What is a WordCamp? (and why you should attend one) in 2024
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If you’re looking for a social and hands-on experience with WordPress, then you can join WordCamp, an official program organized by volunteers and WordPress enthusiasts worldwide. A WordCamp is an excellent way to learn more about the platform, make connections, and uncover new possibilities.
In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about WordCamps, the advantages of sponsoring, the benefits of attending a WordCamp, and, in the end, a little about ourselves. Let’s start one by one.
What is WordCamp?
WordCamp is a meetup organized by WordPress enthusiasts and volunteers to discuss and learn about WordPress, network, collaborate on projects, and much more. WordPress covers 40% of the web, and you want to get connected to its users? A WordCamp is a perfect way to learn more about the platform, make connections, and find new opportunities.
The very first WordCamp was organized by Matt Mullenweg himself and was held in 2006 in San Francisco. It was a one-day conference attended by around 500 people and included a variety of presentations by WordPress developers and users. The event was a big success, and the idea spread and flourished over time. Since then, 1222+ WordCamps have happened in 396+ cities in 65+ countries. (Source)
Have you ever joined in on any WordCamps? “Yes or No!” Do you want to learn before attending? Keep reading the blog.
A WordCamp contains different activities. It includes presentation sessions where one expert talks on a specific topic, answers the questions, and shares the experience. Also, one or multiple panel discussions where more than one person answers the questions. Other activities like food, sponsor’s booths, training, contributions, and swag distributions are also there in WordCamp.
Advantages of Sponsoring WordCamps
Who is the target audience that usually attends WordCamps? At the WordCamp, everyone who joins is a WordPress enthusiast! No doubt about it. But not every WordPress enthusiast needs your products. Though it varies from city to city and WordCamp to WordCamp, it’s most likely never an average WordPress user that your plugin or service might target. It’s not like they don’t attend at all, but it’s probably your target audience is less than 10%.
Do you expect to sell your products or services at WordCamps? No, not directly.
Even though WordCamp is a gathering place for WordPress lovers, still, it is not a place to sell the products directly. But sponsoring a WordCamp helps in many other ways. Here are the major advantages of a WordCamp sponsorship.
1. Community Support
WordPress needs community support, and we strongly believe that sponsoring a WordCamp is a great way to support the WordPress community. We believe it is one of our core responsibilities to give back to the community. Without the community’s support itself, the WordPress platform can not grow to the fullest. At the same time, it helps us exchange ideas and develop connections with people who are also actively trying to improve WordPress.
2. Meet User in Person
Many times, we meet our customers through support systems and social threads. But do we meet them in person? Mostly no. But WordCamp is a great connection point where we can meet our customers in person. WordPress developers, designers, agency owners, and freelancers normally attend WordCamp, and you can meet them in person there. Needless to say, in-person meetings always take human relations and connections to the next level.
3. Branding
One of the best strategies for promoting your brand and business is through WordCamp. You can distribute different swags containing your logo and website names, give leaflets and stickers to the users, display different types of banners, and organize different games and contests. All the above activities will boost your brand without any doubt. WordCamp sponsorship boosts brand value slowly but surely.
4. Networking
From existing clients to well-wishers, from old friends to new people, the amount of networking you could get from a WordCamp sponsorship is massive. If you have a stall, people are coming to you. Your friends are hanging out near your booth, so anybody coming to talk to them will eventually visit and speak to you as well. Even if you do not meet all the participants, many of them know you from your online presence, their friends and family, etc.
5. Partnership
At WordCamp, you can find companies or brands similar to yours as sponsors and participants. You can talk in person and manage partnerships easily. You can also get connected with speakers who are normally industry-leading experts. Making partnerships through in-person communication is much easier and more effective than email outreach or virtual meetings. When a leading company joins a sponsorship table, you can talk to them directly. After-parties and before-parties are also great sources of making new collaborations.
6. Lead Generation
As WordCamp is the meetup of all WordPress people, you can generate leads for your future campaign. There are multiple ways to grow your leads, such as email collection, by giving away something to the participants. Though all the participants are not your ready customers, they could be your future customers.
Obstacles in the Way of Sponsoring in WordCamps
One can see from the above that sponsorship has pros as well as cons. It is the reason why any company thinking of adopting this strategy for its products or services should think twice. The company should carefully read the above points. After that, they should decide whether to sponsor their products or services at events or use other methods of advertising. There are multiple disadvantages for the sponsors.
1. Cumulative Cost
The cost of sponsoring seems reasonable in most cases. The cumulative cost, including your and your team’s airfare, travel, accommodation, and food, is high. These costs can be higher than your expectations if the WordCamp happens in a region different from yours. Sometimes, teams need to join with fewer members due to the cost.
