WordPress Community Growth Through Alternative Gatherings and New Event Formats

Michelle Frechette:
Welcome to Open Event Talk. And we are here today to talk about events. I mean, surprise, surprise, that’s the title of the series here. But we’re also going to talk about not just WordPress like sanctioned WordPress official, that’s the word. Official events. I actually want to talk about non WordCamps. I want to talk about non meetups, and I want to talk about things that we’re doing within the community that are tangential to official events, if you will. Because I’ve been thinking a lot about community lately. And to me, the idea of growth is when it isn’t just within the school. For example, you know, when high schoolers actually start to do work outside of the four walls of a school building, that’s when you see growth happen in their lives. And I think, you know, WordPress is 22 now. We’re no longer in high school. We’re starting to grow. And so I have some guests with me today and I want them to introduce themselves and also tell us a little bit about themselves. But these folks, these wonderful people that are from all over the world and some very, very early in the morning. Thank you. Se all attended an event that was tangential to WordCamp Europe called altcontrol.org and I want to talk a little bit about that and the impetus behind it. And so we have one of our organizers, Takis, with us today. And also Christian Taylor is here. He attended, I attended. And we are both also part of the media, whatever media is to WordPress as well. And so I think we have different takes on things like that. So I’m going to start with, I’m just going to go across how I see you on the screen, say, Reed, would you introduce yourself, tell us where you are in the world and what is your role? What are you doing right now?

Sé Reed :
That’s always a good question. What am I doing right now? I know I ask myself that fairly frequently. All right, so My name is Sé, as you said. I am in Long Beach, California. We’re at 6 in the morning and I’ve been in WordPress for a long time. I used to have my own podcast, but Currently my most WordPressy community role is that I am the CEO of the WP Community Collective.

Michelle Frechette:
And I’m excited to talk about that with you on a future episode, wherever it lands, whichever podcast it’s on, because you guys are doing some amazing work there too. Yeah, pick a podcast. Any podcast. Pick a podcast. That’s right. Takis Bujores. I hope I said that again. Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Takis Bouyouris:
All right. Hello. Hello, everyone. I’m Takis. I’m located in Athens, Greece, where we welcomed Europe in 2023, which I think you probably remember. I suddenly had joined it. So I run a web agency here in Greece which is focused on WordPress. I installed my first WordPress website in 2005. I think I’m old enough to have done that and have been engaged in the WordPress community since 2012. I’ve been organizing the WordPress Athens, consequently the WordCamp Athens. And then I also moved to WordCamp Europe organizing, which I’ve been doing up until last year. So that’s the short version.

Michelle Frechette:
And you were an organizer for the Alt Ctrl event that we’re going to talk about?

Takis Bouyouris:
Oh, yes.

Michelle Frechette:
And I believe you were the MC as well. If I do recall.

Takis Bouyouris:
I did hold that role as well. Well, Alt Ctrl. Org was something that I had not planned last summer when I was, you know, wrapping up Camp Europe 2024 in Torino. But as you all remember, last summer in the WordPress community, as we were progressing to the winter, certain people and I felt that there was room for some new kind of events that could be happening in the WordPress ecosystem where we could discuss the thing not being discussed openly in podcasts and in Twitter and in the digital sphere about what was going on in the WordPress ecosystem. So we grabbed the opportunity. There’s a great organizing team behind Alt-Cntrl. Org. We grabbed the opportunity to organize an event alongside WordCamp Europe, not in competition or antagonism with WordCamp Europe. We never had such an idea. But it was the great opportunity in Europe to find all the WordPress people gathered together in a city at the same time.

Michelle Frechette:
They already bought their tickets.

Sé Reed :
They need dinner.

Takis Bouyouris:
They need dinner. Let’s do something five minutes away from the work of Europe and let’s pro. The alternate discussions that we see were not happening. And I believe we kind of did that.

Michelle Frechette:
Exactly. Yeah. We’re going to dig into that a little bit further as we go through, but I want to let Christian introduce himself as well.

Christian Taylor:
Sure. Yeah. My name is Christian Taylor, also known as Craylor from Nashville, Tennessee. I’m a content creator.

Sé Reed :
I love when people like when I connect like a handle to a person, I’m like, oh, oh, that’s.

Christian Taylor:
Oh, okay. So you’ve. So you’ve heard of Craylor but not Christian Taylor. Got it. That’s cool. That’s why I always say. That’s why I always say Craylor, because some people only know me as Craylor. They don’t even know my name, which is totally understandable. But sometimes I’m like, maybe I should change my name Anyway, I’m a proper millennial.

