WordCamp Europe 2022

Robbie: Hello and welcome to Do the Woo. This is the Woo BizChat. And today, Robert and I are going to be talking to two of the people involved in WCEU. So we’re real excited to hear about this. I know everyone is excited about WordCamp Europe coming back as an in-person event this year. I know I’m excited. Robert, you’re going as well, right?

Robert: It’s been three long years and WCEU, WordCamp EU, WordCamp Europe, however we want to call it, has always been my favorite. It really grabs a whole different group of people than you would see just at WordCamp Orlando, or WordCamp this, or WordCamp that. And it’s always been the biggest, what are we going to call it? Regional? Biggest premier? Biggest featured WordCamp? Well, at least, in my experience over the last few years, or even before you got to always minus the two COVID years, but outside of that, it’s fantastic and it’s a great excuse to, boy, talk and meet a lot of people and learn a lot of stuff. Oh, and wind up going to Portugal, which is fantastic.

Robbie: Exactly. Well, so we have, and I apologize if I mispronounce you guys names, but I’m going to say we have Taeke and Takis. And I probably just brutalize those names. I apologize. So guys, we’re so excited to have you here today. Who would like to talk first?

Taeke: I’ll go.

Robbie: All right.

Taeke: Thanks for having us. And this is Taeke, yeah. Shall I pronounce it myself?

Robbie: Yes. Please, tell us how to say your name.

Meet Taeke and Takis

Taeke: You’re pretty close. Taeke. Taeke Reijenga, which is impossible to pronounce for anybody outside of Holland. So no worries about that. Yeah. So I’m one of the four global leads for WordCamp Europe 2022. And I’ve been involved in quite a couple of WordCamps already. Skipped last year’s edition. That was a hundred percent online because, for me, that really didn’t do it. I mean, for me, it’s about meeting the people, the bus, the whole fight working towards this event. It’s months of preparation, and which is all coming together this one weekend seeing people. I’m not going to say hugging people these times, but seeing people, connecting, catching up, stuff like that.

Robbie: And I’m excited. This is going to be my first WordCamp Europe, so I’m very excited about that. Takis, tell us what your role within the organization and have you been there before? I’m assuming you have.

Takis: Hello, guys. Very happy to be here with you. My name is Takis Bouyouris. I’m from Greece. That’s a weird name as well. My role in this year’s WordCamp Europe is the lead of the community team, which is the team who is behind the side events that are going on around the WordCamp Europe beside the main content. These are events like the big Contributor Day that we always have before the main event. A day dedicated to contributing back to the WordPress ecosystem, the WordPress project. This year, we’re also organizing some other activities like the WP Cafe, a place where we can casually, but in a moderated way, discuss about issues and topics around WordPress. We’re having a big, and I’m hoping very exciting community booth at the Expo area where we will be expecting everybody, perhaps without hugs, okay, but with open arms, in any case. And we’re also going to be having a wellness truck outside in the park because the venue there has a beautiful park outside. And we will be having some exercise as well in between talks. So that’s a short version.

Robbie: Awesome. And I saw it was just announced about the big party at the end of WCEU. Are you involved in that as well, you guys?

Takis: Taeke probably is. It’s part of the responsibilities of another team. Yeah. But well, the after-party is always an integral part of WordCamp Europe and everybody who has been to an after-party in Europe probably remembers it.

Robert: Or probably doesn’t.

Takis: That could be true as well.

Robbie: Don’t worry. There will be cellphone photos to prove it, Robert.

The WP Cafe

Robert: That’s right. So Takis, you’re doing the WP Café. It’s slightly different than Berlin if I recall. Berlin seems to have, you talk to it, please.

Takis: Indeed, it’s a little bit different in the way that we tried to make it a little bit more open this year. In Berlin, the WP Cafe had topics, and each topic had a person who initiated the discussion in the topic who was an expert in the topic. But this year, we tried to turn things a little bit around and have no experts at the table. So we wanted to make the discussion as open as possible. There are going to be some proposed topics, not strictly the ones that are going to be discussed. People will have the opportunity to discuss their own topics. There will be a moderator, but the moderator will simply facilitate the conversation. They will not be, he or she, will not be an expert of any kind. So the idea is to have an as open conversation as possible with as many topics as possible as a side event of WordCamp Europe this year.

Robert: Yeah. The timing’s pretty big. I mean, the cafe’s going on pretty much all morning and afternoon as an adjunct to the main topics and sessions and expo.

Takis: It’s a little bit like a parallel track, not exactly a track as the main track, but yeah, it’s going to go on for the whole day. And we’re also going to be serving some nice quality coffee at the WP Café, right? It will not be a WP Cafe just in the name.

