After an incredible inaugural WordCamp Sacramento in 2015, that sold out in only two hours, it was clear that our Sacramento WordPress community wanted to improve their WordPress skills and meet other WordPressers in the greater Sacramento region — and that a weekend conference, separate from the monthly Sacramento WordPress meetup was very appreciated. I signed on to be lead organizer for WordCamp Sacramento 2016, moving the event to the Sacramento State University Alumni Center, where we welcomed 31 speakers and 350 attendees of all skills levels for a weekend of learning, eating, networking, and fun.
For WordCamp Sacramento 2017, I am once again lead organizer, and once again moving to a new venue — a larger venue we won’t outgrow and hopefully can continue to host WordCamp at years to come. WordCamp Sacramento 2017 will be held September 16-17, 2017 at the Sacramento Convention Center, just steps from the California State Capital, historic attractions, and amazing restaurants, as well as mere blocks from the brand new Golden 1 Center and K Street Mall.
It was really difficult to turn people away after tickets sold out last year because of venue capacity, so I’m really excited that this year we’re taking over the entire second floor meeting space of the convention center and will have enough space to welcome everyone who would like to join us (as long as they buy a ticket by the pre-event cutoff date). We’re expecting around 500 WordPressers this year!
Peace, Love, And WordPress
In the summer of 1967, more than 100,000 people converged in San Francisco’s neighborhood Haight-Ashbury, and many other groups gathered across the United States, in Canada, and in Europe, all to create social change and embrace equality. This social and cultural phenomenon was called The Summer of Love.
During this transformative time, creativity flourished, there was an emphasis on sharing and community, and there was a feeling that anything was possible. The message sent to the world was one of love, peace, understanding, freedom, compassion, and respect.
2017 marks the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love.
Just as the Summer of Love was a gathering of people from all walks of life working together and sharing with a sense of community to create something wonderful for the world, WordCamps are gatherings of people of all skill levels and walks of life working together and sharing to create something wonderful for the WordPress community.
What Is WordCamp?
WordCamp Sacramento is a volunteer-run, sponsor-supported conference centered around WordPress, the free and open-source software, powering approximately 27% of the internet and 75 million websites around the world, and this year we too are embracing peace, love, happiness, and all things WordPress.
WordCamp is attended by designers, developers, business owners, bloggers, copywriters, consultants, photographers, creators, makers, hobbyists, professionals who use WordPress as part of their job, and anyone else who uses WordPress in any way. Attendees range from the novice who is brand new to WordPress, to the savvy WordPress power user, to advanced designers and developers who make their living with WordPress.
We invite you to come and welcome you to be a part of it.
More Sessions And All New Tracks
I’m also excited to share that we’ll have three ballrooms this year, which means new programming. Two of the ballrooms will feature mixed sessions running both Saturday and Sunday, as we usually do at WordCamp. The third ballroom space is allowing to offer brand new options for 2017!
- On Saturday, we’ll be offering a WordPress Beginner Track for the first time ever, walking attendees through how to actually use WordPress. If you’re new to WordPress, you want to start a WordPress blog or website, or you got put in charge of your organization or company’s WordPress site and you want to better understand how it works and how to use it, this track was created just for you.
- On Sunday, we’ll be offering a Contribution Day for the first time ever, providing members of our community an opportunity to learn about how they can get involved with the WordPress project and contribute and give back, and we’ll be leading specific project initiatives to help you get started at the event.
We’re still in the early stages of event planning, and nailing down all of the important details like designing swag, figuring out what we’ll be offering for lunch and what we’ll be doing for the after party, planning the VIP Dinner on Friday night for speakers, sponsors, and volunteers. As I sign contracts, announcements will be shared on the WordCamp Sacramento 2017 blog.
Right now, there are only two major items you need to be aware of:
- The Call for Speakers is now open and closes May 5, 2017 and I want to urge you to submit a speaker application — from beginner to advanced, all levels of talks are needed. If you’re interested in speaking, but not sure what topic you should submit, I wrote a blog post listing some topics we’re looking for and remember, you can always submit multiple talks to increase your chances of being selected.
- If you want to receive event updates for WordCamp Sacramento, visit the site and sign up in the sidebar!
Hope to see you there!
