As planning starts up for WordCamp US 2016 we’re also putting some work into WordCamp US in 2017 and 2018. Head on over to the post on the WordCamp US 2016 site for more details!
While you’re there you can subscribe for updates about this year’s event or buy a ticket.
We had a lot of lofty goals when we set out on this WordCamp US adventure, but at the very top of that list of goals two things stood out: Have the biggest WordCamp the world has yet seen and make sure that we create and curate an amazing WordPress focused experience for our attendees. Oh, and beanies. We are humbled, proud, and honored that we were able to achieve those goals.
That’s not to say this was a perfect event, but it was the perfect inaugural event. There is always room to grow, iterate, and improve and we hope to take our experience as organizers this year along with the feedback of our attendees, volunteers, speakers, and sponsors to make next year’s event bigger and better.
We’re so excited about the next WordCamp US that we’re going to open ticket sales for WordCamp US 2016 today! That’s right, you can get your tickets now.
Want to help us make next year even better? Fill out this survey to let us know what you loved and what we could do better.
Time really does fly! It seems like just yesterday that we announced WordCamp US and now we’re just days away. The final details have fallen into place and we’ve reached that time when we need to make sure that all of you have the information you need to make the most of your time with us at WordCamp US.
Early Registrations
If you arrive a little early, you can pick up your WordCamp US badge in the lobby at the Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown on Thursday, December 3 from 2:30-6:00 pm.
Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown
201 North 17th Street
Philadelphia, PA 19103
Tel: +1-215-448-2000
The first two days of WordCamp US – Dec. 4 and Dec. 5 – take place of the Philadelphia Convention Center.
Philadelphia Convention Center
Broad Street Atrium Entrance
Broad and Cherry Streets
The first two days of WordCamp US are sessions, sessions, sessions!
Doors open for attendees at 8:00 am on both days.
Opening remarks kick off promptly at 9:00 am on Friday in the upstairs ballroom, followed by sessions in Kite & Key, Liberty Bell, and Independence on the first floor. Sessions begin Saturday morning at 9:00 am and the event concludes Saturday afternoon upstairs with Matt Mullenweg’s State of the Word. Lunch will be served upstairs. And yes, there will be BBQ.
Bonus: Come early on Friday for Yoga for Desk Jockeys in the Kite & Key room at 8:15 am.
Get on line: The network name (SSID) is WordCampUS and the password is opensource
On foot: If you’re staying at Sheraton Philadelphia Downtown, the Pennsylvania Convention Center is a short walk away: https://goo.gl/maps/mPTkLQq7xx12
Via subway: Whether you’re on the Blue Line (Market-Frankford) or the Orange Line (Broad Street), get off at the City Hall station.
Taxis and ride services: Philly has plenty of Taxis and there’s Uber and Lyft if you want to request a ride from your phone.
By car: If you’re driving to WordCamp US you can find directions and parking info here:
We recommend the Convention Center Parking Co. at 142 N. Broad.
Saturday evening after the event we’ll hold the WordCamp US After-Party at Lucky Strike for bowling, ping pong, billiards, games, rock band, a photo booth, and more. Appetizers plus beer, wine, and cider will be provided.
We’ll have two floors with the lower floor set aside as a quieter space for those who don’t want to deal with loud music. You must be an attendee of WordCamp US to attend so bring your badge.
Lucky Strike
1336 Chestnut Street
Philadelphia, PA 19107
For Contributor Day, we’re back at the Pennsylvania Convention Center for the last day of WordCamp US. Doors open at 9:00 am, opening remarks are at 10:00 am and the event goes through 5:00 pm. Offsite lunch will be provided.
You can follow us on Twitter and Instagram as WordCampUS or like us on Facebook and use #wcus to talk about the event on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
We hope you’re as excited to attend as we are to have you here!
Whether you’re crossing an ocean or walking a few blocks to get to WordCamp US, we want to make sure that you’re able to make the most of your experience. For some of us that will take a little more pre-planning than it will for others. Packing bags, checking flights, confirming hotel reservations, figuring out where to get coffee. We want to help with us much of that as possible so let’s start with some important things to keep in mind, especially for those of us coming from outside the Philly area.
You may have heard a lot of folks talking about how cold it’s going to be. Well, you definitely want to be prepared to bundle up if needed. It’s winter after all. Statistically the high is around 50 degrees fahrenheit with the low being 30 degrees fahrenheit. Bring a warm coat. Bring layers. And make sure to pack those gloves or mittens, hats, and scarves.
