WordCamp News

We regret to inform you we have decided to postpone WordCamp Antwerp. 

We understand you probably have a lot of questions. We will post more information very soon. If you have urgent questions in the meantime, please do reach out to us.

The past weeks were not how we planned them. We’re aware that WordCamp Antwerp can not be the unforgettable weekend-long WordPress party it should be.

This is not a good time to meet IRL.

Hope you understand our decision,
Hope we can still count on you on the ‘other’ date,
Hope to give you more intel as soon as possible,

Stay safe, stay healthy, stay cheerio!

We’ll meet soon!

With a heavy heart,
Veerle, Koen, Koen, Jeroen, Filip & Hans
Your WordCamp Antwerp team

Contributor evening, Friday 27 March

During the first day of WordCamp Antwerp 2020, we have a sweet line-up of speakers during the day. In the evening, (6 PM > 10 PM) we are planning a contributor evening in the same venue as last edition, namely the Via Via Reiscafe.

This means that space is limited. We have opened a Google Form so you can register to be part of our Contributor Evening. If you want to be there, don’t wait till the very end to register for this event as we might need to close the registration form when we hit the limit of attendees. You do need a WordCamp ticket to be part of this.

You can find all information and a link to the Contributor evening registration form here.

Community afternoon, Sunday 29 March

On the last day (insert sad face here) of our WordCamp, Sunday 29th March, we plan to have a nice afternoon starting at 1 PM. This means you’ll have enough time to get some sleep after the afterparty on Saturday night!

We’ll take you through central Antwerp, do some sightseeing and tell you all about the city. During the walk, we plan to have some activities/tasks you’ll need to solve in teams. The winning team will receive a nice reward.

You can find more information about our Community afternoon here including a link to register for the Community Afternoon.

We hope to see you all there! If you have any questions about either event, please do reach out in the #wcantwerp channel on the WPBelgium Slack workspace.

We are so excited to announce the full schedule of our three-day WordCamp!

40 awesome talks covering a myriad of topics, 41 fine speakers sharing their knowledge and experiments, a contributor evening, an after party and a community day.

If you prefer to browse through lists:
– all WordCamp Antwerp 2020 speakers
– all WordCamp Antwerp 2020 sessions

Too much? Here’s an overview of what the weekend will bring:

• Two conference days
  Friday, March 27th & Saturday, March 28th
  The conference days will cover a wide range of WordPress and web related topics with enough time to enjoy the hallway track and your coffee.
  Browse through the talks to get a taste of what to expect!
  
  
• Contributor Evening
  Friday evening, March 27th
  Find out how the WordPress Project works and how you can contribute yourself on our Contributor Evening.
  
  
• After party
  Saturday evening, March 28th
  After the conference, we’ll have our traditional after party: be sure to stay in town and enjoy the conversations in one of Antwerps own breweries.
  
  
• Community Afternoon
  Sunday afternoon, March 29th
  And last but not least: we’ll end the weekend with a Community Afternoon. Walking through Antwerp, exploring hotspots, hearing the not-touristic info about Antwerp, doing some fun team-activities and make new WordPress friends.
  
  

Make sure you’ll get your ticket in time: it’s only €40 for the full weekend and you’ll need a ticket to be able to register for the contributor evening, the after party and the community afternoon.

We all surf the waters of the open web. We all have myriads of opportunities for learning, growing, experimenting, earning and procrastinating thanks to the powers it has.

I’ve been going to conferences for over a decade now. Lots of WordCamps, often Fronteers, PHPBenelux, twice a Responsive Day Out (1 day single track confs about how we could tackle the new challenges and possibilities the new ecosystem of so many different screens gave us back then), Ampersand (only about web typography), JS/CSS Conf, Full Stack Fest, Full Stack Europe, …

One time we went to a Drupal Conference, I have to admit it was by accident. It appeared to be one of the finest conferences we’ve attended: open, welcome, a myriad of fine talks where +/- 50% of the talks was really Drupal-specific. And guess what: as a WordPress’er, even those talks were quite relevant for us and the after party was great (walking around with a WordPress-logo can start some fine discussions at Drupal events 😉 )

So: yes, WordCamp Antwerp will be a WordCamp. About WordPress and WordPress-related topics. But hey: we’re at the University of Antwerp, we’ll have 2 big auditoria and even some extra classrooms. We’ll have plenty of space for all kinds of talks.

