speaks regularly at user groups and conferences across the region.

The format is a single talk with a social element. Doors open at 6pm for pizza and drinks at Enablis on York Place; the talk starts at 6:45pm and wraps by 8pm. After that, a vote is taken on whether the group heads to the Brewery Tap or Editors Draft.

Leeds Sharp is a .NET user group that has been running in Leeds for several years. Events are free and open to anyone working in or curious about the .NET ecosystem. Sponsors Fruition Group, JetBrains and tronik support the group with recruitment, tooling and organisational help respectively.

Why attend

If you're building distributed systems in .NET, this talk is a practical checklist of things that quietly break production systems. Smith has hands-on experience with MassTransit and cloud-native architectures, and the examples will be concrete rather than theoretical.

Beyond the talk itself, Leeds Sharp draws a consistent crowd of .NET engineers from across the city. The pizza-and-drinks format before the talk makes it easy to have a proper conversation. If you want to meet other .NET developers in Leeds, this is one of the more reliable places to do it.

Agenda

18:00 — Doors open, pizza and drinks
18:45 — Kevin Smith: "Fixing Broken Messaging: Pitfalls, Failures, and Solutions"
20:00 — Talk ends; optional drinks at Brewery Tap or Editors Draft (vote on the night)

Speakers

Kevin Smith — Principal Software Engineer, Microsoft MVP and MongoDB Champion. Runs dotnet York and dotnetsheff. Works primarily in .NET and TypeScript on AWS and Azure.

Organiser

Leeds Sharp

Leeds Sharp is a .NET user group based in Leeds city centre. They meet regularly for free evening talks covering C#, .NET, software architecture and related topics. The group is sponsored by Fruition Group, JetBrains and tronik.

Venue

Enablis, City Centre

Enablis is at 1 York Place, LS1 2DR, on the first floor. Both the front door and office doors are open on the night; a buzzer is available if needed.

FAQs

Is the event free to attend?: Yes, the event is free. No ticket purchase is required, though you should register via Meetup so the organisers have a headcount for pizza and drinks.
Where exactly is the venue?: Enablis, 1 York Place, Leeds, LS1 2DR. The office is on the first floor. Both the front door and office doors should be open; press the buzzer if there's a problem.
What time does the talk start?: Doors open at 6pm for pizza and drinks. The talk itself starts at 6:45pm and the event wraps up around 8pm.
Do I need any prior knowledge of messaging systems?: The abstract says the talk suits both those new to messaging and those looking to refine existing patterns, so no deep prior knowledge is required.
Is there anything on after the main event?: A group typically heads to either the Brewery Tap or Editors Draft after 8pm. The venue is decided by a vote on the night.