If you haven’t booked your flight, train, or bus yet you should probably get on that. Assuming that you have figured out your travel to the City of Brotherly Love my single greatest piece of advice to you is: have patience. Even if conditions are perfect in Philadelphia there might be delays elsewhere. It could be foggy in your hometown or snowy where you need to catch your connecting flight. It’s the season for weather here in North America. So check on your flights. Be prepared for delays. Maybe you should pack a snack and bring a book. And always always travel with necessary medications in your carry-on bag.
Welcome to Philly! Now what? Now you’d probably like to head to your hotel and freshen up before you head out to see the city or on to WordCamp US, at least that’s what I’m going to do. Luckily there are plenty of ways to get around town for those lacking a car of their own. We’ve also made it as easy as possible to get from place to place by booking all of our events within walking distance of our recommended hotel.
SEPTA (Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority) is the public transit authority in Philly and there are 2 types of trains that stop at the Convention Center.
Philly has plenty of Taxis you can always grab and we have Uber and Lyft if you want to request a ride from your phone.
Philadelphia is a very walk-able City and the Convention Center is centrally located to all points in Center City. We are a bike-friendly city, too! If you enjoy riding bikes, consider using our bike-share program, Indego. There is an Indego station right at the Convention Center at 1321 Arch Street.
If you’re not in town until the event starts, don’t worry about it. Doors open for attendees at 8am, you can stop by registration and grab your badge then. But if you happen to be in town early we want to make the registration process as simple as possible. If you’re attending the Community Summit you can pick up your badge there. If you’re staying at the Sheraton downtown you can pick up your badge from 2:30pm to 6pm on Thursday, December 5.
We have a ticket for that. If you want to join in the WordCamp US fun but can’t make it to Philadelphia? Grab your live stream ticket. You can even get it with a commemorative t-shirt.
I’m sure you all have special tricks and tips that help you make the most of any conference. Let me know what I forgot. Please share your best advice in the comments!
Inspired? Feeling like you want to join us? Go get your ticket!
Did you know there’s WordPress swag store? It seems to be a well kept secret, but there is a place you can go online throughout the year to order t-shirts, hoodies, sunglasses, coffee mugs, and so much more all branded with that famous WordPress W.
But sometimes it’s fun to do something special. Something in person. So we’re bringing a WordPress swag pop-up shop to WordCamp US. You’ll be able to get hands on with the swag to decide what items you just can’t live without. In addition to the classic WordPress branded gear we’ll be bringing out some new favorites. Everyone loves wapuu right? Good, because we’ll have some exclusive wapuu gear that you won’t find anywhere else. With apparel and accessories for WordPress fans of all ages you’re sure to find something cool.
If you’re coming from out of town make sure that you leave plenty of room in your bags. I mean, the holidays are nearly here, it’s the perfect time to pick up a gift for the WordPress lover on your list. The shop will be open during conference hours Friday, December 4 and Saturday, December 5 near the sponsors area and will accept cash and credit cards (Visa, MasterCard, and American Express). All proceeds from these sales help offset the cost of providing free swag (buttons, stickers, etc.) to WordCamps and WordPress meetups around the world.
So stock up on some cool swag for you, your family, and maybe even your friends, knowing that you’re also giving back to the WordPress Community!
It’s widely known that as far as conference t-shirt sizing goes there is no standard. It can make it downright impossible to get a shirt that fits the way you want. While we can’t work miracles on the t-shirt front, we can do our best to provide you with the information needed to make an educated decision when it comes to selecting your t-shirt size.
Following the excellent example set forth by WordCamp SF 2014, we’re offering three shirt styles this year. For women there are two options: a Bella slim cut and a Bella “Missy” cut. And the men’s and unisex option is the Canvas “Unisex” Tee.
Decide which style and size are right for you and update your registration by Sunday!
For many people, this year’s WordCamp US will be the first time attending such a major WordPress-focused event. While you may already know that you can expect a lot of great content at the main event over the weekend, you may have also heard about a few other events surrounding it. If you are confused, don’t worry! We’ve got you covered!
Yesterday we brought you up to speed on Contributor Day, an event open to any WordCamp US attendee who would like to get involved. Today we’ll let you know a little more about the Community Summit which takes place on December 2 and 3.
The Community Summit is a small event that brings together many of the people who actively contribute to the WordPress open source project. From event organizers to core developers, each team brings and discusses the pressing issues for the year. Think of it as two days of planning, strategy, and work meetings for the WordPress open source community.
Community Summit attendees, or folks who are just curious, can find out more about the details of this year’s confab on the Community Summit pages.
If you’ve been following along at home then you’ve already learned the identities of 24 of our speakers in Part One and Part Two of our speaker post series. Without further ado here are our next 12 featured speakers!
Scott ClarkScott is a Senior Web Engineer at 10up, Lead Developer of the Pods Framework, and all-around hooked on contributing to WordPress core and other open source projects. He’s happily married and has two beautiful daughters, but in his “free time” he likes to write and play music for his solo project “Soft Charisma”.