Robert: Even better.

Robbie: Well, I’ll definitely be showing up then for my caffeine.

Takis: Yes. Make sure you do.

When the planning starts

Robbie: You guys mentioned that this takes a lot of planning. An event this size takes a lot of planning. How far back did you guys start meeting and start the teams on the planning?

Taeke: I would say this goes back to September last year. I think, overall, it takes about eight, nine months of solid planning and working on it.

Robbie: Amazing.

Taeke: And depending on the team that you’re in or the team that you’re talking about, the pressure is on either in the last months or maybe in the early stages. I’ve been involved in the sales and sponsors team in previous years. That’s something that you basically want to close all the deals before Christmas or so. You want to make sure that you have the funds to organize the event later or in the following year. This time we were quite a bit late, but we still managed to get a hundred percent our sponsorship fees in. But then again, I mean, there’s also a photography team that is not doing anything in the first what, eight and a half months or eight months, and they come into action in the preparation now, planning stages now to have the amount of photographers on the floor and the right equipment, all that, making sure that we later can look back on cool footage, photos, videos, et cetera.

Robbie: Yeah. Those teams will start during, and then they will work after it to do all the post work on those photos and videos. Yeah.

Taeke: Exactly.

Team communication

Robbie: Well, I will say, one, I want to compliment the team because the communication that has happened with this, because I’m a sponsor, and I also know people who are just signed up as attendees and things, the communication both publicly out there on social media and such, and on your own website has been excellent as well as all the touch backs with personalized emails. And so kudos to you guys because sometimes you sign up for a conference or even you sponsor a conference and then the week before, you’re like, wait, have I heard from these guys? And so, I do appreciate that. And one thing that I also was going to ask, I’m sure that this was a big factor in your planning is COVID. I mean, we’re coming out of two years of not having any live events. And then now you guys are organizing an event with how many people are we expecting.

Taeke: We’re expecting about 3,000 attendees. But that’s the total sum. So that includes volunteer, sponsors, et cetera. And that has been a tricky, tricky one. In the early stages, we were talking about three, four scenarios, all the what ifs. What if countries shut down again or what if there is a new peak or all the what ifs, and we try to think of scenarios for that. But the closer we’re getting to the event, the more countries in Europe are opening up and more restrictions are falling. So yeah, we had different scenarios ready. But really, fortunately, we can stick with our primary scenario, which was an in-person event where we are going to be super, super careful.

We do realize that there’s a lot of eyes of looking at us like, okay, what’s going to happen here, how are they doing that. We do realize that we set examples as an event of this scale. So we’ll be having a mask policy inside. We make sure that there’s all the, even though Portugal is really opening up. There’s not too much mask wearing anymore. I think only in public transport and medical centers and stuff like that. But still, we want to keep a strict mask policy inside on the expo area in the venue. We’re taking care of food, beverage, all that. That’s going to be outside dense, open air. It’s going to be super nice weather. June in Porto’s going to be amazing. So yeah, we’re really trying to cater for all these circumstances that are around the whole COVID situation in the world. Yeah.

Selling out the sponsorships

Robert: I’m always fascinated by the business of putting all of this together and I’m hoping people are listening, A, because they’re thinking about going to WordCamp Europe, but also for the ones that are organizing at home because you guys provide really I think the best example of what it takes to put on a WordCamp because the scale is so huge, but the tests are always the same. I mean, you still have to get sponsors, market, make sure attendees are taken care of, all those interesting things. You mentioned the sponsorship and capital team earlier. You guys sold out pretty quickly sponsorship. And then you opened up some more.

Taeke: Yeah. Yeah. We still have potential sponsors reaching out to us. This week, today, there was one saying, hey, we had no clue that this was happening. We had another one, and we’re not just talking about the bakery around the corner. These are major sponsors that have been admin, super admin-sponsored, the higher tiers in the past. So it’s also a bit of, it’s not a cool thing now to say, hey, sorry. Yeah, we sold out in two weeks, or something like that. I mean, we didn’t sell out in two weeks, but the main spots, the main slots they were gone within hours basically. And yeah, we’ve been thinking, what else can we do? What creative solutions can we come up with to get some more interested parties in and welcome them? So yeah, that probably has to do with the COVID situation as well.

Robert: Yeah. I know Robbie’s a sponsor with OSTraining. We’re a sponsor with Cloudways. And I remember hitting the button like I was trying to get a concert ticket. I’m going to make sure that we get in the queue for being sponsors.

