What Made You Want to Get Involved?
I attended multiple Wordcamps and I love them. I love returning and learning more, as well as the business opportunities. I was also really excited to make it happen for DFW. Someone had also already gotten the ball rolling and I organized a team.
What was your role?
The organization falls into 2 groups
- Conceptualizing: Theme, dates, etc
- Tactical: Funding, venue, sales, etc
Carrie’s role was speaker management and sponsor soliciting.
The rest of the team inluded:
- Mike Avery – original organizer
- Paula Hill
- Rudy Co
- Mike’s wife Beth
- Gina Nervo
- Roy Candry
- Paula’s Husband
What is WordPress Central’s role?
It is like a franchise model. They provide a wordpress camp planning site with logistics, verbage, setup wordcamp website, etc. People are there to help answer questions along the way.
They manage the money. There is no cash handling by local leadership. All invoicing goes through central.
How do you determine attendee forecasts?
It was difficult being unestablished. We had to take a stab in the dark. We didn’t get much guidance from central, but we wanted to spend as little money as possible. The venue is typically the biggest cost for your event
The option we went with was free! Yay!
We settled for an out of the way venue that was a little too small to get the venue for free.
Does the Foundation use any measure to determine where WordCamps should be?
I don’t think so. Wordcamps are organize by the local community. An interested and active local community would initiate the camp, not central. Wordcamps usually grow out of a meetup.
How do you approach venues and ask for sponsorship?
You work your contacts. Start with universities or other learning centers. Set your date and work from there.
Sponsors! How do you get money??
There are a group of multi-event sponsors who sponsor every event. You are guaranteed 3 levels of sponsorships, which equals $2,000 to $3,000 in funds.
Supplement with local sponsors. Local is ideal because we want local companies to benefit.
We created sponsorship tiers, modeled it after other Wordcamps, and put the word out through our networks. This was so easy. We had to turn away sponsors!
The money that is left over goes to other Wordcamps that need it.
Do you plan to be an organizer next year?
I don’t know yet how involved I will be. There were some times when it was a full time job. There are just a lot of details, although none of it was too hard. Some of these details included:
Organizing speakers, Tracking down sponsor money
10 days before camp was crazy
What did you learn that you wish you knew before?
Don’t major on the minors.
Don’t waste time on the little things early on.
Get the date and venue nailed down first.
Just know at least 50% of what you plan won’t go as planned. And just let it go!
Wordcamp is for everyone!
Wordcamp is a gathering meant to educate and support the diverse WordPress community.
The WordPress community is a bit of a bubble. We could reach out to those on the fringe or they would have great content for a WordPress audience.
WordCamp is for people who run their business on WordPress or tangently on WordPress.
Bonus Notes from WCLAX Oranizer Alex Vasquez
Locking down the venue is generally the biggest obstacle. The good news is that when you do, the Foundation is great about getting it paid up and handling paperwork, like insurance etc. But finding a venue that will do it on the cheap is a key and the Foundation will likely push back on you if you find a place charging a premium. Some venues will wave the venue cost, if you use their catering, etc.
But our first time doing WCLAX hunting down a venue took up most of our time.
Outside of a venue, having a good team to work with is also critical. I’ve been fortunate to work with Nathan Tyler, Ryan Cowles and Natalie MacLees on the past two WCLAX camps. I tell you, I don’ think I could have lucked out more with them. We try to split our duties up, but obviously, you’re going to end up wearing many hats. It’s important that people are fine and have that “get it done” attitude, or, if we want to Lema-fy it a “done done” attitude. I never have to worry about them; they’re all busy, but they get their tasks done, if they need help, they ask and we help.
Having backup speakers at the ready is something you should do. One or two folks who have talks at the ready. This year we had 6 or 7 people tell us they couldn’t do their talk after already being selected. So after friendly prodding from the Foundation, we added a pair of backup speakers. These can be folks whom you declined to have on as a speaker, or someone in your community that you trust.
For us, reaching out to our community has been huge. We’re lucky here in SoCal. People are so stinkin’ helpful. There are folks who want to help for the day, do simple non-glorious things. Find lots of those folks. Also, find folks who you can lean on to do larger items, like securing the after party venue, purchase speaker gifts etc. If the four of us in our organizing team had to do everything it took to make WCLAX happen, I’d not want to do it again. Ever.
Your organizing team can be big or small; it’s all about community and doing something good and not expecting thanks for it. (Although, the thanks you do get and all that other stuff you don’t expect, make it organizing one insanely worthwhile) Seeing people learn something new, getting inspired/empowered, is truly something I never expected to have as profound an impact as it has, at least, on myself.
Lastly, it’s okay to sleep for 12 hours the Monday after your camp. It’s allowed.Oh and do have a lead organizer. That’s the person that handles the mother-loade of stuff and things. Natalie MacLees is the WCLAX lead and we’re okay with that because we can slack off while she does all the work.
Probalby goes without saying, but It’s important when organizing any event to have someone who takes the lead but can direct all the cooks in the kitchen. Personalities can clash, so it’s good to have someone in-charge, if that makes sense.
Whew – so who’s ready to plan a new WordCamp in their town? If you’re thinking about starting one or have advice to add, share in the comments below!