Want to contribute with your knowledge?

Help us serve a fine broad selection of sessions and cross the borders on the world wide web we’re on:

• Apply as a Speakers (closes Jan 31st)
• forward our Call for Speakers to someone you think we should hear
• or get yourself and your peers a ticket and mingle with our fine and welcome community!

To be clear: we’ll vet all applications as a team. Each session should have something todo with WordPress or the open web. To give you an idea: that’s any of the following subjects and more: accessibility, Open Source, re-decentralization, browsers, online business, UX, diversity in tech, machine learning, workflows, indieweb, Open Source community challenges, OS e-commerce, the JAMStack, CSS, HTML, design, online typography, serverless, decoupled, privacy, mental health in tech, web standards, writing, …

Join as an attendee

Tickets only cost €40,00 for the whole weekend (incl coffee, lunches & some drinks). Hop by on one of the conference days on Friday March 27th and/or Saturday March 28th in the city campus of Universiteit Antwerpen.

Enjoy the atmosphere, open up fine discussions & when a session doesn’t suit you, you’ll always have the hallway track (and the university bar 😉 ).

Fyi: some WordCamp particularities for non-WordCamp’ers:

• We’ll be very grateful to our speakers, but we won’t pay them. Neither will we cover any costs. All speakers & organisers are volunteers.
• All talks will be recorded and, if all goes well, published on wordpress.tv (unless a speaker doesn’t give consent)
• The audience covers a gigantic wide range of interests and experience levels.
• WordCamps are just really open and welcoming events, come on over!

Hope to meet you at our Antwerp WordCamp!

Kind regards,
Veerle

P.S. you wouldn’t be the first non-WordPress’er to meet up with WordPress in Antwerp: Two internet entrepreneurs walk into an old publishing house, a recap of a meeting of Dries Buytaert and Matt Mullenweg at the Plantin Moretus Museum 🙂 .

Want to apply as a speaker, but still looking for a topic?

You’ve maybe been there: hearing your peers share their experiences and knowledge at your meetup group or WordCamp and you’d like to step up: pay it forward and share yourself. But then there’s always the next question: what would you talk about?

Tip: don’t look too far for a subject. Share something you’ve learnt recently or something you’re long term passionate about. Or maybe even a rant (can be perfect for a lightning talk).

If you’d like some inspiration: we’ve gathered loads of possible topics in a completely uncompleet list: cherry-pick whatever suits you!

And bonus: why not challenge yourself with a subject? It’s a win-win: you pick a topic you want to know more about yourself (for example ‘CSS Grid’, ‘Creating a Gutenberg block myself’, ‘What’s the best xx plugin’, …), set a realistic deadline & apply as a speaker to share your recently gained knowledge. Use your talk as the perfect stick 😉

(btw: WordCamp Europe made a list of topic ideas too: https://apply.wp-europe.org/ideas)

Practicalities for WordCamp Antwerp:
Talks can be held in Dutch, English and/or French. Formats can be: workshops, talks and lightning talks. You can choose whatever subject and duration feels right for you. A short talk does not necessarily have to lack depth, for instance. Please mention in your application whether you expect your audience to have some kind of prior knowledge.
Apply as a Speaker!

Want to give a talk at your meetup? Just ping the organiser with your talk proposal!

Possible WordCamp/meetup talks

(We attempted to categorize them, they appear in random order.)

• Lightning talks
• Generic talks
• Mainly for writers & users
• Mainly for developers

Perfect for lightning talks

• My favourite plugin: X (when, why, how, what)
• My go-to plugins
• My go-to themes (or theme author)
• My favourite theme
• Why I use X as my starter theme
• My WordPress site starter kit (base theme, plugins & workflow you use)
• Rant about X (something you deeply care about, related to WordPress, the web, the business, …)
• Introduce your meetup group (and what’s it like for you)
• How I started contributing
• WP learning resources
• Contributing to WordPress, my experience in team X
• Web performance quick wins
• Accessibility quick wins
• Diversity in tech: dos & don’ts
• Quick WP tips for [X]
• Wat moet een goede SEO-tool doen?
• Tell us what you’ve learned this year
• Tell us about something in WordPress you just recently found out it existed and you’d wish you’d known it sooner
• …

