- Application process to host WordCamp Europe 2019 is open.
- Host cities celebrate, represent, and grow their local WordPress communities.
- Teams that have organised at least one successful WordCamp can apply.
WordCamp Europe, one of the world’s largest WordPress conference, held in a different European city each year, is searching for its 2019 host city. WordCamps are informal community-organised events that bring together casual users to core developers, who participate, connect and share ideas, further developing the open source community.
Hosting WordCamp Europe is a rare opportunity to put cities in the spotlight and make them the focus of one of the biggest WordPress gatherings in the world. Only teams that have organised one or more successful WordCamps in a European city, with at least one in 2016 or 2017 can apply, so if you would like to host one in a few years, get organising.
Milan Ivanovic, the host-city team lead for WordCamp Europe 2018 says organising WCEU was a logical step for their WordPress community. WordPress is on the rise in the Balkans, and Milan saw their local community grow to 100+ people attending each WordPress Meetup, with three successful editions of WordCamp Belgrade. For Milan, hosting an event as impactful as WordCamp Europe in Belgrade, and therefore inviting people from all around the world visit his city, were his biggest motivations for applying.
Since 2013, when WCEU was first held in Leiden, Netherlands, WordCamp Europe has consistently grown bigger, inspiring the global WordPress community and gathering 1900 attendees (plus an additional 1000 via livestream) at the 2017 event in Paris, France.
The local host-team would not be doing it alone as each year, the organising team receives lots of practical hands-on support and invaluable advice from a global team, consisting of experienced WordCamp organisers from all across Europe, most of whom have participated in one or more of the past events.
Milan also says he first thought about hosting a WordCamp Europe in Belgrade in 2013 at WordCamp Europe Leiden. Although it was a wild thought in 2014, his team focused on local WordPress Meetups and WordCamps until 2017, when they were selected to host the next WCEU.
The beauty of the WCEU host-city selection process is that it maintains a community focus. Rather than a competition, the process is an opportunity for teams to prepare high quality applications, and to position themselves as future organisers of large WordCamps. All applying teams receive support and access to the WCEU internal communications tools, providing everyone with exactly the same information and advice at the same time.
Intending applicants can read about the application survey on the WordCamp Europe 2018 website, or contact the organising team directly; and the team that gets selected will be invited to the current organising team to participate in the final phase of planning for WordCamp Europe 2018 in Belgrade, to become as familiar as possible with the process.
Application closes on the 31st of March, 2018.