Behind the Scenes of Reviving WordCamp in Australia

Devin:
How is it going in the land down under?

Wil:
Okay. So the temperatures—last time we spoke, the temperatures were really chilly in Sydney, but now they’ve come all the way back up. So high twenties, almost 30 degrees, which is nice.

Devin:
Wow. Yeah. Well, that sounds like Indonesia, but I feel like it’s been really, really hot in the last few days. So what’s chilly by your standard for Sydney?

Wil:
Probably 10 to 12 degrees during the day. That’d be cold, and close to zero at night, but that’s nothing compared to where I’m from in Scotland. So that’s a lovely summer’s day—2 degrees.

Devin:
It’s nothing, right. Alright. And then how is it going with WordCamp Sydney? So, I heard that this is going to be the camp that everyone in Australia and probably New Zealand too—they’ve been looking forward to this for years. When was the last time of WordCamp Sydney or WordCamps in Australia? If you can share with us?

Wil:
The last WordCamp in Australia was 2019. I believe it was WordCamp Sydney in 2019, and Perth was due to go ahead in 2020, but that obviously got canceled when COVID struck.

Devin:
Right, right. So, five years, I would say?

Wil:
Five years, yeah.

Devin:
The last WordCamp Sydney. So I bet everyone is so looking forward to it. And I am guessing also that everyone across Australia is joining forces to help you make it happen. Can you say something about it? How many organizers and where are they from?

Wil:
We’ve got 12 organizers, which is a huge team, but I wanted to get a lot of people involved from all over Australia. So I’ve got people from Perth, Melbourne, Brisbane, Sydney. I think there’s somebody in Canberra. So, it’s basically all over the major cities, and that’s really nice. There are a lot of new people on the team. The idea is to train them up and just show them how a conference works, how it’s organized, so that they can then maybe go back to their own cities and think about putting on a WordCamp in their local city.

Devin:
That’s the way to go. So, is this your second, third, fourth, or fifth WordCamp Sydney as an organizer?

Wil:
2014, 2016, 2018, 2019… Yes, fifth one.

Devin:
Oh wow. You’re the master of WordCamp Sydney then, and it is about time for you to prepare the next generation, right?

Wil:
Right. Someone’s got to train them up.

Devin:
Exactly. Of course, you’re still around, and they would probably be happy to see you around and helping them out, but I think the younger generation is probably also excited to take up the leadership baton. Wow. And when is it going to happen?

Wil:
November the second and third, which is a Saturday and Sunday, and we are at the University of Technology, Sydney—or we call it UTS—at one of the buildings there. We’ve hosted previous WordCamps in that building, so we kind of know our way around. It was a safe bet rather than trying something new. It is more of a kind of rinse-and-repeat just so we can focus on the event and not on different things.

Devin:
Exactly. So you focus on the content, the organizing of the event, and it allows you also to ensure that all the organizing team understands what it takes to hold an event WordPress style. And so two days—let us know what’s going to happen in those two days. Are you going to have Contributor Day on the first day or the second day, or no Contributor Day at all?

Wil:
I don’t think we’re going to have a Contributor Day at all. I don’t think any of the WordCamps in Australia have done a Contributor Day, but one of the reasons we chose not to do it was because of the budget. Since it’s been five years since the last WordCamp, we weren’t too sure how many sponsors we’d get on board. So we just wanted to do the minimal that we could—the two days. If we do get extra sponsorship, then there’s nothing stopping us from hiring another day or another office somewhere and doing a Contributor Day. We can talk about that. Sponsorship’s looking pretty good just now, so yeah, it’s something we can consider and spin up if need be.

Devin:
Alright, so let’s talk about the schedule first. In those two days, what can people expect? Are there going to be full sessions, are there going to be discussions or workshops? And then later on, we’ll touch upon the sponsorship. So what can we expect from the two days of WordCamp?

Wil:
It’s going to be two tracks of talks. There may be a panel discussion on one day, but it’s generally going to be two tracks with people talking—slides and sessions. We did think about workshops, but that’s a level up. To do a workshop is quite demanding. You’ve got to have the people there, the resources, the technical equipment. So it’s a different technical challenge from just putting on a talk session. So it’s something the organizing team is thinking about—how could we implement that for the next WordCamp. We’ve had huge discussions about that, but probably not this time.

Devin:
Okay. And you mentioned two tracks. What are they? Is this the common tech and non-tech split?

