WordCamp San Francisco has traditionally been one of the most important WordPress events of the year where Matt Mullenweg delivers his annual State of the Word address. Last year, he announced that the the event had outgrown the Mission Bay venue and that it would be expanding to become WordCamp US in 2015.
Touch the walls as you walk out, as this is the last time we'll have #WordCampSF here! ~ @photomatt #wcsf14 #endofanera
— WordCamp SF (@WordCampSF) October 26, 2014
The decision to seek a new venue in a new city was partly based on the need to make room for more attendees and presentations. Another benefit of moving the event out of San Francisco, one of the most expensive cities in the world, is that it will likely become more accessible to a greater number of people.
WordCamp US will follow a format similar to WordCamp Europe in that it will be held in a rotating city. The city has not yet been selected, which is surprising given that the year is nearly halfway finished.
Mullenweg put out a call for host city applications on his blog and linked to a survey where candidates can apply.
There are a lot of cities out there that might be an excellent fit for WordCamp US, but many are lacking a vibrant local WordPress community to help support the event. While this is not stated as an explicit requirement, it would be difficult to pull off such a large event without an army of local volunteers.
WordPress is aiming big for its first ever WordCamp US. The survey states that host city applicants must secure a venue with hotels within three miles that can support 1,500 – 2,000 attendees. Potential organizers must supply average hotel costs for a range of budgets and average flight costs from the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest, Mexico, and Canada.
Hosting the event will be a massive undertaking that will require an organization team capable of putting everything together in a very short amount of time. Events of this size normally have the benefit of longer planning periods. For example, applications to host WordCamp Europe 2016 closed two months ago and the team is already training volunteers for next year’s event.
If your team is up to the challenge of hosting WordCamp US, you’ll need to be prepared to submit venue information with room capacities, a detailed event budget, potential dates, and contributor day options. So far, Mullenweg has received in-person pitches for Phoenix but the application process is open to teams from any city. When WP Tavern readers were surveyed seven months ago, commenters favored Chicago, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Houston, and Dallas.
Did they ever launch the GitHub support that Matt talked about in his keynote?