Sé Reed :
I’m very handle oriented.

Christian Taylor:
Gotcha. Okay. But yeah, so I’m a content creator focused on helping small business owners build their online presence. A lot of that involves teaching them WordPress and which hosting to buy and themes and plugins. Some of it is outside WordPress as well. But I cover a lot of WordPress and accidentally fell deeper into the WordPress community by going to a WordCamp.

Sé Reed :
Yeah, it’s how it gets ya. That’s how it’s.

Christian Taylor:
Yep, yep. Someone at Cloudways, Jason Nickerson, when he used to work at Cloudways, he was always bugging me. Christian, are you coming to WordCamp? Are you coming to WordCamp? I finally said, fine, whatever, I’ll check it out. Well, now I’ve been to like 50.

Michelle Frechette:
There you go. Nobody ever intentionally goes into WordPress. We all kind of accidentally found it if you listen, or at least 90%. I think now that people are teaching it in college and things like that, a little more. But I’m 56 years old. I never could have planned for this in my journey back in college because it didn’t exist yet. The Internet didn’t exist putty yet back then. So anyway, I’m excited about additional events, outside events, whatever we want to call them non official WordPress events that have been happening and I have attended quite a few this year. I’ve been at least one with every one of you here. So Christian and I both spoke at and attended Color Code in Buffalo earlier this year, which was very WordPressy, but there were a lot of non WordPress people who attended it as well. And then Sé and Christian were both also at Press Conf earlier this year, which absolutely was WordPress focused. And then Takis and I have been at other WordPress events, but also as we started to talk about at the Alt Ctrl event and if you want to say Control alt, don’t do it. That’s like. We’re also used to that. We don’t want to.

Christian Taylor:
I still make that mistake.

Michelle Frechette:
We don’t want to delete or undo anything. It’s no Control alt delete, it’s alphabetic. Alt Ctrl. That’s how I’m reminding myself of this.

Takis Bouyouris:
Absolutely not.

Sé Reed :
This is how we know if you have a Mac or a PC. Like how easy is it for you.

Michelle Frechette:
To say, oh, I had a Mac now for over 10 years, but my early years were definitely not in the Mac world. And so I still like the keystroke. Memory is right at the fingertips. Anyway, it’s funny, yeah, I did think.

Sé Reed :
That it called it like Command Control. That would be probably a little more.

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah, probably would be right. Also in addition to the events that, that we’ve been part of that I’ve been at with we also have had other events in the planning right now. Loop Conf is coming up in London this year, which is also an in person event and some conf is coming up in the Minneapolis St. Paul area. And that’s I believe in October. And there have always been outside events that WordPressers attended like Cloudfests and things like that that aren’t necessary to WordPress but have some component within even if that members that are attending as well. And during the pandemic we all got into only attending online because that’s all there was to attend for a little while until it felt safer to be back out in the world. It was in San Diego. But yeah. So talking events I think is very exciting and the effect that we’ve moved not just from online, which kind of opened the gateway a little bit. There have always been. There was before it was press conf. It was. I forgot. What was it called?

Christian Taylor:
Pressnomics.

Michelle Frechette:
Pressnomics. Thank you. Yes, pressnomics. And there has been Loopconf in the past, I believe also now going back to or starting to be in person events again. And As I said, WordPress is 22 years old now. A lot of technologies don’t survive that length of time without having a community around them. And I think events like the ones we’re talking about that are, I mean work camps are great. I love WordCamps. I’ve been to over 90 of them in like 10 years, which is. Blows my mind quite honestly. But I’ve also attended a lot of events that were not events and gotten a Lot out of it as well. And so to see an event that not only was not a Word Camp, but happened during the days of Word Camp, like Alt Ctrl was, was really interesting to me. There are only so many nights you can put all these events during a WordCamp. You can’t have it during the closing night, like. Like where we have our after party. Whether you like the after party or not, that’s the only event you can have that night. And so there were. I think I was invited to four events the same night as Alt Ctrl was, and I didn’t attend any of the other ones because I was like, well, I’ve been to a pride party, and I’ve been to, you know, cocktail parties and things like that. I want to check this out and see what it’s all about. My first. Is it handicapped accessible? Is it. Is it accessible to people with disabilities? And I was assured that it was. And, yes, indeed it was. There was an elevator down to the main level, and there was an additional room where you could watch from that was on, you know, on the food level, if you will. So that was wonderful. So. And yay. Yape. I think I said was. Yap. Thank you, Yap. I always get it wrong. At least I didn’t say jape this time. Yap. He was so kind and made sure that I found my way to everything. And so he was very up for. For me and making sure that I, first of all, I didn’t run anybody over and that I had access to every place I needed to. And then I was down in this very dark room, and it was very warm.

