WordCamp London 2015 was held at the London Metropolitan University this weekend. The sold-out event attracted 600 attendees from the local UK WordPress communities and beyond.
In selecting a theme for the event, organizers drew inspiration from London’s punk subculture, which emerged in the mid-1970’s. The posters, lanyards, t-shirts, and custom wapuu designs all exemplified punk style (minus the angst and anarchy).
The contributor day was held on Friday morning with 100 participants, roughly 1/6 of all attendees. Contributors spent time investing in WordPress, BuddyPress, GlotPress, and other projects.
Both Saturday and Sunday were packed with high quality sessions on topics ranging from development and design to business, in addition to a unique non-profit track highlighting WordPress use in the non-profit sector. Interest around certain sessions was so high that attendees opted to sit on the floor when all the seats in the room had been filled. When the rooms were over capacity, attendees were turned away at the door.
Sunday afternoon included a Q&A session with the WordPress core developers Helen Hou-Sandí, Mark Jaquith, and John Blackbourn. Attendees came ready with questions regarding leading a release, recommended development tools, how to stay on top of core development news, and the status of contributing via GitHub. The reasoning behind why WordPress’ minimum PHP version still lingers at 5.2 was of particular interest.
WordCamp London provided an excellent opportunity for attendees to connect with core developers and contributors on various open source projects surrounding WordPress. The event also brought together local agencies and user groups from around the UK.
“I am bowled over by the energy in the UK WordPress scene,” Brighton resident Elliot Taylor said of the event.
“So many forward thinking and innovative companies are based in the UK. It’s great to meet those I’ve been following on twitter and discover new people.”
Attendee Rey Dhuny concurred, remarking that the WordCamp brought together a “great community of WordPress folk who are super passionate about what they’re building and nurturing.”
The organizers did an excellent job representing the local flavor and highlighting some of the UK’s finest WordPress speakers. Overall, attendees left WordCamp London better connected, refreshed, and inspired to tackle their upcoming projects.
It was quite an amazing event. I was very impressed by the quality of the talks (at least the ones I got to attend as we were exhibiting) and by the vibe of the attendees.
It is remarkable what the WP foundation has been able to achieve with a very low entry point price for the ticket and resulting quality of attendance. Most events charge incredible amount of money for tickets but the show floor is usually disjunct and poor in motivation.
WordCamps prove that with a strong community you can run successful events that educate while keeping sponsors and organizers happy with the results.