Who Are We, & How Did We Get Here?

The first weekend of October 2019 was a whirlwind. Here’s the story behind WordCamp Long Beach 2019 and our exploration of WordPress: the Port to the Wider Internet. We own our own story. And we gladly share it with you.

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Long Beach & LAWP

WordCamp Long Beach (WCLB) grew from the Long Beach WordPress Meetup, a group of WordPress enthusiasts who’ve been meeting in Long Beach, California since December 2017. Most of the WCLB Organizers are connected to WordPress Meetups in Southern California. And five out of 10 of the WCLB Organizers also organize the Long Beach Chapter of Los Angeles WordPress Meetup.

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Long Beach WordPress Meetup

Long Beach WordPress Meetup gets together every other Tuesday evening to hang out, review industry news, dip into projects together, and listen to speakers. The group is made up of writers, designers, developers, and business owners.

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Los Angeles WordPress Meetup

The Long Beach WordPress Meetup is one of several chapters of Los Angeles WordPress (LAWP) Meetup group. LAWP Meetup has over 2,700 members and has helped hundreds of Angelenos connect, be inspired, and get hired.

There are currently 11 Co-Organizers leading three chapters of Los Angeles WordPress:

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WCLAX & WCLB

WCLAX 2009-2018

For ten straight years, starting in 2009, Los Angeles hosted an annual WordPress conference. Conferences typically grew from WordPress communities local to Los Angeles County and were often organized by LA-based Meetup Co-Organizers. LA, Pasadena, and Whittier Meetups provided WCLAX with hundreds of Organizers, Speakers, Sponsors, Volunteers, supporters, and attendees. Many of the conferences sold out. And for a decade, WordCamp Los Angeles enjoyed its status as one of the most well-attended WordPress conferences in the US.

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Past WCLAX Conferences & Lead Organizers

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WCLAX didn’t happen in 2019. Active Southern California WordPress Community leaders who had time and energy to run a conference didn’t live in or near Downtown LA, making WCLAX logistics particularly difficult.

The Long Beach Chapter Co-Organizers were willing to organize a WordPress conference closer to where they lived, and they recruited others to help them.

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WCLAX & WCLB: Similarities & Differences

The first-ever WordCamp Long Beach (WCLB) had more than a few similarities to WordCamp Los Angeles (WCLAX). Not only did we pick a fall date like former WCLAXs, but Organizer Alex Vasquez and Speaker Natalie MacLees had both been Lead Organizers of previous WCLAXs. We used the internal direct-to-email LAWP Co-Organizer message system to spread the word to all Meetup group subscribers. And other Meetups in Southern California helped promote us, just like they’d helped WCLAX. Many of our attendees, Speakers, Sponsors, and Volunteers had been involved with WordCamp Los Angeles in the past.

Although WordCamp Long Beach semi-replaced WordCamp Los Angeles, WCLB 2019 and WCLAX 2009-2018 were distinctly different. Our event was less than half the size of WCLAX, we grew directly out of our local Long Beach Chapter in particular, our theme and venues were very Long Beach, and we donated our extra lunches to the Long Beach Rescue Mission.

What really set WordCamp Long Beach apart from all other WordCamps was our emphasis on abstract, philosophical talks during the world’s first Future of WordPress track on Sunday. Saturday we hosted practical talks for Users and Professionals, but Sunday we were all in one room, focused on the same topic. We paid a local professional film crew to record and edit high-quality videos of all our talks with the goal of getting the abstract talks up before WordCamp US. Sunday was for everyone – and for posterity.

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LAWP grew out of SoCalWP Meetup group, the very first WordPress Community in Southern California, which was born in Long Beach in 2009.

Eight years later, WordPress Meetup events returned to Long Beach. And two years after that, Long Beach wrapped up its first-ever WordPress conference, WCLB 2019.

A decade later, we’ve come full circle.

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Core Team

Most of the WordCamp Long Beach Organizers were brand new to organizing a WordCamp when they joined the WCLB Organizing Team, but everyone on our team had at least some event organizing experience, we’d all been actively involved for years in our local WordPress communities, and we all shared a common purpose –

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We wanted to create an event that we ourselves would want to attend – something useful, deeply impactful, and beautiful for both Southern California and the world – and we wanted to do it together.

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Our team dynamic shifted over time. Some of us had never met before. And some of us were close friends. Initial Organizers included Joe Simpson Jr., Leo Postovoit, Megan McGee, Paulette Erato, Rachel Anderson, and Scott Vosburgh. In the end, our core team was made up of 10 Organizers who focused on wrangling and supporting 30 distinct responsibilities.