Sé Reed :
A literal underground. We were literally underground. I thought that.

Michelle Frechette:
Literally underground. Yes. And it was. I was like, it’s very dark down here, and I see so many people. So I kind of want to talk to you a little bit about what was the impetus for having it during a WordCamp? I think part of that probably was, hey, we’re all in the same space. Let’s do that. Were you worried about any pushback from having an Outside event during WordCamp and did it kind of get started? Could you give us a little bit of the background, say, as a speaker and Christian as an attendee, like, you know, let’s hear your thoughts as well. Like.

Takis Bouyouris:
Well, I was just going to say, do you remember two or three years ago, the idea of next gen events, which was proposed in the. In the word, in the WordPress, you know, community? I mean, little.

Sé Reed :
I was always confused about that, because.

Takis Bouyouris:
If it was not something specific, did we know what Next generation might evolve to be three years later. Right? It’s interesting how things evolve. Well, with Alt Ctrl Org, things evolved kind of organically. There were a bunch of people who are discussing things quietly on Twitter. Some of us knew each other from organizing WordCamps in the past and it just grew organically. A couple of people who took the initiative and they said, hey, can you help? Are you interested? Are you interested? And we just got to know each other and work together in a Slack workspace remotely. Some of the people I met for the first time in Basel as well. So it was kind of a grassroots, you know, a ground up event. And we didn’t actually had it all planned through, to be honest, in the beginning. I mean it started, the idea was let’s start with a meetup, right? Let’s gather 40. It would be great if it will be 50 people in Basel. Let’s find the venue. We found the food court there and let’s see how it goes. Let’s start looking for interesting discussions and presentations and we are open to everything. But as it grew, we found out that people were actually interested. The 50 people limit was sold out almost instantly. And then we had to check with the venue. You know, do you have any more space around there? Is there another floor or something else we can work out? And they had the underground, which was not the initial, the initial idea. So okay, how many people can the basement. Let’s call hold up to 200 people. And we said, okay, let’s give it a go. And in the end it was sold out again and there was 150 people waiting list with people who most of them could not manage to enter. So this is how it evolved. It actually happened because people were interested, speakers were interested, attendees were interested. So we kind of hit sweet spot there. We found, you know, a place in the community that there was some, some small gap that we tried to fill. So pretty much that’s how it happened.

Sé Reed :
I think the real beauty and what myself and I know others were really attracted to was really the idea that these were topics not being allowed to talk about that we wanted to talk about, or people like myself who are, you know, not being welcomed into the community or banned from the community for unspoken reasons or just literally for no reason. You know, we’re on open event talk. We’re an open source community. Like, we’re about sharing, we’re about working in public. And I feel like that is something that we all really share in the WordPress community and in the greater open source community. And I feel like a lot of us, there’s a lot of principle that comes with being part of the WordPress. People want to participate on principle because they think it’s important. And I think that this was part of that. Like these principles of being able to talk about things that are important to the community. And so I feel like we really created this safe space that allowed us to have these conversations in a space that, because it was on that night where everyone’s allowed to have other events, it felt. And because, you know, people knew about it.

Michelle Frechette:
Right.

Sé Reed :
You created this safe space to talk about these topics and people want to talk about these topics. And it felt like it wasn’t like doing anything against WordPress. And it didn’t feel rebellious. The underground thing was hilarious.

Michelle Frechette:
But that part was. Yeah, it was like in a dark food hall, really.

Takis Bouyouris:
It was a coincidence. You know, they could have given us the terrace. I mean, that’s what was available.

Sé Reed :
I love a poetic setting, sort of like an element of solidarity, for sure. But I thought was, you know, what I expected and what was there was still the tagline of Alt Ctrl was for the love of WordPress. And I thought that was so cool because it was on the posters going in. And it really. It was not an opposing event. It was not anti WordPress event. It was literally just this tension of the community that wanted to talk about these things. And it was rooted in a love of WordPress. And I thought that was a really delicate balance. And I really applaud the way that it was handled. Like it could have gone anti or negative. And that was beautiful.