Generic

• What’s new in WordPress
• The future of WordPress
• The future of WordPress themes
• The future of FOSS (free and open-source software)
• What’s coming with the block library?
• What’s coming with site-wide editing with Gutenberg?
• Is het internet kapot? (Is the internet broken?)
• Rich snippets dominating our world
• Web performance by design
• Accessibility by design
• Legal: why you should care about privacy
• Legal: why you should care about accessibility
• Things you didn’t know about WP
• …

Mainly for writers/users

• Securing your site
• Keep on writing: tips to keep up with your blogging/writing ambitions
• Building pages with the new editor (Gutenberg): examples
• Writing with Gutenberg: tips & tricks
• Useful Gutenberg Blocks: core blocks & block plugins.
• All about working with images (tools, tips & tricks)
• Picking your theme & plugins: what to know
• How to get feedback from your clients
• E-commerce best practices
• How the GDPR may impact your decisions
• HTML & CSS for writers
• …

Mainly for developers

• Template hierarchy like a pro
• Content architecture: custom post types and taxonomies uncovered
• Amp up your site with WP-CLI
• Webpack 101
• Creating Gutenberg blocks with ACF
• Writing your first Gutenberg block
• Docker and WordPress
• Multilingual websites and SEO
• Using modern PHP in WordPress
• i18n and l10n like a pro
• Automated testing in WordPress
• CI/CD for WordPress
• The Customize API (Customizer)
• The [one of WP core’s] API
• Debugging WordPress
• …

Can’t choose?

Then apply multiple times (one idea/talk per application) and we’ll choose for you 😉

Just in time to give yourself, a friend, a colleague or a family member a ticket for a merry little WordPress weekend in Antwerp: the ticket sales is open!

Get your ticket for a whole weekend of WordPress delights. A regular ticket costs only €40,00 and will give you access to both the conference days, lunches & coffee breaks included.

An extra Christmas gift from us: we’ll give an exclusive surprise souvenir for the first 50 tickets! Get your early bird ticket now and treat yourself :).

The full planning of the weekend:

• Friday March 27th: Conference Day #1 + Contributor evening
• Saturday March 28th: Conference Day #2 + After Party
• Sunday March 29th: Community Afternoon

We won’t have separate tickets for single conference days: if you can only attend one day, you’ll just need a regular WordCamp ticket. For the contributor evening and the community day we’ll have separate registrations for which you will need to have your WordCamp ticket.

If you’d like to sponsor yourself and pay for your full cost of the weekend, you can opt in for a Microsponsor tickets (€150,00, which will also give you access to the whole camp and a little bonus souvenir).

PS. If you’re planning to volunteer, sponsor or speak: send us your application — we’ll have free tickets for everyone who contributes to the WordCamp itself!

[The call for speakers has been closed on Jan 31st.]

WordCamp Antwerp will take place from 27th until 29th March 2020. And of course, we need some great speakers for the Conference Days!

We’re expecting around 225 web designers, developers, entrepreneurs, marketers, bloggers and trainers, from Belgium and beyond, all equally passionate about WordPress.

So with pleasure we now invite you to apply as a speaker!

Everyone can apply!

Talks can be held in Dutch, English and/or French. We offer different kinds of formats: workshops, talks and lightning talks. You can choose whatever subject and duration feels right for you. A short talk does not necessarily have to lack depth, for instance. Please mention in your application whether you expect your audience to have some kind of prior knowledge.

Also, it is important to mention the language in which you will be speaking (Dutch, English and/or French). If you speak both, we’ll choose the language ourselves since we want a good balance between Dutch and English talks in our program. Feel free to do several applications if you’ve got more than one idea. We’ll choose which presentation fits the program best. We kindly ask you to mention one idea/talk per application.

No speaker experience? No worries, we’ll help!

We offer personal counselling for new speakers like we did last WordCamp. Everyone has something interesting to say. Of course, this guidance is optional for every WordCamp speaker: from newbies to experienced speakers who simply want some feedback on their presentation. Good to know: our personal counselling also assists you when you want to submit your application for a talk.

You can also practice your talk during one of our WordPress Meetup groups, visit wpbelgium.be for more information.

Mail us for more info about the personal counselling for new speakers.

Need some inspiration?

Not sure what subject you can talk about? WordCamp Europe made a list of topic ideas or get in touch and start a conversation about the possibilities!-

---

[The call for speakers has been closed on Jan 31st.]