New Guidelines for Online Events in 2020

Due to the current global health emergency, we strongly encourage you to consider online events instead of in-person in 2020. For more information, please refer to our online events handbook.

Just like all in-person events, anyone involved in an official role for your WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more., MeetupMeetup All local/regional gatherings that are officially a part of the WordPress world but are not WordCamps are organized through https://www.meetup.com/. A meetup is typically a chance for local WordPress users to get together and share new ideas and seek help from one another. Searching for ‘WordPress’ on meetup.com will help you find options in your area., do_action, or any other WordPress community event is representing WordPress. For online events, we have the same expectations for those organizers, speakers, sponsors, and volunteers. 

In order to facilitate successful community events during this global emergency, we have adapted some of our existing community guidelines to promote online community events for 2020. 

  1. Regional/country WordCamps, Meetups, do_action events. We strongly believe that there is much value in local, in-person events, and intend to maintain this guideline when we can all meet in person again safely. During this time, however, we will approve country/regional events as long as the major meetup groups are involved in the organizing process.
  2. Reduce the budget review process for WordCamps. Online WordCamps cost much less than in-person events. The WordPress Community team has identified vendors who will help produce online events, and online WordCamps will be offering free tickets. Because of these factors, it is now possible to “fast track” budget reviews! Read more about online WordCamp cost guidelines or the budget review process here.
  3. Shorter planning periods for community events. An online event tends to be faster to organize. Organizers can propose the date of their event, allowing for enough time between orientation and the event to find speakers, volunteers, and market the event.

We hope to go back to in-person gatherings with original guidelines for planning community events as soon as we can, as our in-person program has proven to empower more community leaders across a large number of local communities and to reach more people within those areas.

Learn more about how to apply for an online event!

Last updated: