The WordCamp Europe organization team announced today that the 2015 event will be held in Seville, Spain from June 26 – 28 at the Barceló Gran Hotel Renacimiento. Last year’s WordCamp in Sofia, Bulgaria was a tremendous success with nearly 800 attendees, a world-class speaker lineup, and a strong local community of volunteers.
Ordinarily, the WCEU organizers select a host city based on applications from various European WordPress communities after an open call. However, this year is an exception. WordCamp Central prevailed upon the team to have the event in late spring or summer in order to accommodate WordCamp US, which is expected to take place in the fall.
“As we had to move WordCamp Europe to the first half of the year, we were quite limited in time,” organizer Petya Raykovska said. “So instead of publishing an open call for applications, we decided to reach out to some of the best established WordPress communities in Europe that have experienced teams of local organizers and asked them to prepare bids to host WCEU 2015. We received three very good applications from three different teams.”
The WCEU organization team landed on Seville after considering various factors, such as the local organizers’ preparation of the budget and venue research. “We chose Seville because of the excellent job they did with the application,” Raykovska said. “But also because of the great, experienced local team, because it’s a great location with a very different vibe from Sofia – it’s affordable, well connected with the rest of Europe, and has a very strong local WordPress community.”
The WordPress community in Seville has held a local WordCamp for the past several years. The city’s metropolitan area has approximately 1.5 million residents, making it a decent-sized city for hosting an event. Attendees should expect to pack for warm weather, as the Seville’s average high temperatures in the summer often reach above 35 °C.
Siobhan McKeown will be leading a team of 18 organizers for the 2015 event, including five experienced local organizers and a global team of organizers from all over Europe.
Tickets will go on sale at the beginning of February, and the organization team will be calling for speakers and sponsors in the next few days. Unlike last year’s event, WordCamp Europe 2015 will include interpretation for the local language. While all sessions will be given in English, a Spanish translation will be offered simultaneously.
I hope to see you all here! :)