WordCamp Omaha 2015 Debrief

The numbers:

  • How many tickets were sold? 137
  • How many people showed up? 125(ish)
  • How many people came to the party (estimate)? Roughly 50
  • How many people filled out the survey? Has not yet been sent. Asked about protocol for sending out a survey. What account should be used? Recommended the polldaddy account created with the 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. email address.
  • How did the money end up (+/-)? There was a $2,800 surplus.

The budget:

  • Are all the vendors paid? No. Afterparty vendor has not invoiced the camp yet. Venue invoice was turned in 10/12 but has not been paid. Three personal expenses have not been paid, though only one has been added as a payment request so far.
  • All sponsors paid? Interface School ($750) may or may not have paid. It was not highlighted in the psonsor tab in the spreadsheet.
  • Was there a surplus? Yes, $2,800
  • What cost more than you expected? Badge printing was more than originally anticipated. If she had to do it again, she would have gone to a print shop and printed higher quality badges instead of low quality paper and badge holders. Make order sooner to avoid rush fees.

The video:

  • What’s the plan to get them on WordPress.tv? All sessions were recorded. The venue provided livestreaming and recording for one room. It’s currently available as one long file. Only given one SD card, but two camera kits. Will be posting to wordpress.tv by the end of the week.

The opinions:

  • What went great: Planning was really hard, but it paid off on the event days. Speakers were great. Received good feedback from attendees on Sunday after the event was over. Volunteers really stepped up and is interested in becoming more involved in the local meetupMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook..
  • What could have gone better: Handling money and payments was stressful and frustrating. Asking for volunteers to pay for things personally and be reimbursed wasn’t ideal. Speaker gift could have gone better. Wished that she could have given attendees more takeaway information so they can continue their learning beyond the WordCamp. Wished their surplus could have been used for furthering attendees learning instead of just being put back into community funds. Would like more clarification on how to make payments on weekends or off hours. One of Sunday’s anticipated speakers got sick and there was no backup plan so some folks were disappointed.
  • What should happen again: People really liked the venue & food vendor. Most rewarding part to lead org, a lot of people took advantage of the community help room and personal help on the second day.
  • What do you think should never happen again: It should never be one person running the entire camp. Dan Griffiths was originally the lead organizer but wasn’t fulfilling his responsibilities to his organizing team and missed multiple mandatory “get back on track” meetings set up by the WordPress FoundationWordPress Foundation The WordPress Foundation is a charitable organization founded by Matt Mullenweg to further the mission of the WordPress open source project: to democratize publishing through Open Source, GPL software. Find more on wordpressfoundation.org. and therefore had to be replaced as the lead organizer.
  • Feedback for the planning process: “The only negative feedback, really, that I have for Central is that I felt that there wasn’t much “push out” of info. I didn’t take the MT stuff down because nobody told me. Julie Kuehl just asked me if I had heard about it at the speaker/sponsor dinner. I didn’t know which community sponsor it was. I get that that’s no-one’s fault, but an organizer listserv (or opt-in update feed other than SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.) would have been nice.”

Things that were a downer:

  • One attendee complained about the topics. She was hoping for more “user focused” content. Organizer referred her to attend and participate in the local meetupsMeetup Meetup groups are locally-organized groups that get together for face-to-face events on a regular basis (commonly once a month). Learn more about Meetups in our Meetup Organizer Handbook..
  • Ticket sales were very stressful.

Did you write a recap post? Will write a re-cap post tonight and schedule it (with link to survey).

Who’s on deck to organize next year? I don’t know. I think I’ll be able to get some more help with monthly meetups, but have not yet thought as far as a 2016 WC.

#debriefs, #wordcamps