WordCamp Netherlands Reinstated for 2018

At WordCamp Europe I had the opportunity to speak with WordCamp Netherlands organizers Marcel Bootsman and Luc Princen, along with WordPress Global Community Team members Josepha Haden and Andrea Middleton. The group has had several conversations about the future of WordCamp Netherlands, which was shut down earlier this year in favor of city-based WordCamps, and have decided to reinstate the camp with a few conditions.

WordCamp Netherlands organizers are now allowed to begin planning the event again based on the requirement that the country host three city-based WordCamps first. There are currently two local camps on the schedule and a few others in the pre-planning stage. Lead organizer Marcel Bootsman is aiming to have 500 attendees for the next WordCamp Netherlands in 2018.

In a recent interview with Torque, Matt Mullenweg indicated that the outlook is good for future regional WordCamps.

“I think we got to the point where we were too rules-based and now we’re starting to open up the process and be more agile in the approach to WordCamps,” Mullenweg said. “We can start to think about regional WordCamps and topic-focused WordCamp…we want to think about which WordCamps make sense to move the community forward.”

In our interview below, WordPress Global Community Team members said they plan to take similar country-based WordCamp proposals on a case-by-case basis. WordCamp Netherlands is pioneering the way for other countries with active local communities to continue to push the boundaries of the previously “one-size-fits-all” approach to WordPress events.