Posted on

What is a WordCamp?

WordCamp is a collection of global conferences to celebrate and share experiences of the many facets that make up the WordPress ecosystem. From development, design and business ownership – to topics on mental health and dealing with imposter syndrome, WordCamp covers so many different aspects of work and life, you’re definitely in for a surprise.

Being hyper-local, you’ll meet attendees from all around Auckland, New Zealand and even some from Australia – the connections you make here continue over years and lifetimes.

A WordCamp is funded by a mix of local sponsors, global WordPress community sponsors and you, as an attendee – the ultimate aim is make the conference accessible to everyone – and keeping the price of entry as cheap as possible (#WCAKL19 is only $60 for both days).

Whats included in the ticket price?

ALOT!

  • Lunch, morning tea and after noon tea each day
  • One of the meals is an authentic hangi, coming from the Waitakere Ranges in West Auckland
  • Two days of talks and sessions – view our schedule for more info
  • An after party on saturday, join us for a social event – snacks and drinks are on us!
  • A relaxing and safe environment to meet WordPress like-minds
  • … oh and coffee!

Want to join us?

We’d love to have you there, grab a $60 ticket (or community sponsor at $150 if you’re feeling generous) and join us 2 -3rd November!

Get your tickets here.

Can’t wait? Check out our 2017 videos

All our sessions were recorded in 2017, above is the talk on “Scale your Business with WordPress” by Craig Martin – he’s joining us again this year, as an attendee this year.

View all WCAKL17 videos here.

Posted on

Budget summary

WordCamp is made by volunteers for the community. The event tickets are cheap and accessible for everyone but that requires a huge sponsors’ commitment.

That’s why we’d like to thank our sponsors again for their contribution.

We’d also like to thank our volunteers for spending countless hours on helping to organise and manage WordCamp, donating their own time for the community. Thank you.

WordPress is Open Source and everything around WordPress is Open Source as well. That’s why we’re publishing our budget showing every single dollar spent and received.

Download the budget

If you remember in 2017 we had a slight surplus in our budget and we explained where the money goes to. A perfect example is this year where we are running our WordCamp in loss.

If you have a look at the budget summary you’ll see that the cost per person is just over $200 which is much more than $60 cost per ticket. It’s only possible due to our amazing sponsors but also the global community. 2 years ago we were able to help out with a surplus but this year we were the ones needing community help to cover our $1,749.77 loss.

WordCamp is all about community and sharing knowledge. We hope that you enjoyed and 2019 WordCamp Auckland and we hope to see you in a year somewhere in New Zealand (hint hint Wellington). As always, if you’d like to join our WordPress community, start on our Meetup page. If you’re feeling excited about WordPress and people, please contact us through the meetup page and help us organising next Meetup and WordCamp. The existence of both relies on volunteers and if we want to carry on, every helping hand is welcome.

Posted on

A little love for our venue sponsors GridAKL

GridAKL have been our sponsors for 2 WordCamps in Auckland and 3-4 years of meetups based in Auckland. They always give us the venue hire for free, and while we’ve always been really appreciative, we actually asked what the value of such a sponsorship would be in general terms.

Well, the answer is up to $3,800 for a two day event!

That was a huge surprise to the organising team, and when we mention them as an In-kind sponsor, we really weren’t open with the true value of their contribution.

When the budget is released later this month, it will clearly show just how important ATEED and GridAKL’s continued support for WordPress Auckland/New Zealand truly is.

Attendees on day one at WCAKL
Photo credit: Glen Young @geekpulp on Twitter

We just wanted to say a huge thank you from all of us who had a wonderful weekend, thanks GridAKL!

P.S: Don’t forget, their TechCafe area has Free membership for those freelancers who want to join a tech community, meet clients or be involved away for their house! Sign up at https://gridakl.com/techcafe/

Posted on

Ticket sales are closed

Just a quick note to say ticket sales for WordCamp Auckland are now closed. Caterers are all booked out and swag is delivered.