Taeke: Well, I’m glad you did because you’re part of this now. Yeah.

Robert: It’s really pretty much, I’m just going to say it, the first WordCamp in three years. I mean, for all intents and purposes, so there’s a lot of pent-up excitement.

Takis: Do you know, because it’s been three years since the last in-person WordCamp Europe, it’s been two years with online WordCamps, but the duration has been three years and that was huge. I mean, we all felt it. I think there is a pattern there. Everybody is anticipating in-person WordCamps again. We also saw the same pattern in WordCamp Athens, which happened a couple of months ago, one and a half month ago or so. And we saw the same pattern happening there again. Sponsors rushing in the beginning, and then also coming along even at the last week. And you cannot accommodate them all, but it shows the trend.

Robbie: Well, I think speaking from a sponsor point of view, I know during the pandemic, because I also work on some events as an organizer as well. And when everybody had to flip to virtual events, it was a struggle. One, it was a struggle to get sponsors. The reason for that is because, for sponsors, they had to say, what is my return on investment with this. Virtual events are great and I’ve been to some really good ones over the pandemic, but it is not the same. It is not the same as seeing someone in person, looking them in the eye, meeting them, talking about your dogs or your kids or your vacation that you did somewhere, and creating that personal connection over coffee. That kind of thing is just different.

And for a sponsor, there’s also, you’re also there with the other sponsors. And that was probably one of the bigger things I missed when I was doing the virtual events. As a sponsor, I could reach out to the attendees, but as sponsors as a whole, we weren’t networking with one another. And that happens at these type of events. And that’s where some of your bigger deals happen. Right? I mean, partnerships occur and things like that.

Taeke: That’s where the real money is made. Yeah, for sure.

Thanks to our Pod Friends LearnDash and Weglot

Yes on streaming, challenges of a hybrid event

Robbie: Now I was going to ask you guys, and I’m not trying to open up a can of worms here though, but a lot of the in-person, Robert’s laughing at me, I’m not, but a lot of the in-person events in other areas here, not necessarily WordCamps, but in other open sources, they’ve tried to now move from, and just business by the way, they’ve decided with their in-person that they would do hybrid. And so they’re doing in-person and online at the same time. But you guys didn’t do a hybrid model out of the gate. You guys said, no, we’re going right back into in-person. Now, was that it was one of your plan Bs, the hybrid model, or not at all?

Taeke: Well, it’s not entirely true. I think we always did a bit of a hybrid event also in the past. We always had a live YouTube feed where you could attend the talks, if I recall correctly. The only thing that we are not doing now is this virtual networking. I mean, I really believe that this virtual networking of these little 3D puppets on your screen sitting on a table and then the microphone and camera switch on, stuff like that, that’s not going to work when you have 3,000 people or even a thousand people in a venue. And then you have another 2,000 people watching from home. You see that in hybrid events, maybe in your company or meetings even that around the table there’s different discussions than with the attendees that call in.

So in that perspective, we are really focusing on an in-person event. But if you’re not comfortable with the situation or your country doesn’t allow you to get out, take a flight, or take a bus or, whatever, then you can still hop on one of the live streams and make sure that you get the most of it, but then from the comfort of your home.

Robbie: Awesome. So you guys are streaming out content. It’s just you’re not allowing people to sign up and come on virtually, like you said, those little Kumo space kind of things. Yeah.

Taeke: Exactly. We’re going to foresee that that is not going to provide an experience that we would like to provide.

Robbie: Hybrid events are a struggle especially at the size of 3,000 people. That is a struggle, so yeah.

Taeke: Think so. Yeah. Yeah. I agree.

Robert: I’m going to throw my two cents in. I think a hybrid event would be great if it’s completely split up like the week before WordCamp, you do virtual networking and all that kind of stuff, get people excited. Some of those people won’t actually be in-person, some will, but they can start the mingling almost ahead of time. I don’t know. I’m just, again, two cents, maybe a penny and a half.

Taeke: Feel free to coin the idea in WordCamp US or any of the other WordCamp that are going to aiming for in-person event. I mean, I would be really interested to see how that’s working out. I do see it happening, but someone needs to take on the challenge and say, hey, let’s give it a try.

Robert: Isn’t that always the open source answer? That’s a great idea. You should do that.

Taeke: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I hate that argument, but in this case, I’m thinking, wow, we have such a large team already working on one event basically. And you’re suggesting splitting this up into two events. So I just imagine, yeah throw in an extra 40 volunteers to make this happen. I mean, there’s a lot of work involved in all this planning and all.

Robert: I know Takis has a lot of time.

