When organizing teams in different cities applied to host WordCamp US earlier this year, they provided a substantial amount of information through the application process. While Philadelphia will host the event in 2015 and 2016, their application is not public information.
Juliana Reyes, who writes for Technical.ly Philly, acquired and published a few of the responses from the organizing team’s application, specifically questions four, nine, ten, and eleven.
Question nine on the application asks, why do you think your city should host WordCamp US 2015? The organizing team responded:
Philadelphia is the birthplace of our nation. The United States started here, and so should WordCamp US.
We’re ideally situated on the East Coast between New York and Washington DC, and the halfway point between the West Coast and parts of Europe.
With a population of 1.5 million, it is the 5th largest city in North America, and is a cultural hub for all things food, music, art, and technology. It is well-known for its many excellent medical and educational facilities, including the University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University, and the University of the Sciences.
With over 1,200 daily inbound and outbound flights, Philadelphia is easy to reach from anywhere in the world. The average hotel room and cost of living, is far below any other major East Coast city, and nowhere else has cheesesteaks like we do.
I’ve yet to visit Philadelphia but one thing I’ve learned is that residents take their reputation for cheesesteaks seriously. Be sure to read the post to see the team’s responses to the other three questions.
Personally I am happy that WordCamp is on the east coast. I get tired seeing all the conferences I want to go to happening on the west coast, at least from what I can tell most of the bigger one’s happen there. With that being said, alternative between each coast every year could benefit everyone, as we could simply travel to whichever one is closest to us at the time.