With 600 tickets and nearly 95% attendance this year (WOW) it was out biggest and best camp yet! We are happy to report that while the event was “Making Waves”, behind the scenes, everything was smooth sailing, and the entire organizing team was giddy with excitement (and exhaustion) as the weekend wrapped up.
Speakers & Sponsors
During the 2016 camp planning we made it a priority to have something for every type of WordPress user – from total beginner to seasoned developer and everything in between. WCSD 2016 covered Development, Design, Plugins, Admin, Beginner and Business topics, all with their own dedicated tracks!
We had a great lineup of speakers this year to help us tackle all aspects of WordPress, and want to extend our gratitude for all the time they put into preparing for, and presenting at, our event. If you missed any of the talks, we are happy to announce that there are already a handful on WordPress.tv and more are showing up daily!
WCSD is not possible without our sponsors. Not only did they support us with funding and in-kind donations, but many of them came out to network and share their expertise over the weekend. The “community” room was alive with chatter and smiling faces – and the swag was plentiful! We hope you were able to take some time between tracks to meet some of our awesome sponsors and learn more about their services.
Venues & Vendors
NTC/Liberty Station
Finding space for an event of this size with the unique need of multiple, simultaneous tracks proved difficult this year. Coming across NTC at Liberty Station after losing our first venue at the 11th hour was nothing short of a miracle. Liberty Station is a beautiful area and truly captures the essence of our amazing city. All of their staff were a pleasure to work with and very helpful in our efforts to make this space work.
Wild Thyme Catering
Saturday’s lunch was provided by Wild Thyme Catering and they handcrafted a variety of fresh sandwiches and wraps for our attendees. We had options for everyone, and made sure to have tasty options for those with food sensitivities and/or allergies. People spread out along the grass and benches alongside a gorgeous water fountain while they networked and enjoyed a delicious meal.
Wild Thyme also made sure to keep the coffee, tea and water flowing during our event. We know how important it is to stay caffeinated during a WordCamp, so we made sure that coffee was readily available at all times.
98 Bottles
We had a great turnout at this year’s after party held at 98 Bottles in San Diego’s Little Italy neighborhood. 98 Bottles offers a good selection of local craft beers, and they also have wine and soju cocktails. We also had a selection of appetizers available to our after party guests – the flatbreads and brownie were AMAZING! There were two large areas for people to network and connect, and an open space at the front of the venue along the sidewalk. Overall, everyone enjoyed the food, drink and company!
Vario Productions
Vario worked alongside NTC/Liberty Station to make sure all of the audio/visual worked properly in all the rooms. Vario Productions was a wonderful partner to have for our event, and they worked tirelessly to ensure each track ran smoothly and was set up properly. Additionally, Vario set up our network for Wifi access in McMillin and our beginner’s bootcamp. While we did not ‘promote’ the use of WiFi for WCSD this time around, we did have an extremely fast, solid connection in McMillin for those that needed access.
WebPass
The WebPass team provided internet to our location via a radio “drop” at McMillin. They worked with our team at Vario to ensure that we had an internet lounge available in McMillin for those needing access.
Making Waves
We hope you’re still riding the wave from WordCamp San Diego and have been inspired to create or do more with WordPress. While you are waiting for WCSD 2017 there are a ton of ways to get involved with WordPress.
Post-Camp Survey
Send us your feedback so we can make next year’s WCSD even better!
https://central.wordcamp.org/wordcamp-attendee-survey/
Meetups
The Advanced WordPress Meetup is held monthly in/around downtown San Diego and is a developer-centric Meetup focused on sharing knowledge and ideas.
Contributing to WordPress
The Codex has a very detailed page explaining the different ways you can Contribute to WordPress. There are opportunities for everyone to get involved, whether or not coding is “your thing”. Some of the ways you could contribute include: writing documentation, helping others in the support forum, assisting with translations to other languages, putting your coding chops to use and participating in development, bug reporting, and more.
Volunteering Next Year
Interested in volunteering to help with WCSD 2017? Drop us a line at wordcampsd@gmail.com and we will reach out when planning for next year begins.
Thank You
YOU are the reason we continue to volunteer our time to organize this event year after year, and it is our sincere hope that you walked away with a bit of inspiration and some new friendships. You are the reason the WordPress community is so amazing.
We look forward to seeing you next year!
– WCSD 2016 Organizing Team