2. Different Weather
Weather can be another important matter for consideration. There are, in some cases, negative impacts on the team members traveling from one place to another. It’s tough to shift and get stuck in too much cold or hot weather suddenly.
3. Dependence on Others
For the sponsorship team, success lies in how well the team or player performs! For example, a company can sponsor under a gold package and secure the biggest table. But the team members may speak less due to poor communication skills, mismanagement, or any other difficulties. Then the whole idea of sponsoring a team will be a flop. It’s not due to bad products or bad positions but to the bad performance of the team or individual that the company has sponsored.
Why Should You Attend WordCamps?
If you have any connection with WordPress, attending WordCamp can be beneficial for you in many ways. Without sponsorship from WordCamp, you can get similar benefits to the sponsors. You can meet the company in their booth. You can talk with them in order to create a partnership and get offers from them. In some cases, you can learn about the available jobs from the job board as well.
As authors or WordPress entrepreneurs, sponsoring is not possible every time. But still, you can join as participants and grow the partnership and collaboration with the sponsored company. You can also have new ideas and organize experiences.
- Meet Similar-Minded New People
- Learn New Things
- Grow Your Spread
- Grow Your Networks
- Expand Your Reach
- Spending Quality Time at a Low Cost
If you are a student, WordCamp is a place you should not miss by any chance. Join in the knowledge-sharing sessions with new people, go and talk in the booth, and talk with the person who sits beside you in the camp. In this way, you can get first-hand experience and step up your career one step more than your friends.
Our Experience from WordCamp Nepal
Our (Arraytics team’s) first sponsorship experience after the COVID-19 outbreak was at WordCamp Kathmandu. And without any doubt, it was a great experience for us. We were really excited, and the whole thing came to an end with great satisfaction.
WordCamp Kathmandu 2022 was a two-day event. WordPress users and enthusiasts from around the world gathered there and shared their unique experiences regarding the open-source platform.
Arraytics was a proud Bronze sponsor of WordCamp Kathmandu 2022.
Our founder, Ehsan Riyadh, with our team, joined there as a sponsor. We gave away unique gifts along with a ‘Bluetooth Speaker’ as the grand giveaway. We were present among the 450+ active attendees. We distributed about 200 T-shirts, for which we received positive feedback from the attendees.
We did very minimal branding on the T-shirt, with our logo at the front and our website address on the back! And most people came and especially asked for our tees.
Our reddish t-shirt was able to capture the visitors’ attention. It created massive brand awareness. Additionally, we also distributed a handful of swags under the branding of Arraytics including pen holders, caps with logos, pens, and visiting cards.
1. Meet WordPress Enthusiast
It was around 8.30 AM when we finished setting up the booth. It took little to no time to make our way through the crowd of WordPress people after the gate opened for participants. We started giving the swags that we carried for them from Bangladesh. We also had multiple activities such as puzzle games, scan and win, and more.
2. Meet Our Customers
We met several happy customers from both. All of them came from different parts of the world, and they were happy to meet us. We discussed the upcoming features of our products and their expectations with them. We also shared some upcoming updates that can help them more.
3. Enjoy Amazing Sessions
It was not just a promotional event for us. We also joined and enjoyed the different sessions conducted by industry experts. A partial part of our team was talking with the WordPress enthusiasts at the booth, and another part was enjoying the sessions. In the rotation, we joined in the sessions. There were different sessions for multiple topics led by experts from all over the world. For each slot, they shared their ideas and experiences while also answering the questions that came from the audience.
- If you’ve never attended a WordCamp, there’s no better time to start than right now.
Gallery of Joy at WordCamp Kathmandu 2022
Some Basic Information About Arraytics
Arraytics is a software product development company from Bangladesh. It is the company behind WPCafe, a restaurant management plugin, and Eventin, an event management solution. We started our journey with the Envato Marketplace back in 2013. We are a multinational tech company with a versatile product line, consisting of Joomla Templates, HTML Templates, WordPress Themes, Plugins, and Mobile Apps, all of which have unique techniques.
We have become an 11th-level author in the Envato Market, with over 30,000+ customers worldwide, and we are growing day by day. We have thousands of customers worldwide who love our themes and plugins.
Join Us at Future WordCamps
We can say confidently, YES! We will do more sponsorship in the near future. We plan to support more and more of the WordPress community through sponsorship. You can meet us at the events to collaborate and grow together. Join our community group to learn about the latest updates on sponsoring. You can also discuss our products along with our visions for them.
Do any questions come to your mind? Here’s the link to our support channel, which is always open to listen to all your queries. You can also join our Facebook community to discuss all things WordPress and tech. Stay tuned.
Source – Arraytics WordCamp Experience