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WCLB 2019 Organizing Team

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WCLB 2019 Wrangler Responsibilities

1. Leadership – Chris
2. Archive – Chris
3. Safety – Sarah
4. Accessibility – Nico
5. Budget – Chris
6. Money-Handling – Chris
7. Ticketing – Nico
8. Sponsors – Alex
9. Donations – Ara
10. Venue – Sé
11. Audio/Visual – Nico
12. Food & Beverage – Sé
13. Organizer Dinner – Alex, Chris
14. Speaker/Sponsor/Volunteer Dinner – Renee
15. After Party – Sé
16. Content – Chris
17. Photography – Chris
18. Graphic Design – David
19. Illustration – David
20. Website Design – Sarah
21. Website Maintenance – Sarah
22. Social Media – Sé
23. Publicity – Sé
24. Speakers – Alex, Sarah, Sé
25. Printing – Ara
26. Swag – Ara
27. Volunteers – Renee
28. Registration – Renee
29. Comms – David
30. Happiness Bar – David

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Processes & Preferences

Our staff, responsibilities, processes, and expectations changed over time, until we ended up with 10 Organizers sharing 30 responsibilities, chatting in small team channels on Slack, storing complex information predominantly on Google Drive, communicating with the outside world from a shared team email address, and meeting every Friday on Zoom. Sometimes we voted, and sometimes we didn’t.

To promote WordCamp Long Beach, we created a brand with brand new social media profiles from scratch, developing a quirky voice paired with pretty visuals to collect followers and reach new online audiences. We kept our blog subscribers up to date with announcements delivered straight to their email inboxes and spearheaded a blog post series exploring our local culture and eateries. And we designed a ton of adorable illustrations.

We also tapped into our existing local WordPress Community networks on Meetup and Facebook in order to recruit supporters and attendees. Many Southern California Meetup Co-Organizers helped us get the word out and fill our Speaker rosters and seats, including Jason Tucker on the WPwatercooler and WPblab podcasts, Joe Simpson Jr. of WordPress Santa Clarita Valley, Christina Hills and Amy Hall of Carlsbad WordPress Meetup, and Verious Smith III of Inland Empire WordPress Meetup Group.

We reached out assertively to people we wanted to apply to speak and volunteer, as well as companies and individuals we wanted to recruit as Sponsors and Micro-Sponsors. We asked for what we wanted. And we made good use of the direct-to-email Meetup Co-Organizer messaging system.

In all things, we tried to remember and honor our core team values of collaboration, autonomy, transparency, privacy, documentation, and ownership. We relied on what’s worked for WordCamps elsewhere and also weren’t afraid to experiment. Our four-person committee of diverse WordPress specialists chose our Speakers in a blind Speaker selection process. And we encouraged and challenged each other throughout the process, reaching out for support and guidance as we needed it.

We relied on our WordCamp Mentor Cambra Kaos (Cami), who shared her wisdom and kindness with us. She empowered us to move past an abbreviated timeline and difficult challenges and toward success. We also utilized the WordPress.org Make handbook and WordPress Slack channel when we needed to, and sometimes consulted with – and sourced data from – former Organizers from other WordCamps.

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Event Weekend

Our first camp was a success! We were extremely prepared, delivered a deeply introspective program, created a welcoming and friendly atmosphere, hit our attendance goal, and stayed under budget. Our Organizers owned their roles, our emergencies were manageable, and our attendees enjoyed our venues. And we got a ton of positive feedback about our “Future of WordPress” track in particular.

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WCLB 2019 Stats

• Surpassed our goal of 200 registered attendees
• 100% of our Speakers, Sponsors, Volunteers, Organizers, and Vendors came through
• 97% of our Local Sponsorship funding came through

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WCLB 2019 Highlights

• For our full-width photo gallery, click here.
• For an overview of our Speaker sessions and weekend schedule, click here.
• For all our Speaker videos, click here.

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To Be Continued…

What’s next? We don’t know! For now, we’re so glad we could share the weekend with you, thankful to our local WordPress communities who supported us, very happy with our Speakers and Vendors, grateful to our Sponsors and Volunteers, relieved it’s all finished, and basking in the glow of our big blue pyramid.

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Thank you for exploring WordPress: the Port to the Wider Internet with us.

Thank you for being a part of Our Story.

Team WCLB 2019

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