Michelle Frechette:
When we have groups, we’ve talked about this Pac man up before, right? If you’re not sure, if you’re listening, you don’t know what that is. When we are circled up at an event like a WordCamp and there’s a circle of people talking, the idea is to leave a little bit of space open for others to join. As soon as somebody joins you, open the circle a little bit more and always make it inviting for people to be able to join the conversation. And I think that’s what we’ve started to do with events. We’ve packed banned our events such that Alt Ctrl aura can and be an event and be part of and not aside from. And so I kind of want. Christian’s been quiet while we’ve been talking. And from a perspective of somebody who perhaps is a little bit newer to the whole WordPress ecosystem and also maybe the Pac-Man concept, I don’t know. But also you’ve been speaking now and you’ve been attending and certainly you have your own media. It is craylor media, after all. What are some of your thoughts about the whole additional events and making room and being still part of and not apart from.

Christian Taylor:
Yeah, you know, the more events I’ve attended, I’ve started to realize the value of alternative events. I don’t know if that’s the right word for it, but I’ve been to, I was going to say a lot of WordCamps. Then I think about Michelle’s numbers.

Michelle Frechette:
I’m a lot older than you, though.

Christian Taylor:
I’ve been to like, I think six WordCamps, which feels like a lot to me. But, you know, Michelle is cleaning my clock over there. But yes, after having been to six WordCamps and then a few other events like Press Conf and Color Code and then altcontrol. Org, I’ve realized that it attracts a different crowd, which in the context of altcontrol. Org, that makes me realize, okay, maybe there’s. Maybe that different crowd is also at WordCamp and I just haven’t found them yet because it’s, I mean, logically same people, but. Yeah, but I don’t know. Like at Color Code, for example, there were a lot of designers. I don’t really find those people at a WordCamp. And those were interesting conversations. In Press Conf, there was a lot of C level people. And then altcontrol. Org. I don’t know how I would describe the attendees, but you know, just people very passionate about WordPress. And one thing I’ll say is I was holding my breath going into it, thinking I was almost expecting naysayers to be attending, like booing in the crowd and, you know, just like waiting for something that they didn’t like to be said. But I didn’t catch any of that. I was only there for half of it. To be fair. I showed up when the food break was Happening, but it seemed like everyone there was having a great time.

Takis Bouyouris:
Well, there was no booing in the beginning where all the technical equipment was going wrong for five minutes and everybody was excited. It was so warm and gave a warm applause until we overcame that.

Michelle Frechette:
You can’t have a new event without tech messes and we could be the most technical community ever. But that doesn’t mean equipment will be our friend.

Christian Taylor:
Yeah, absolutely. But, yeah, I mean, overall, I thought it was a wonderful experience. And I want to compliment the organizers. The vibe was incredible. I love the underground basement things, but it was also a whole vibe. I don’t know if you want to call it a side event, alternate event, small event, regardless, I’m like, you know, it’s a first gen, smaller event, so it’s just going to be some people in a room speaking and chairs and that’s it. And seeing even the branding and the lanyards and the food vouchers they were able to give out and then how everyone just went up to the second floor after and hung out for hours. It was an incredible experience and way more than I was expecting.

Michelle Frechette:
It was way more than expecting. And so I had been tipped off a little bit that I probably wanted to be at this event to learn a little bit about what was happening without knowing any specifics and knowing any people specifically involved. So I will say that I was not privy to most of the information except to have been told, please be there. So my thought going into it, especially when I started to hear some of the speakers at the beginning, was this event was created for that, not the other way around. But I go to the website and I see this was the Basel event. That means if you want to have one of these in your city, you can reach out to the organizers. This was not a one off. Is that correct? Takis, tell us a little bit about your plans for the future.

Takis Bouyouris:
Exactly. That is correct. At the moment, we are discussing with the organizing team how we can take things in the future and helping other communities, other people organize similarly branded, even branded in the same name, similar events, is something we are willing to do. So there is an open call in the website right now that says, you know, you want to organize an Alt Ctrl. Org event, say alongside WordCampus this year, perhaps anyone we can help, all the help we can, or as anywhere else in the world, and you have a.

Michelle Frechette:
Blueprint for it, which I think is the best way to help, to start to think of creating an event that doesn’t have a blueprint like we start up WordCamps in cities that have never had them before, but we have a team behind it. There’s infrastructure, there’s a handbook, but to do it with nothing like that. It’s helpful that you’ve done it once and now you’ve created this blueprint.