Contributor Day

Robbie: Yes, I’m sure he does being involved in the community. Personally, I mean, hybrid events are difficult. And like I said, for the very large events, I think that it would just really be a challenge. And so, two events is probably a better idea, but you’re right. Not with the same team trying to do two events. You could not do that. Takis, walk me through Contributor Day. Tell me about Contributor Day and what you guys are hoping for, and what normally happens.

Takis: Well, in essence, the Contributor Day is a day dedicated to contributing back to the WordPress ecosystem in very many ways. This is something that we need to emphasize every time because many people think that contributing to WordPress is probably just coding or you need to be an expert developer to attend and contribute to the WordPress project. But this is not the case with WordPress. There are many, many areas of contribution that one can participate like design, marketing, translation, organizing events, et cetera. So during the Contributor Day and this year, we are aiming for something like 400 to 500 people attending the Contributor Day.

What we do is gather up in a big space. We have separate tables for all the separate contribution teams that comprise of the WordPress Project. And each team sets for that day a simple goal, a simple task for the day, which that goal could have been prepared in advance during the previous months or it can be decided on the spot. During the day that each team tries to work towards that goal, at the end of the day, we present it to all the other teams. Each team presents to all the other teams how the day went along. And then, we move on to the next couple of days with the talks and the content. But it’s an integral part of WordCamp. I think it’s even in our handbook that when you do a WordCamp, you never forget that it’s an open source project. WordPress is an open source project and contributing to the community is an integral part of whatever you do.

Robert: And I think WCEU has the biggest contributor today in the world, right?

Takis: We’ve reached something like, in the ballpark area of 500 people attending and contributing on the same day in the past. And this is the goal this year as well. 500.

Robert: And I’m going to reinforce what you said about you don’t have to be an expert PHP coder to be part of Contributor Day. You know, you mentioned translations. Oh my goodness. How brilliant is that?

Takis: It’s one of the best ways to enter the contributing realm of WordPress translation. Almost everyone can do it. You just need an account in the polyglots platform, and there you go, just contribute a couple of strings every day. And appetite builds up as you go along, and then you can move on to another team, or you can start your own plugin, or you can network with other people. It’s a great way to break into the community and contributing.

Robert: How many teams do you think will actually have, or tables groups will have set up at community?

Takis: Well, the total tables are going to be something like 50, but the teams themselves, something, they’re going to be something like 15 or 16 if I remember correctly. Many teams are going to have more than one table.

Taeke: I think you have 19 teams. Yeah 19.

Robert: And probably what, only four of them require any kind of programming experience? I’m just taking a rough guess.

Takis: Perhaps a little more than that, but yeah, it’s a small number. It’s a small number. Yeah.

Robert: I’m a big fan of appealing to as wide of an audience as possible with Contributor Day because it’s just folks need to know that there are so many different ways … it’s WordPress. It runs whatever billion number of websites and X percent of the entire internet. So it’s not just code anymore.

Taeke: There’s a lot more.

Robbie: No. I mean, I was thinking like learning, teams, word TV. I mean, there’s a lot of teams that don’t require coding at all.

Takis: If we go with numbers, most of them don’t require coding. I mean, only a small subset has. I mean, translation, marketing, organizing events. I mean, if you’re good at communicating with people, with sponsors, with other community members, you can be an organizer. And that’s a great way of giving back to the community as well. There are indeed very, very many ways.

Robbie: And even for people who are new to WordPress, in my opinion, the Contributor Day may even be one of the most important days for them because of the connections they will make with other people. Because we all know as we’re working and then we’re learning WordPress, then you’re reaching out and asking questions, right, so you need that network to reach out to.

Takis: It’s so exactly so. I mean, really. Really, I strongly suggest every beginner to try and overcome this initial intimidation of Contributor Day is for experts or whatever. It’s not. I mean, the more beginners we have, the better. And they will benefit themselves immensely. I mean, I strongly recommend it to beginners.

Robert: I’ve been to enough Contributor Days. Lurking is okay. You can just stand there and listen in. You don’t even, you don’t-

Takis: Although, we will try to draft you at some point if we see you lurking. But-

Robert: See, that’s a good thing.

Takis: Even just lurking is okay.

Robert: And then if you’re shy and someone reaches out to you, you don’t feel like you’re interrupting something very important. You’ve been asked.

Taeke: Yeah. Not at all. That’s really a good way. I mean, lurking is okay, but do sign up please so we know how many people to cater for. But it’s totally okay to just sign up for a random table and not knowing what’s going on. And then just walking around a bit, getting the vibe a bit, and then being asked to join, or maybe just for a chat. I mean, that is the welcoming vibe that’s on a Contributor Day.

