Mark your calendars for the next major WordPress event coming up at the beginning of next week. WordCamp Europe is just five days away and will run from June 7-9. In July 2020, organizers announced that in-person events would not resume until 2022. At that time, attendees were deeply disappointed but resigned to the necessity of online events due to the pandemic.
One of the advantages of scheduling a virtual event so far in advance is that organizers have been able to eliminate a great deal of uncertainty for attendees and their travel arrangements as well as have more time to create a better online experience. This is one of the few times in WordCamp Europe history where all attendees will be joining virtually, on equal footing from wherever they are in the world.
WCEU 2021 organizers have announced the speaker lineup and schedule for the upcoming three days of 30-minute sessions, 10-minute lightning talks, workshops, discussion panels, and interviews. Two tracks will run simultaneously.
The schedule includes some big-picture topics like full-site editing and the future of WordPress themes, as well as more technical topics such as how to quickly build custom blocks, setting up a WooCommerce data hub, headless WordPress, and accessing APIs using OAuth on the Federated Web. At the close of day 3, WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg will join the event for a virtual chat.
Business owners, project managers, designers, and other professionals will all find topics related to their work and interests. The schedule has a built-in favoriting tool so attendees can mark the sessions they plan to attend and then print or email to themselves for a personalized schedule. Every hour or so there will be 10-minute breaks so attendees will have time to talk with others and socialize. WCEU organizers are planning to host virtual networking rooms where attendees can meet sponsors and take part in product demos.
Registration is free and attendees will receive online goodiebags. Tickets are still available but organizers expect it to be another “sell out” year.