If you haven’t managed to secure a ticket already – please join the Auckland WordPress meetup group for future events.

And for those of you who have already locked in tickets – we will see you tomorrow!

Posted on

The warmest thank you goes to our Gold Sponsors

Finally, the day before WCAKL19 is here – and it isn’t without a lot of hard work and HUGE support from our friends from Bluehost, Jetpack and WooCommerce. Continually supporting WordCamp’s all over the world, these three sponsors contribute the lion’s share of support for WCAKL19.

It purely wouldn’t be the amazing event it is today without the support of these three giants, so please share the love with our gold sponsors!

  • Bluehost

    Bluehost has been a WordPress partner since 2005 and powers over 1 million WordPress sites worldwide. Their objective is to help customers, whether novice or pro, create a thriving online presence at an affordable price. With a team of in-house tech experts available 24/7, Bluehost dedicates time and resources to providing the best support and services in the industry. Join millions of other site owners and see what Bluehost can do for you and your online presence.

  • Jetpack

    Transform how you work with your WordPress sites:Jetpack connects your site to the global services, community, and support provided by WordPress.com. Focus on the substance of your site, not the software.

    Jetpack security tools automatically shield your site from spammers, hackers, and malware, while real-time syncing and backup means never worrying about data loss. Traffic-building tools like easy social sharing help you attract readers and search engines, and pages delivered from a high-speed, global content delivery network mean those readers never bounce because of a slow-loading site.

    Jetpack’s Affiliate program gives you 20% every time you sell Jetpack to a customer or client — with unlimited referrals, the sky’s the limit!

    Whether you’re one person with a website or an agency with a dozen clients, Jetpack helps you grow. Make your site work for you at Jetpack.com

  • WooCommerce

    WooCommerce is an open-source eCommerce platform built on WordPress.
    Sell anything online with the flexibility and freedom of the world’s most popular CMS.

    Whether you’re selling a few handcrafted items to a niche market, taking an existing business online, or going global with an enterprise-level eCommerce business WooCommerce gets you set up and selling fast, scaling securely as you grow.

    Your content is forever yours and customizable down to the button color. Plus you’re joining a supportive, global community of developers and store owners.

    Developed and supported by a distributed team, WooCommerce is powered by Automattic, the creators of Jetpack and WordPress.com.

Posted on

A huge thank you to our Silver sponsors

Our silver sponsors are a very special breed of sponsors. They are apart of the global sponsorship team, who help WordCamp’s all around the world get funding and help make them the events they are today!

From the bottom of all our hearts at WordCamp Auckland – and the wider WordPress New Zealand community, we say thank you to our silver sponsors.

  • GoDaddy

    GoDaddy Pro offers a robust suite of free tools to web developers & designers to help them save time managing all their clients and sites. With GoDaddy Pro, you can easily shop for your client, monitor their sites, and manage all their WordPress websites from one place. Exclusive time-saving tools let you update WordPress core, plugins and themes with one click, as well as automate WordPress backups, cloning and migrations. Get real-time performance, security and uptime monitoring across all your websites. Additionally, your free membership includes advanced 24/7 technical support.

    When you pair GoDaddy Pro with GoDaddy hosting products, the benefits are even greater.

    Check out the Free Tools

  • HubSpot

    HubSpot (NYSE: HUBS) is a leading growth platform. Since 2006, HubSpot has been on a mission to make the world more inbound. Today, over 56,500 customers in more than 100 countries use HubSpot’s award-winning software, services, and support to transform the way they attract, engage, and delight customers. Comprised of Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, Service Hub, and a powerful free CRM, HubSpot gives companies the tools they need to Grow Better. Learn more about HubSpot for WordPress.

Posted on

All our speakers, in one big list

Speakers make up the core of any conference, and at WordCamp Auckland 2019 – we’ve got a mix of local, regional and even australian speakers joining us to share their WP stories, tips and tricks throughout the weekend.

All our speakers are attendees to the WordCamp as well, so you might just find them around to ask questions, share your stories or generally make friends with throughout #WCAKL19.