David KennedyDavid A. Kennedy works as a Theminator at Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and many other fine web products. He wrangles themes for WordPress.com, making them the best they can be and ensuring everyone can find a theme they love. He’s also an accessibility evangelist who loves the open web and open source code. He contributes to WordPress Core, the WordPress Accessibility Team and the Underscores starter theme.
Tina KesovaTina is the VP of Strategic Partnerships at SiteGround web hosting company. In her role she is primarily responsible for growing the company client base through partnerships. She oversees the events and affiliates marketing teams through which SiteGround currently recruits the majority of their partners. She has attended numerous WordCamps and other industry events and thanks to her and her team efforts the company has managed to grow their client base and build the successful brand that SiteGround is today.
Morgan EstesVeteran, family man, coffee enthusiast, and open source contributor; Morgan works with the Core and Documentation teams to patch and enhance WordPress. By day, he’s a Web Engineer with 10up, where he uses WordPress to help make publishing easy (and maybe even fun) for clients, and ElasticPress to help them find it afterwards.
Aaron EdwardsCTO of WPMU DEV (140+ premium plugins and support) and Edublogs (hosting 3 million+ education blogs) with a team of 26 developers around the globe. WordPress plugin developer specializing in Multisite for 6 years, working from home in Dallas. Proud father of 3 and a world travel nut.
Kim ShivlerKimberly (Kim) Shivler, M.Ed. has been a technical trainer and writer for over 20 years. She learned HTML in 1995 building help files as a UNIX system administrator and opened her first web development company in 1996. Since then, Kim has worked as a business owner and employee in a variety of fields including a few years as part of an IBM worldwide team. Between 2008 and 2012, she worked with a variety of Content Management Systems and ran an online membership site for skincare professionals using Drupal. In 2012, Kim found WordPress and never looked back at any other CMS. She has been creating online courses in WordPress since 2013 and currently combines her background in education, years of business experience, and WordPress experience to teach others how to build online courses and membership websites.
Eric MannEric Mann is a seasoned web developer with experience in languages from JavaScript to Ruby to C#. He has been building websites of all shapes and sizes for the better part of a decade and continues to experiment with new technologies and techniques. Eric is a Lead Web Engineer at 10up (http://10up.com) where he focuses on developing high-end web solutions powered by WordPress.
Anthony D. PaulI help build great digital experiences and software through usability research, IA concepts, and prototypes. Outside the office, you’ll find me spread across regional meetups and conferences—evangelizing IA/UX, accessibility, and a variety of open source dev projects. When I’m not doing responsible adult things, I grow the world’s hottest chili peppers and bottle my own hot sauce. I’d divulge something funny from my past, but these days the Internet does a better job of surfacing our embarrassing moments; find me anywhere by Googling “anthonydpaul”.
Andrea RennickWhen you think of quilting grandmothers, you probably don’t think of Andrea. And yet – she is a grandma to three, creates WordPress tshirt quilts, and is a Customer Tech Support Lead for Rainmaker Digital. Excessively friendly, Andrea has been a long term volunteer, recovering freelancer, author and all around community evangelist. Make sure you introduce yourself!
Paul SchreiberPaul Schreiber has been building for the web since 1995. He spent eight years as an Mac OS X engineer at Apple, served as the founding CTO at TurboVote, codeveloped the 2008 Obama campaign’s voter registration tool and built Admitting Failure for Engineers Without Borders Canada. When he’s not making FiveThirtyEight hum, Paul can be found baking cakes, hosting house concerts, playing hockey and doing crossword puzzles in ink.
Dmitry MayorovDmitry is a freelance web designer and developer. He builds custom themes and plugins for WordPress. Founder of a theme shop called ThemePatio. Loves meaningful typography, beautiful color schemes, maintainable code and the smell of a good coffee in the morning.
Shayda TorabiShayda Torabi is a Product Marketer at WP Engine living in her hometown of Austin, Texas. She is a WordPress community advocate having been to over 30 WordCamps worldwide, and she’s never met a WordCamp she hasn’t had the time of her life at. In her spare time she can be found food blogging at www.DineWithShayda.com, hiking a national park, or hanging out on twitter @shaptora.
One of my favorite things about being involved in any WordCamp is the stories. It doesn’t matter where I go or who in the WordPress community I speak with, it seems everyone has a great story about their first WordCamp, their favorite WordCamp, the crazy WordCamp at which they met someone incredible. WordCamps help our community put faces to names and personalities to interactions. Each time I hear a story of why someone loves this WordCamp or that session there’s a part of me that wishes they would share it with the world.