The Expo Hall, the venue

Robbie: So I will say this too. So we know there’s lots and lots of great sessions, but let’s talk about the Expo Hall since I have a little bit of a vested interest in that Expo Hall. Let’s talk about that. And then we’ll talk about sessions.

Taeke: What would you like to know about the Expo Hall?

Robbie: So well, for one, are there dedicated times for the attendees or is it just that they organically go between sessions?

Taeke: I would say that, yeah it’s basically from the more, if you look at the schedule, we started around, I think, welcoming at 8:00 or 8:30 local Porto time. I think the first session starts around 9:00 or something. That is basically also when the doors are open to the Expo area. I don’t know if you saw the venue, if you Google images for the Super Bock Arena in Porto.

Robbie: It’s so cool-looking.

Taeke: It’s an amazing venue. And what we did is we split it in half. So you basically have a half moon shape area for track one. And the other side is the Expo area. And we have an outer ring, a circle around the venue with the small business sponsors, and it’s yeah, basically open from morning till late afternoon as long as the program lasts. So it’s really, yeah trying to welcome you to check out some booths and sponsors and see what’s going on there. We do have a lot of sponsors and they all have their stories to tell, stuff to share. Of course, there’s goodies and all that, but I think it’s a really fun experience just strolling through the expert area, having a chat or just looking around. I mean, it’s going to be a great time there.

Matt Mullenweg, then the after-party

Robbie: And then, will we hear Matt speak?

Taeke: It is on day two, so that is the 4th of June at the end of the day. So at 4:00 in the afternoon. Again, that’s Porto time. I think Matt has an hour on stage. And that will also wrap up the day, will be followed by closing remarks. And then you have some time off to prepare for the after-party.

Robbie: That’s right. To go take a nap so you can stay up till the end of the party.

Taeke: Yeah, yeah. Do take a nap. Yeah.

Robbie: I saw the after-party goes till 2:00 AM, right?

Taeke: Well, I got news for you. I think it’s 5:00 in the morning. That starts with a bite and drinks, a DJ, stuff like that.

Speakers and sessions

Robert: I did still want to touch back on all the speakers that are involved. I mean, the selection team has done an amazing job. It’s diverse across pretty much everything I can see. I mean, looking at the names, many I know from all over Europe, Middle East as well. I mean, you’re covering the EMEA there, and men, women, everything. I mean, I’m very impressed by the selection community. And I know it’s really hard work.

Make sure you actually take the time to see some of these sessions. I mean, there are some amazing people here.

Taeke: Ah, yeah. Of course, we’re joking about the after-party, but that’s just the after-party. I mean, in the end, there’s a really, really cool schedule with really interesting talks. And again, with Contributor Day, there’s something for everybody there. Whether you’re a beginner or you’ve been in the industry for 15 years, there’s going to be a couple of talks that you really want to attend in these two days, so yeah. Do check out the schedule and prepare before you dive in and make sure that you know what’s going on there. We have some really cool workshops. I think two workshops in parallel going on. Some take a bit longer than the talks. So yeah, that’s something to adjust your schedule to maybe.

Robbie: And are all of the sessions being video recorded in stream?

Takis: Always. Yeah.

Taeke: Track one and two are both being streamed. Yeah.

Takis: They’re also recorded and then uploaded to WordPress TV as always.

Robbie: Which is great because sometimes there’s two sessions you want to see at the same time. I have yet to figure out how to really split myself as in Harry Potter world where I don’t have a little time turner to go to two. But so I know you guys have not sold out yet. So how would people go and get a ticket?

Taeke: Just head to europe.wordcamp.org/2022 and get a ticket. I believe we have another 300 left or so.

Takis: Something like that.

Robbie: All right.

Taeke: So they are running out, but yeah. I think it’s an event not to miss especially after all these COVID years.

Takis: And if I may add one last thing that’s not to miss is that it’s also the 10th anniversary of WordCamp Europe that we’re celebrating this year. So you’ve got one more reason not to miss it because many nice things are going to happen around that theme.

Robbie: Yes. Awesome. Well, I’m looking forward to it.

Robert: I cannot wait. It’s the 10th anniversary. There’s going to be 3,000 people. We’ve been starving for contact with our fellow WordPressers, after-party. And we didn’t even touch on all the other side parties that will be going on for three days beforehand. It’s really going to be insanely festive, it’s insanely exciting, and it’s going to be a great learning experience. You guys have really done some amazing work to put this together.

Taeke: Thank you.

Takis: Thank you.