Wil:
No, no, we’re going to mix it up. We started mixing up the tracks, I think, in 2018. We’ve tried in the past to do beginner and dev, or technical and non-technical, but it really depends on the speaker submissions that we get. So we don’t get hundreds—I think we got about 76 speaker submissions.

Devin:
That’s quite a lot! Wow, congratulations.

Wil:
Yeah, but a lot of them are very developer-focused.

Devin:
Okay, okay.

Wil:
So we’re just going to mix it up. We’ll have some dev talks in one room, some dev talks in another, some beginner stuff. So we’ve got people working on the schedule now, going through the speakers. That’s the point we’re at the moment—speaker applications are finished, and we’re reviewing, vetting, and creating the schedule, which should be out in a couple of weeks.

Devin:
Alright, so for now we can only expect talks, but who knows? There could be panels or workshops—it depends on the resources, sponsorship as well. And you’re vetting the applications at the moment—out of 70, are you going to reduce it by half or?

Wil:
There are about 30 slots available over the two days.

Devin:
Alright, that’s quite a lot! So many people are looking forward to it, yeah?

Wil:
Yeah, that’s good. You mentioned that most of the submissions are developer-focused. This was also one of the inputs that the community team received when we were experimenting with Next Gen events—where some folks were expecting to learn more about developer topics. So, globally, what do you think the expectation or the hope from the community in Australia or the neighboring countries is? What’s the interest at the moment? Do you consider those feedback where people want to hear about certain topics or get involved in certain discussions?

Wil:
Yeah, I did a survey for all the meetup groups—maybe two years ago or a year and a half ago. We did get a good development response from that, but we also got quite a large beginner and business response as well. That’s been reflected at the meetups, certainly at the Sydney one. We’re getting quite a few beginners, and we’re getting more business owners coming along.

Devin:
Oh, that’s good, yeah.

Wil:
We’ve got people saying, “We run a website; we want to know more, expand on that.” So it’s a mix of topics. We’ll definitely cater for beginners, we’ll definitely have some business talks in there, and we’ll try to pad out the development side—we’re okay for development.

Devin:
Good, good, good. And were these submissions coming from other tech community folks? Something related to WordPress? Did you find any in your submission?

Wil:
Yes, absolutely. So we’ve got Girls Who Code—I think we got a submission from them—the Linux Australia open-source community. We had some submissions from them as well. One of the people on the organizing team is a Drupal person, so his community was involved as well. We’re touching on a lot of different communities, a lot of different meetup groups across Australia to advertise. As we said, this is the first one back in five years.

Devin:
So everyone’s excited and wants to be part of it. If not, they just want to see people again, network with people. That sounds exciting—I’m also looking forward to being there. I just have to book my hotel and my flight. It’s two months to go, but I’m still thinking, “Oh, do I have to spend more just to hang out with folks?” It sounds like a once-in-a-lifetime experience for me. Although I’ve been to Australia—I lived in Melbourne for two years, but I haven’t quite been to Sydney. I visited my

relatives in Sydney a bit. So yeah, looking forward to it.

So, let’s go back to sponsors. You mentioned that things are looking good. Are you still in need of more? Do you have a deadline, or are you open to receiving last-minute sponsorship? What’s the situation?

Wil:
We’ve got the big sponsor package levels, and they always take a lot longer because the bigger companies move a little bit slower. There are a lot more red tape and hoops to go through. So I think we’re okay on the big sponsorships—we’re really looking for more local sponsorships at the moment. So, around the silver, gold, and bronze levels, so we can get that local sponsorship as well, rather than just from all the big companies. We have 93.41% of our expected income from sponsorship at the moment. We can always use more—if we get more, we can open up more rooms, get more speakers, and do workshops or other types of sessions.

Devin:
Wow!

Wil:
Yeah, so we’re looking very good at the moment. Ticket sales are actually pretty good. We’ve got—just having a look—we’ve got 60, 65, 66 tickets sold so far, and that’s with no real push or advertising or speakers. The maximum attendee limit is 333—that’s the venue maximum, so we’re looking okay at the moment.

Devin:
Okay, well, you still have two months to go, and then you’re going to publish all the schedules, speakers probably. So all these sponsors—sponsors also drive people’s decisions. They want to check out the latest products or they just want to connect with their brands, or in fact, they want to give feedback on the product they’ve been using. This is a chance at WordCamp, the networking happens between companies and the customers as well.