Takis Bouyouris:
Yeah, we think so. It’s a small bit offhand, but workable framework for a new team to take and continue. I think it’s possible. And we all share a lot of organizing experience from WordCamps.

Sé Reed :
I think this is part of that. That spirit is really why. Part of why it was so successful, because, again, it wasn’t this. It was an alternative, but it wasn’t against. And so you really. The people who are organizing it, you know, are. A lot of you have been organizers and have, you know, organized meetups or organized literal, multiple word camps, and that really showed your experience. I mean, you had badges and buttons and stickers and, you know, slides with, you know, between the different things, your mc. So this wasn’t just a, you know, the people in the. In the corner with the chairs and a little coffee carafe or something. You know, it really. You could really feel the. The care that went into it. And I think that’s really the theme that I find, or the thread I should say that I. I find with Word pressers in general is. And that goes through WordCamp organizers, that goes through meetup organizers, or just the media, like WordPress, People Care. And that was actually something I hit on in my talk, is that we really are like this community of helpers who care about what we’re doing. You know, we’re. We’re not just, like, doing our own thing. We care about our community. We care about being accessible. We care about being sustainable. Like, there was nothing that was expressed in that which was anti WordPress. Like, everything really was there for the love of WordPress. And that really shone through. And I think that there’s so much value in what you have created in this space, because holding space made for these topics. It was made for the voices. It really made that space, and it made me feel valued as a person, as someone with ideas, as a member of the community, and I think that really matters.

Christian Taylor:
Yeah, I think that’s an important point right there is. It’s so easy to be a keyboard warrior, and things can get heated online, and just talking to someone face to face can make such a difference with your understanding of their perspective and even how you view them. I think I’m going to sound so boomer here, but sometimes I. I think the Internet has hurt some things more than it helps. But I also love WordPress. I love the Internet. So, you know, but it’s an interesting dynamic for sure.

Michelle Frechette:
So Takis, are there any planned right now, any future events or have you had people reach out to you with interest in planning future events?

Takis Bouyouris:
We do not have plans at the moment. The team is going to reconvene in September to discuss what we might plan for the next Webcam Europe because all of us are located in Europe at the moment. We’re hoping for people to reach out and see and tell us their ideas and if they can organize all Control Org events in their places. And also I would like to say that we would not want this sort of framework to be intimidating to other people. Right? I mean if people wanted just to create a meetup in a coffee shop or a beer camp or whatever, that’s valid as well. I mean it doesn’t have to be a fully 100% organized thing than possible to manage. I mean if you don’t have lanyards, it’s better if you do, but if you don’t have, that’s not the, you know, that’s not mandatory. The important thing is to get the people together and have them discuss.

Michelle Frechette:
So as we wrap up and I wanted to go back to something say, said about Next Gen events and we were talking a little bit about that when the whole idea of Next gen events came about, it was presented as maybe your next Word camp can focus on this one thing. Prior to Covid, Toronto had tried to have a Gutenberg only event. And so if you were trying to speak about something else, you weren’t welcome. It ended up being very small. I’m not sure. I wouldn’t say it was unsuccessful. I wasn’t there so I don’t know for certain, but I imagine it wasn’t to the level of where it had been previously. I think we’ve moved into a space now where these Next gen events don’t have to be official WordPress events. I’m going to ask you all one last question and then we’re going to wrap things up for the day. If you were to organize some kind of a Next gen event or attend one, what focus or what theme would you like to see that we haven’t already created in events in the WordPress space?

Takis Bouyouris:
Well, I just love the idea of the color code event you mentioned which was focused on designers. And this is something we are missing, at least in my area of the world. You know, WordPress events focused on designers. That was I’m going to keep that idea. I would also like to see more business oriented networking events, because when we’re doing community events, we’re more focused, you know, on open source and community, which is great, but we’re also, you know, people who make a living out of what we do. So that’s my short answer.

