Exactly a week after WordCamp Iloilo 2019, and we’re still giddy with all the cool things we witnessed and experienced during those two (three, including KidsCamp / Contributor Day) days of activities.
WordCamps are events that are designed to not be profited from, because WordCamps like WordPress is all about the community and keeping the spirit of Open Source alive. Even though organizing the 2019 iteration felt like a full-time job, particularly for our leads, we always respected this rule. After all, what better way to set an example to our future WordCamp Iloilo organizers than by showing them that this can all be done with nothing but good intentions. Of course, there’s money involved, but good intention is the key, folks! Read more about our Code of Conduct here.
Sidenote:
It’s WordCamp, capitalize the W and the C – not Wordcamp, and definitely not World Camp ;).
And this is important:
WordPress, capital W and P.
In the spirit of transparency, we are sharing this debrief with you to give you a short peek into what it took to organize the entire thing. Spoiler alert: none of it was easy. However, seeing our hard work come to fruition on WordCamp weekend is extremely gratifying. Plus, almost each of us probably gained few new Twitter followers and Facebook friends because of the different kinds of people we talked to during the event. Having more friends is cool, y’all.
So, enough of us being sentimental for the moment. Here’s the WordCamp Iloilo 2019 debrief, presented in all its caffeinated glory:
Preparing the team
Getting volunteers was probably the easiest part of the entire process, mainly because many of our volunteers from WordCamp Iloilo 2018 agreed to help out for this year’s WordCamp.
In addition, we put the call out early on for volunteers on our pages. Thankfully, many young people signed up, some of whom did so because they were also looking for a community to get involved in. This year is the most diverse the local WordPress community has ever been… well, at least in terms of ages. 😉
Planning
As the local WordPress community already have a monthly meeting going on, it was just a matter of incorporating the WordCamp planning sessions in it. We already started planning in earnest by January 2019, designating our respective leads and the attendant responsibilities that come along with it.
While we’re aware that WordCamp organizers in other cities uses task managing and workplace chat apps to keep track of their activities online, we simply opened up a secret Facebook chat group because of this one simple truth: in the Philippines, everyone is on Facebook. So, people might not read their messages right away, but we can just keep tagging them for reminders!
It was also at the start of the year when we decided to expand WordCamp to two days. The reasons for it were two-fold: a) we wanted to allot some proper breathing time in and between the presentations. If you’re reading this as an attendee of this year’s WordCamp, then you probably noticed how the post-workshop Q&As went on as long as the presentations; and b) so we could properly prepare the venue for their respective programs without rushing. It also helped this year’s too, since it seemed like no one among our organizers have been extremely stressed by the weekend’s proceedings.
Budgeting
Budgets are always a tricky thing to balance. We already knew the venue and the conference halls to use, so that only left us courting sponsors and determining prices for the tickets.
For the ticket prices, we made sure that it is as affordable as we can make it. So PHP750 it is – and it covers both days of the conference. Yeah, we might be taking on more risks because of it, but hey, all for the community, right? And of course, our biggest thank you to our Global sponsors for helping us make WCIloilo2019 happen, despite all the issues we’ve had to face.
On another note, we highly recommend you to at least look into our sponsor’s respective pages. Their support in cash and in kind really helped us in leveling what might have been frightening expenses for us!
WordCamp Proper
Our total number of attendees for this year was 249, less than last year’s and way below our projected numbers but we were aware of that fact a couple weeks before, mainly because of the bad weather we were having and with a 2-day WordCamp, attendees from other cities and provinces were not able to attend. But the people who went to this year’s WordCamp include those from Iloilo’s neighboring provinces of Antique, Capiz, and Aklan in Western Visayas, entire troupes from the next-door island of Bacolod City, and–of course–several Manila-based attendees.
On the other hand, we can now include international attendees from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Japan, and the U.S. as having attended WordCamp Iloilo. We’re certainly looking forward to receiving more nationalities in the coming years!
While we’re glad that so many people have personally expressed to us how much they enjoyed WordCamp Iloilo this year, we want to hear feedback from you, specifically on what other areas we can improve on (and yes, we also agree we could improve more on our veggie options for next year!). Go HERE to answer our survey form.
For the slides of our presenters, we have uploaded the available ones to us HERE.
And yes, we also hear you about the certificates! They will be sent out per request, we have prepared a form for you to add in your details HERE, we will be processing certificates every Friday and will be rolling them out over the weekends.
It’s a Wrap!
Thanks to all the organizers, presenters, sponsors, and, just as important, you, the person who spent money and time to attend this year’s WordCamp Iloilo. Your contributions are greatly appreciated, and we hope to see more of you in the coming years.
If you ever want to get involved in our local WordPress community–and you might even be chosen as a volunteer for WordCamp Iloilo 2020!–follow us on our official Facebook page here and join us on our official Facebook group here.
At the very least, this year’s WordCamp have proven to us yet again that our city is on its way to becoming a “smart city”, as long as the community is involved. We hope to see you next year, and we leave you with three of the photos taken this weekend that probably defined this year’s WordCamp Iloilo better than most:
We will be uploading more photos into our Facebook page here: https://www.facebook.com/WordPressIloilo/