Wil:
The networking side has always been huge at the WordCamps in Australia. There are people who will come just to sit out in the corridor and chat to people, and not listen to any sessions, which is fine by us.

Devin:
Yeah, how do you call that? Oh, I can’t remember. How do you call that?

Wil:
The water cooler?

Devin:
It’s the session that happens in the corridor. There’s a term for it, but I can’t think of it.

Wil:
Hallway track.

Devin:
Hallway track, there you go! Yes, the hallway track. That’s usually the most favorite one, especially for an event like yours. People have been waiting, and they are excited just to be there, I would say. If not, they are also interested in hearing the latest updates in the industry. Right. Alright. So, I also want to hear more about the community in Australia. Is there anything that we can learn from? How is everything in both Australia and the neighboring New Zealand and the Pacific? There are WordPress communities in these regions, but I think WordCamp Sydney has been the only WordCamp, at least after COVID, that has happened in that part of the world. What do you think about it? How can we support more communities around the region to be more excited to come up with—probably doesn’t have to be as big as WordCamp Sydney with 200-something people, but even 50 to 100 people—we’re so supportive of that as well.

Wil:
Yeah, no, that’s a great point. Obviously, with COVID, the whole community was fragmented and decimated. We lost meetup groups, so I worked with Automattic and WordPress Community Support to spin up those meetup groups again. So we’ve got meetups happening in some of the big cities, which is great. We’ve got Melbourne, Brisbane, and Perth going again with new organizers—fresh talent, which is always great. More meetups are spinning up. We’re always encouraging people that if you want a meetup in your local area, we’re here to help. It’s not as scary as it first seems, and it doesn’t have to be an event with speakers or presenters. It can be in a library or a coffee shop, just chatting. So we’re really encouraging people to spin up local meetups and tailor the community for where it’s at. During COVID, we went online for a couple of years with the WordPress Sydney Meetup, and it worked very well. But maybe it worked a little too well, because it’s a long way to commute. If you’re outside the Sydney suburbs, it’s like an hour and a half to come into the city center for maybe an hour’s chat. The other cities are the same. So there are a lot of people who really liked the online sessions or being able to watch them at home and catch up. We’ve lost a lot of community members that way, but I’m trying to encourage people that the networking and social side are just as important as the topic or the talk. So I’m encouraging people to meet up and create more local meetups. We had three or four around Greater Sydney before COVID, and some were just a handful of people meeting up in a coffee shop. But that’s great! That’s what we want to encourage—more local meetups rather than always having big WordCamps. If we can build up the community at a local level, the WordCamps and everything else will just take care of themselves.

Devin:
Yeah, I agree. Right. And do you have anything planned for WordCamp Sydney where you gather all these meetup organizers, or you open up either a discussion or booths for those people who are interested in joining the local community? How do you use WordCamp Sydney as leverage to boost these local initiatives? Is there anything in the plan for that?

Wil:
In 2019, I had little sessions in—it was basically a hallway track. So we had little sessions, and one was Gravity Forms, one was maybe WooCommerce, and just a handful of people would sit down, and we’d chat about something. So I’d like to do something similar, but along the lines of community and specifically WordPress meetups. So if people are interested, they can come and sit down just for a chat, and I’ll have a skeleton overview of how you can boot up a local WordPress meetup, what types you can do, how to get funding—all that sort of stuff. So I plan to do a little bit of that, a little bit of an unconference, just sitting down with a group of people. But we’re also going to mention the meetup groups at the event as well, because there’ll be a lot of probably ex-meetup organizers there. So there’s a huge talent pool in that room, and a lot of veteran meetup and conference organizers there too. It’d be a bit silly not to engage them. We’ll definitely promote that side as well.

Devin:
That sounds terrific. And I know that the meetup group in Perth has been one of the most active. I was recently in touch with one of the members—I think they’re also speaking at the meetup. With their connection to some community in China, they helped a couple of groups join the official chapter program. So we have Shenzhen Meetup Group now, and there’s an application from Shanghai and others. So, that’s the power of connection. We’re talking about networking, and thanks to folks in Australia, we now have WordPress meetup groups in China. So even small events like a meetup can lead to big achievements as a global community. I’m looking forward to seeing what WordCamp Sydney will result in. Recently—actually yesterday—I saw this social post from the WordPress account, where Josepha Haden was talking about WordPress and education. In some parts of the world, mainly Europe, Africa, and parts of Asia, there are WordCamps or WordPress events that involve students—university students, kids, and the younger generation in general. Is there any direction that you’re introducing at WordCamp Sydney, whether through the session topics, the speakers, or any activities that would involve or allow kids to join and participate? If not, that’s totally fine, but if yes, or if there’s still an opportunity—given that there’s still sponsorship available to support your event—this could be something interesting for everyone.

Wil:
It’s definitely something we discussed, but we’re not going to do a kids track this year. Again, we’re just trying to keep it as simple as we can to test the model again, to see if it still works. So there’ll be no kids track, but certainly students. I’ve contacted some people that I know in TAFE to try and get that student side as well. Also, one of our sponsors is offering travel grants on an application basis. I think they’re offering 10 travel grants, particularly for people who can’t afford to get into the city, like students. That’s on the website homepage—you can have a look at that. But that’s to encourage people who would maybe like to come to WordCamp but can’t quite afford it or don’t have the finances. So, students would definitely fit into that category. We’re encouraging that. We’ve always had a strong student membership, because local colleges use WordPress a lot in their courses to spin up a website and do projects within WordPress. So we’ve always had that strong student connection, and we want to grow that again.

Devin:
That sounds good. There’s a lot of opportunities. It’s great that you have sponsors willing to offer travel grants for WordCamp Sydney. Okay. This is fantastic, and I hope that all the seats are taken by those who are really in need of the support and who will benefit from your event. This is fantastic. Alright, so where can we learn more about Word

Camp Sydney, other than the website? Are you on social media?

Wil:
Yes, we’re on social media. Let me just pull it up. The hashtag is #WCSyd. We’re on X (formerly Twitter) as WordCampSYD, and we’re on Facebook as well—same handle. We’re also on LinkedIn. If you just search for WordCamp Sydney, it’ll come up.

Devin:
Right. I’m actually scrolling down—usually where you see the social buttons, and I see Meetup is the first button, then Facebook, then X, YouTube, LinkedIn, and Instagram. This is a set of social accounts for WordCamp Sydney—wow! Who’s the person, who’s the organizer behind this communication or marketing? Kudos to that person. This is awesome. And I see that you are collaborating with Linux Australia. This is, I think, a very unique setup. I don’t think this is evident in many parts of the world. There are some communities collaborating with local tech communities, but WordCamp Sydney, or WordPress in Australia, has been one of the experiences in this kind of collaboration. Is there anything you can share about this—when you started, how you started this collaboration, and how you maintain it? Of course, there would be probably some admin involved or hiccups in the collaboration—that’s the dynamic, right, of teamwork. I see this as teamwork and collaboration to keep the WordPress community alive in Australia.

Wil:
So we’ve got a memorandum of understanding between WordPress Community Support or WordCamp Central and Linux Australia. Linux Australia supports all the open-source communities in Australia. They’re huge and very helpful as well. They run our event insurance, and we run the bank accounts through Linux Australia too. This means we don’t have to deal with currency exchange rates, and the insurance here in Australia—to get a venue—you usually need $20 million in insurance coverage. WordCamp Central, I believe, can only do $10 million. So, Linux Australia covers us for event insurance. They’ve been fantastic supporters. As well as having our WordPress community in Australia, we’re also linked into the whole open-source community via Linux Australia. So we’re broadcasting out to all of Australia, not just to the WordPress niche. They’ve been absolutely fantastic. It does mean a little bit more admin—we have to form a subcommittee within Linux Australia, which needs a treasurer and a secretary at a minimum, and we then have to report monthly back to Linux Australia, just to show how progress is going. So we’re kind of serving two masters at once—we’ve got WordCamp Central, and we’ve got Linux Australia. But that’s not a bad thing, because it’s double accountability. We’ve got the WordCamp Central team looking at budgets, and we’ve got Linux Australia looking at budgets as well. So, it’s a little more admin, but it’s double accountability, which is great.

Devin:
I think you mentioned the community. Does it also support the meetup groups as well?

Wil:
Linux Australia offers grants. I was vice president of Linux Australia for a couple of years, and every year they offer grants. As of last year, they split it into software grants and community grants. So, if we do have local open-source meetups, WordPress meetups, they can help financially with venues, AV advice, and support. So, there’s huge support available to us through Linux Australia.

