The WordCamp program certainly prospered in 2013. We had WordCamps in 15 cities that had never before hosted a WordCamp, and 53% of WordCamps were organized outside the US. WordCamps were held in 18 – yes, that’s right – EIGHTEEN different languages in 2013. Check out the stats for 2013 compared to previous years:
2013
Number of WordCamps: 71
Number of WordCamps in the USA: 31
Number of WordCamps outside the USA: 40
Total Number of WordCamp Attendees: over 19,000
Total Days of WordCamp: 117
Number of sessions presented at WordCamps: 1,565
Number of people who spoke at WordCamps: 1,176
Number of companies that sponsored WordCamps: 522
New WordCamps: 15
WordCamp videos published to WordPress.tv: 474
2012
Number of WordCamps: 67
Number of WordCamps in the USA: 34
Number of WordCamps outside the USA: 33
Total Number of WordCamp Attendees: over 17,000
Total Days of WordCamp: 102
Number of sessions presented at WordCamps: 967
Number of people who spoke at WordCamps: 877
Number of companies that sponsored WordCamps: 498
New WordCamps: 22
WordCamp videos published to WordPress.tv: 445
2011
Number of WordCamps: 52
Number of WordCamps in the USA: 25
Number of WordCamps outside the USA: 27
Total Number of WordCamp Attendees: over 13,000
Total Days of WordCamp: 74
Number of sessions presented at WordCamps: 429
Number of people who spoke at WordCamps: 450
Number of companies that sponsored WordCamps: 313
New WordCamps: 15
WordCamp videos published to WordPress.tv: 271
Even more astounding than the fact that 1,176 different people spoke at a WordCamp in 2013: more than 50% of those speakers had never spoken at a WordCamp before. It’s so exciting that we heard from so many new people about what they’re doing with WordPress; a greater diversity of ideas helps us make WordPress better for everyone.
The multi-event sponsorship program was launched last year, in which companies sponsored all WordCamps in a certain country or region via WordCamp Central. This year, we have more multi-event sponsors than ever, and we’re excited to see what WordCamp organizing teams can do with their events now that most or all of the fundraising burden has been lifted.
The WordCamp program recorded and published over 450 session videos to WordPress.tv last year, which is fantastic. However, that’s only about a third of the number of WordCamp sessions overall, so we’re really going to concentrate on doing better in 2014, setting the goal of recording and publishing every single WordCamp session on WordPress.tv. We now have a small group of volunteers to help provide post-production editing for organizing teams that can’t recruit someone locally, and we’re still working with organizers of 2013 events to get their content online.
In 2014, we also want to provide even more custom tools to make WordCamp organizing easier than anyone could imagine. We’re working on ways to automate and streamline aspects of the planning process, and we encourage your feedback on what would make WordCamps better – both from the organizers’ perspective as well as from that of the attendee.
If you’re interested in helping with WordCamps or other WordPress community efforts, there’s a contributor group for that! If you are interested in organizing a WordCamp in your town, check out our WordCamp Planning site (now with forums!). We can’t wait to see what 2014 brings, and we hope you’ll join us as an attendee, volunteer, speaker, sponsor, organizer… or all of the above!