Christian Taylor:
Yeah, Christian, I would love to see an event. And this answer may surprise you, I think, but an event more focused on beginners. Because I’m thinking about the event that I wish I had when I got into WordPress, and there’s still so much I don’t understand about how WordPress works. Like, I’m not a developer, I’m not the most technical. I walk around and hear people talk about actions and hooks and filters. I don’t know what that is. And there’s almost this assumption that you have a base level of understanding at how WordPress fundamentally functions. And I still feel like I’m missing some of the puzzle pieces. So I’ll talk to people at WordCamps and pick their brain and say, hey, can you understand how this works? Or that works? I mean, being honest, I still don’t fully understand open source, right? But, like, how does a feature go from writing the lines of code to being pushed out in an update? And I’ve gotten different explanations and perspectives on that. And, you know, I hear it maybe depends on the project itself. I mean, so there’s so much that I still want to wrap my head around and I think, wow, someone who is new to WordPress, who wants to go deeper, is probably so confused on all this. And having an event where the programming is. It’s almost like WordPress 101, 102. Just really taking them through that progression, I think could be beneficial.

Michelle Frechette:
Especially our flagship WordPress events. You feel like you’ve stepped into a very rapidly moving river and you don’t even know where did it start, where is it going? And here I am in the middle trying not to drown. So I totally, 100% understand that se.

Sé Reed :
I think WordCamps, especially the flagships, are for WordPress. And I talk a lot about target audiences and who are things for, or at least I used to on the podcast. I have always seen exactly what you’re talking about, Christian. Part of what I used to do was to teach small business owners how to use their websites. And I have always, I’ve actually always struggled with the idea of these beginner tracks at, like, flagships, because I’m like, those people aren’t here.

Michelle Frechette:
They don’t Know what?

Sé Reed :
They’re not coming for that. So it’s like the beginning tracks at like bigger Word camps were kind of moot because no one’s going. And then, you know, the developer tracks are like very like a lot developer focused and they’re, you know, they can be very advanced. So I think it just inspired. I’ve thought about this a lot. You know, I’ve never put it together, but I would love to see or participate in oriented event that was not targeted towards developers or designers or people who make WordPress at all, but geared towards users who use WordPress, particularly owners. So they. Because if you work with small business or small nonprofits, you know how often everyone’s like, how do I? What do I. And you know, we’re all individually doing all of this teaching and I would love for. I’ve never recommended one of my clients go to a word camp because I don’t want to, like, throw them in the deep end and be like, now you’re really scared because of all the actions and hooks that you’re talking about. And then they’re like running for the hills. So I like the 101, the 102, or. And specifically on, you know, small business owners, which I think are the, probably one of the most important demographics for WordPress users. I think we really, as a, as a community, forget, like, half of it’s like, oh, the users. And the other half is like, what users? Because. And the people who the users talk about aren’t even like, it’s mostly the bloggers, like, not the people who are using their websites for all these different components. And here’s how to become a power user. Here’s, you know, here’s the new command line that everyone, like, you know, tried where the search box slash command line that like, was, you know, there was a huge debate about aim for it. And I’m like, no one even knows it’s there.

Christian Taylor:
Right?

Michelle Frechette:
Yeah.

Christian Taylor:
Yeah.

Sé Reed :
Anyway, that’s what I would like to see. If anyone’s interested in working on something like that, I would be totally into it. So hit me up.

Michelle Frechette:
And before either of you said a word, my idea that I would love to see some kind of an event, whether it’s one day or multiple day, where we pair mentorships throughout the event. It doesn’t have to be long term, but like, where Christian says, you know, that it doesn’t feel like it’s for beginners, where we actually have an event where you’re paired up like a big brother, big sister, kind of program throughout the weekend. Right. Where you have somebody who’s a seasoned veteran and somebody who’s a newbie, and it’s your job to make sure that they’re included and they understand what they’re doing the whole weekend. And so that we have programming geared towards that as well, but where nobody feels like they stepped into something where they don’t belong. So I want to make. I would love to see an event like that happen. That’s cool.

Sé Reed :
I like Grenady a lot.

Michelle Frechette:
Anyway, I want to thank you all so much for being with us today and sharing your thoughts on events that we could be holding outside of official WordPress events, whether it’s alongside at the same, you know, five minutes from the venue or six months away from anything in your own hometown, whatever it looks like, whether it’s online or in person. I love the idea that we are growing as a community and that we can pac man not only people, but events as well. So thank you, Christian Takis and Sé for joining me today.

Sé Reed :
Thanks for having us.

Takis Bouyouris:
Thank you.

Christian Taylor:
Yeah, thank you.

Michelle Frechette:
Well, it’s my pleasure. We’ll see everybody next time on Open Event Talk. And make sure you go to Open Channels FM and hear all the amazing conversations that are happening across the space. Thank you.