  • Bill Bennett

    Avatar of Bill Bennett

    Bill Bennett is a full time business and technology journalist. He is also a part time blogger. Among others, he regularly writes for the New Zealand Herald, NZBusiness magazine and appears on Radio New Zealand, Newstalk ZB and TV3. He also edits The Download magazine for Chorus.

    Session

  • Craig Martin

    Avatar of Craig Martin

    Craig Martin is the founder of Performance Foundry, a specialist WordPress services company that services clients around the world with a fully distributed team. A Kiwi, he loves hiking, coffee and wine.

    Session

  • Darren Craig

    Avatar of Darren Craig

    Darren Craig is the founder of Fully Charged Media, a digital growth agency based out of Queenstown, with global clients. Darren has over 20 years experience in tech and marketing working as a developer through to technical architect for major banking, media and tourism projects with companies such as Tesco Bank, RBS, Sky TV and …

    Session

  • Jeffry Ghazally

    Avatar of Jeffry Ghazally

    I've been a WordPress enthusiast and web developer for a long time. I've worked on a number of amazing projects and clients. Now working in-house for a company called Timely making their WordPress marketing website hum.

    Session

  • Jo Minney

    Avatar of Jo Minney

    Jo Minney is a WordPress developer based (for now) in Perth, Western Australia. She is passionate about UX, data-driven decision making, cats and travel – not necessarily in that order. She is also an ambassador for She Codes Australia, the meetup coordinator for the Perth WordPress meetup and the lead organiser for WordCamp Perth 2020. …

    Session

  • Jordan Gillman

    Avatar of Jordan Gillman

    Jordan currently works as a Happiness Engineer on WordPress.com – helping users build their little corner of the web. Prior to that he spent 10 years as a freelance Designer/Developer helping churches and faith-based organisations get on the web. He lives in Wollongong, Australia with his wife and 2 daughters.

    Session

  • Maria Skatova

    Avatar of Maria Skatova

    WordPress person through and through and experienced Communications Advisor, Maria is used to wearing many hats. She has been on every side of a WordPress website and community – a user, a customer, a developer, a PR pusher, a WordCamp organiser.  Maria's latest adventure is helping New Zealanders harnessing the power of the Internet for …

    Session

  • Mel Telecican

    Avatar of Mel Telecican

    Mel Telecican helps people make sense of email marketing automation. She specialises in helping businesses implement high-quality marketing automations in a non-techy, straightforward way so they can get more customers and keep them. As someone who started with very few skills with websites – she’s learned quickly with the help of user-friendly solutions like Elementor.

    Session

  • Quintin Russ

    Avatar of Quintin Russ

    Quintin is the Technical Director and co-founder of SiteHost. He comes from a development background and has spent the last 15 years becoming an expert in more technologies than we have room to list. Quintin now runs enough infrastructure to ensure that he rarely gets a good night sleep, but he still happily gets up …

    Session

  • Ricky Blacker

    Avatar of Ricky Blacker

    Ricky is a self taught web professional who found and fell in love with WordPress, and the community behind it while looking for a CMS platform to build websites for clients. He originally started his own web design business after being made redundant from a factory job in 2013, but now works for WP Engine …

    Session

  • Sally Eberhardt

    Avatar of Sally Eberhardt

    From my very first experience attending a WordPress Meetup a few years ago, to helping organize Brisbane WordCamp for the past 2 years, the biggest thing that stands out to me is COMMUNITY. The WordPress community is so helpful and supportive – I want to give back by making it easier for people to connect with …

    Session

  • Tim Muhundan

    Avatar of Tim Muhundan

    A Self confessed WordPress Geek, Tim is the founder of BizX.nz – an Auckland based company that uses WordPress to create minimum Viable ‘Apps’ for coaches, consultants and service professionals. When he is not working, Tim is on his kayak exploring our treasure islands. Web site: https://Bizx.nz/WordPress

    Session

Posted on

Last few days to get your tickets!