Devin:
That sounds good. And is this an initiative from Linux Australia to nurture the open-source community in Australia, supporting them? So it’s not that everyone needs to compete to get support or get recognized—they’re like a welcoming umbrella for other open-source communities and supporting whatever programs those communities have. Do you know if a similar initiative takes place in other countries, for example with the Linux Foundation, or if there are similar activities elsewhere? Because this could actually be a good entry point for other WordPress communities where the Linux Foundation or association in the city or country is strong, but they’ve never connected. But perhaps either the WordPress community or someone else could reach out and start that collaboration. Do you know anything?

Wil:
I don’t know of any other countries where the Linux group supports WordPress directly, but if anyone’s listening and they’re interested, I’m happy to have a chat with them and maybe funnel things through Linux Australia, and see if we can get in contact with other countries or groups. But yeah, the system works really well for us—it’s not a burden having two teams for accountability. They’re really helpful, and the resources are fantastic. It just works really, really well for us.

Devin:
Alright, well that sounds like a very good model to follow. If you have any resources you can share regarding this collaboration, I think that would be great to share in the Community Events channel or the Community Team’s channel, so that everyone else can look it up and see whether they can reach out to their own Linux Foundation or association in their country. Alright, anything that I missed about WordCamp Sydney that we have to talk about? I see this “Plan Your Pitch Online Workshop.” What is it? Is this a pre-event or a day-of-the-event workshop?

Wil:
That was held a couple of weeks ago. We extended the speaker applications for a couple of weeks—not because we didn’t have enough, but just to give people the chance to submit more sessions. We also contacted more diverse communities. That workshop was given by a couple of the organizers, and it was basically an info session to show people how to create a pitch for a speaker application—not just for WordCamp, but for any conference—to give them confidence on what to put in a speaker pitch and how to put together a proposal to send off to a conference. For a first-time speaker, that can be quite daunting—you might not know what to put in a speaker application to push yourself forward and get noticed. So, the event showed people what a speaker proposal is, what things you need to include, what’s going to get you noticed, and how to apply. It was well attended, and we’ll probably wrap it up as a general webinar and put it out as a resource for people to reference. For example, if there’s another WordCamp next year, they can point to that resource or run it themselves if they want to.

Devin:
So we’ll be able to see the recording later on the WordCamp Sydney website?

Wil:
Yep, we’ll get it up there.

Devin:
This is super helpful. Thank you so much. I see that Daniel and Jo Minney hosted the event. Okay, wow. Alright, so is there anything else we missed? Anything else you want to share about WordCamp Sydney, things we should look forward to?

Wil:
Oh look, at the end of the day, it’s a big networking event. Yes, there’s the bonus that you get to hear some tracks and people talk, but the main point is just to get people back together, back to networking, back to being social. It’s one of the cheapest tech conferences in Australia—WordCamp itself. Sometimes people see the ticket price and think, “Oh, it’s just 70 bucks,” but the amount of value you get out of that is outstanding. As well as the two tracks over the two days, we’ve got morning tea, lunch, and afternoon tea included, and there’s a social event on the Saturday evening as well for people to attend. So, extra networking brownie points for people who want to do that. It’s a huge conference with a lot of networking opportunities. I’d really encourage people to think about that. Even if some of the speaker sessions don’t quite align with what you do, come down just for the networking. The networking is the big thing—it’s the social aspect. I’m a freelancer, I work on my own. This is my office—my bedroom—so I spend 90% of my time in here. But it’s good to get out to local meetups and chat with other people. It’s good to get out to conferences and network with other people. It’s all about that social and network connection. Some of my best friends I met through meetup groups.

Devin:
Alright, well I’m excited to meet you in person. We’ve been in touch since last year, since I think the BW reactivation in 2022, so that’s actually two years ago. And I look forward to Wapuus as well—you mentioned you still have a lot of Wapuus in Australia! So that’s something else I’m looking forward to, and meeting folks in Australia. Alright, I think it’s been a really great evening here, catching up with Wil and listening to what we can look forward to from WordCamp Sydney. There are still two months to go, but it’s the right time to start getting tickets, booking your hotel, booking your flight, and following all these social media accounts for WordCamp Sydney so that you don’t miss anything. It’s networking, right? The big thing for WordPress events.

Wil:
Networking is the big thing. So come and network your heart out. Looking forward to meeting everyone there. It’ll be good fun.

Devin:
Alright, well, thank you so much, Wil. Good to see you online, and I’ll see you in two months in person.

Wil:
See you in person in two months.

Devin:
Yeah, alright.

Wil:
Thank you, Devin.