Well now is your chance. We want to hear your great WordCamp stories. What you look forward to before showing up at the venue or signing into the live stream. What your first WordCamp was like. What your most recent WordCamp was like. We want to know what you love most about WordCamp! But we want you to keep it brief. Condense all your WordCamp love into a one minute video and share it with us so we can share it with the world.
We ask that you keep the video to around 1 minute, make sure it’s family friendly, and verify that you have the right to use any image or sound you feature. It’s that simple.
Deadline for video submissions is Friday, November 13.
After reviewing an almost overwhelming landslide of amazing speaker applications we’ve finally reached out to all those who have applied. We’re absolutely thrilled to start introducing you to the 80 spectacular speakers who will be gracing the stages of WordCamp US! Without further ado, let’s greet our first round of speakers.
LeeAnn KinneyLeeAnn is a front-end developer living in Philadelphia, PA. She is a web accessibility advocate, co-organizer of LadyHacks and ELA Conf as well as co-organizer and teacher for Girl Develop It Philly. In her spare time she loves to hike, bike, camp and travel as much as possible.
Joe DolsonJoe Dolson is an active contributor to the WordPress accessibility team, and provides ongoing support to the Theme Review team by performing accessibility audits on themes submitted for the accessibility-ready tag. He’s been developing for WordPress since 2007. Joe provides accessibility consulting, develops WordPress plug-ins, and builds bespoke WordPress web sites primarily for non-profit and disability service organizations. Joe also brews beer, practices Shotokan Karate, and plays classical violin.
Hilary FosdalHilary Fosdal is the owner of Red Phone Studio, a design and development company based in Chicago. She started building websites while working in the broadcast television industry. While still a news junkie, she loves to talk shop about all things digital. In her spare time, she seeks outdoor adventures that involve mostly hiking and running.
Josh KoenigJosh Koenig is a Co-Founder and Head of Product for Pantheon, the website management platform for WordPress and Drupal. Pantheon provides the complete toolchain for developers using the leading open-source CMSs to build, launch, and run all their sites.
Rich RobinkoffRich is a WordPress community advocate, WordCamp speaker/organizer and WordCamp Central Community Deputy. He teaches Web Development at a local community college, loves to travel and is addicted to coffee. He is learning to cope with Impostor Syndrome.
David LaiettaDavid began building HTML websites in high school, breaking in programming classes as they appeared at his school. PHP came shortly after, with the mind blowing ability to make websites more than static entities. Later, early in 2008, David discovered WordPress and has been a proselytizer ever since. As lead organizer of WordCamp Orlando, David regularly speaks, mentors, teaches and trains on best practices with WordPress.
Kathryn PresnerKathryn Presner thrives on helping people get the most out of WordPress. After a career designing and building websites for clients, she joined Automattic as a Happiness Engineer in 2012. She’s currently Theme Whisperer on the Theme Team, where she helps folks with customization, configuration, and troubleshooting. She enjoys spreading her passion for WordPress and encouraging new public speakers at WordCamps, Girl Geeks, Ladies Learning Code, and other grassroots events. Non-WordPress obsessions include vintage Pyrex mixing bowls and growing garlic.
Rami AbrahamRami Abraham is a developer lead at WebDevStudios / Maintainn. He’s been building with WordPress since version 2.8, with a heavy focus in plugin development and javascript applications, as well as explorations with WebGL and game development. Prior to that, he worked in a few lead roles at traditional web agencies in the mid-Atlantic area of the US; with primary focuses being php, java, Objective-C, and javascript application development. He enjoys working with an unending variety of frameworks, SVG animation, and is part of the AffiliateWP.com support team. An organizer of WordPress Lancaster / WordCamp Lancaster, Rami attends and speaks at a variety of conferences, universities, and meetups. He has an affinity for user-focused topics, and sharing ideas about emerging technologies.
Joe CasabonaJoe Casabona is a Front End Developer at Crowd Favorite and author of the book, Responsive Design with WordPress. He is also a Yankee fan, plays the drums, and enjoys a fine cigar from time to time. You can find him over at casabona.org or on Twitter at @jcasabona.
Rachel BakerLead Engineer at thewirecutter.com and thesweethome.com. Lead Developer of the WP REST API plugin and WordPress Core contributor.
Aaron JorbinAaron Jorbin is a polyhistoric man of the web. Currently Technical Architect on the Conde Nast Platform Team and a WordPress Core Committer, he works to improve developer happiness and is dedicated to making the internet usable and enjoyable by everyone. He tweets at @aaronjorbin and writes regularly at daily.jorb.in.
Greg BrownGreg is a Data Wrangler at Automattic on the WordPress.com Data Team. He helps organize the team, writes code, juggles servers, and occasionally inserts some machine learning and natural language processing into the mix.
WordCamp US 2015 is over. Check out the next edition!