WordCamp Auckland kicks off this Saturday 2 november and it’s your last chance to grab tickets at $60, these tickets are loosely valued at $180 in terms of catering, swag and social events – but, even more than that – attendees get the following:

  • Lunch, morning tea and after noon tea each day
  • One of the meals is an authentic hangi, coming from the Waitakere Ranges in West Auckland
  • Two days of talks and sessions – view our schedule for more info
  • An after party on saturday, join us for a social event – snacks and drinks are on us!
  • A relaxing and safe environment to meet WordPress like-minds
  • … oh and coffee!

So grab your tickets today!

Buy your $60 ticket now!

The schedule is now complete and we are absolutely excited to say it contains some really incredible talks from attendees all throughout ANZ.

Lunches are all booked, and a little after party sessions on saturday is a great chance to network with fellow attendees, speakers and sponsors!

A huge thanks to everyone who has helped us spread the word, volunteered their time and generally exemplified the things we love about the WordPress community!

See you on saturday!

Posted on

Thank you to our Bronze Sponsors – WP.net and Paystation

  • Paystation

    Paystation by Trade Me helps you take secured payments online – you don’t even need a website. 

    • Secure payments hosted on your website, or ours, and using eCommerce shopping carts. 
    • Get paid even if you don’t have a website or app. You can take payments yourself by using Paystation’s secure web portal.
    • Paystation can also provide you with a gateway solution that’s a little more tailor-made to your needs.

    Paystation has simple pricing, offers a range of major international currencies, and has great local support. Trade Me liked Paystation so much they bought the company.

  • WP Net

    WP NET is New Zealand’s first 100% dedicated Managed WordPress web host. We provide high-performance, NZ-based hosting services and friendly, responsive support from WordPress Experts.

    WP NET offers cost-effective shared-server hosting and fully managed single-tenant cloud servers for businesses needing the next-level of performance, security and scalability.

    Our Managed WordPress service includes all the extras you expect from a managed host, including managed updates, automatic backups, improved security, malware scanning, uptime monitoring and more.

    Visit the WP NET website: https://wpnet.nz

Posted on

Please raise a glass to our two sponsors doing big things

Two very important parts of a WordCamp are a speakers dinner and the venue. Y’all might know that our venue is provided by the amazing Auckland GridAKL @ Lysaght Building, known as the Innovation Centre.

GridAKL – venue sponsorship

GridAKL do so much for WordPress in Auckland, with continued support throughout the year for FREE, yes absolutely FREE venue hire for meetups and WordCamp 2017 and 2019. We don’t have enough emoji ❤ to thank them, so please – leave a nice review on google maps for them and share their free Tech Cafe space with friends and colleagues to say thanks.

Learn more about them at https://gridakl.com/.

WPDonuts – speakers dinner

WordCamp actually starts on the night before the start date – with a speakers dinner sponsored by WPDonuts, the speakers dinner is a chance for all our speakers to get together, meet each other and get comfortable before the event.

WPDonuts is a WordPress-powered blog all about WordPress, created for WordPress users (both beginner and pro alike) everywhere. It combines tips, showcases, reviews and all things WordPress into a single site.

Read more on the WPDonuts blog.

Posted on

While relaxing this weekend, think about coming to WordCamp Auckland next weekend!

While most kiwi’s are reflecting, gardening, relaxing or recovering this Labour weekend – some busy behind the scenes preparing WordCamp Auckland 2019 which kicks off next weekend on 2-3rd of November.

Just a quick summary of what you could be doing next weekend – all for $60 per ticket.

  • Listening to 13 talks ranging from business, hosting, development and marketing
  • A small social networking event on Saturday night
  • Lunches, snacks and coffees provided
  • The most WordPress event you’ll see this year in Auckland
  • Instant karma points for attending

If you have a web project, are using, or thinking of using WordPress or generally interested in joining a wonderful community of supportive and smart people, this event is for you. Read more about WCAKL19 or share with your friends at https://2019.auckland.wordcamp.org/schedule/.

If you’re already to purchase your tickets get them below.

Buy tickets