The four flagship WordPress events — 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. Asia, WordCamp Europe, WordCamp India and WordCamp US — are the WordPress community’s largest and most complex gatherings. They typically attract thousands of attendees, involve large multi-team organizing structures, and can take 9 to 12 months of active planning to pull off. Mentoring a flagship WordCamp is a meaningful contribution, and it calls for a more hands-on, proactive approach than mentoring a standard WordCamp.
This page builds on the general guidance in Mentoring WordCamps and the Community team event mentor training course. If you haven’t reviewed both of those yet, start there first before taking on a flagship mentorship.
Understanding the organizing structure
Flagship WordCamps use a layered organizing structure that’s important to understand before you begin.
- Global leads oversee the overall event strategy. They guide and support all the organizing teams and are responsible for the event’s direction.
- Team leads focus on their specific team’s goals and tasks, such as speakers, sponsors, volunteers, or design. They manage their team members day-to-day.
- WordCamp CentralWordCamp Central Website for all WordCamp activities globally. https://central.wordcamp.org includes a list of upcoming and past camp with links to each. Events Team manages all external production and AV vendor contracting for flagship events. They work directly with the organizing team and serve as the production team for these events.
Knowing where each person fits helps you direct your support effectively and understand who to connect with and when. Here is a breakdown of roles and responsibilities for the flagship WordCamp organizing team and the WordCamp Central Events Team.
Getting started: making introductions
Before anything else, make sure everyone knows you are there and understands your role.
- Introduce yourself to both the global leads and team leads. Let all of them know you are a resource available to the entire organizing team, not just to the global leads.
- Reach out to each team individually and early in the planning process. Introduce yourself, explain how you plan to support them, and share how they can contact you if they need guidance or want to flag something.
Setting this tone early helps build trust across the whole team and makes it far more likely that people will reach out before small issues become bigger ones.
Meeting cadence
Regular check-ins are essential when mentoring a flagship WordCamp. Here is a recommended framework to start with:
- Meet weekly with the global leads for at least the first quarter of planning. Aim for 30 to 60 minutes per session.
- After the first quarter, the cadence can be adjusted based on how the team is doing and what they need. Let the team weigh in on what works for them.
- As the event draws closer, expect meetings to become more frequent again. The final weeks of planning are typically the most intensive.
As with any WordCamp you mentorEvent Supporter Event Supporter (formerly Mentor) is someone who has already organised a WordCamp and has time to meet with their assigned mentee every 2 weeks, they talk over where they should be in their timeline, help them to identify their issues, and also identify solutions for their issues., please share an update during the Monday weekly check-ins in #community-event-supporters. This keeps the broader Community Team informed on how the event is progressing.
Reviewing the schedule and budget
Two areas deserve your consistent and close attention throughout the planning cycle: the project schedule and the budget.
Project schedule and timeline
Flagship events have many interdependent workstreams. A delay in one area can quickly create a bottleneck across others. Review the project timeline regularly and pay attention to whether planning milestones are being hit. If things are slipping, surface that early.
Budget and sponsor outreach
Flagship WordCamps rely heavily on sponsorship to fund the event. Tickets are typically low-priced and cover only a fraction of costs. Venue, AV production, catering, and more all depend on sponsor support.
This makes sponsor outreach one of the most critical areas to monitor. Outreach needs to start early in the planning cycle and stay consistent throughout. Keep an eye on how sponsorship efforts are progressing and note if momentum seems to be slowing. A stalled sponsorship pipeline is a flag worth raising as soon as you notice it.
Be mindful that sponsorship support is sourced solely on an event basis, and no funding for these events comes from the WordPress Global Partner Program.
Raising flags and escalating issues
At the scale of a flagship WordCamp, small issues can grow quickly if they go unaddressed. One of the most valuable things you can do as a mentor is raise flags early and clearly.
Who to talk to first:
- Share your concerns and observations with the global leads first. This is your primary channel.
- Follow up with the relevant team lead as needed, depending on the nature of the issue.
- If something cannot be resolved at the organizing team level, escalate to the Community Team’s Program Managers.
- If further escalation is needed beyond the Program Managers, the next step is 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. leadership. See the WordPress Foundation contact page for how to reach them.
Raising a flag is never about getting anyone in trouble. It is about helping the team spot a problem before it grows into a crisis.
Working with the WordCamp Central Events Team
The WordCamp Central Events Team manages all external production and AV vendor contracting for flagship WordCamps. They interact with the organizing team as the production team for these events and play a significant role in shaping the logistics of the event.
Stay closely aligned with what is happening between the organizing team and the WordCamp Central Events Team. Their timelines and requirements often directly affect organizing decisions. If you notice communication gaps or misaligned expectations between the two sides, treat that as a flag worth surfacing with the global leads early.
Supporting all organizers
Your role as a mentor is to support the entire organizing team, not just the global leads or team leads. Keep that in mind throughout the planning cycle.
- Reach out to team leads directly to offer support and to surface flags or concerns you have observed within their area of work.
- Attend town halls when you can. These monthly sessions are typically facilitated by the global leads and are a valuable opportunity to hear directly from the broader team, offer encouragement, and get a sense of overall morale and momentum.
- Help review town hall slides when asked or when you see an opportunity to provide useful input before they are shared with the full group.
- Keep an eye on team morale. Organizing a flagship WordCamp is demanding, and burnout is a real risk across a long planning cycle. A warm, genuine check-in with a team lead or organizer can make a real difference.
Encouraging knowledge sharing and continuity
Flagship WordCamps depend on institutional knowledge being passed forward from one year to the next. One of the most valuable things a mentor can do is pay attention to whether that handoff is being set up for success.
Watch for knowledge concentration
In any large organizing effort, it is common for experienced leads to take on the bulk of the work themselves rather than teaching others how to do it. This is understandable under time pressure, but it creates a risk. If that person steps away or is unavailable for the next event, the knowledge goes with them.
As you work with the global leads and team leads, keep an eye out for this pattern. If you notice a lead is doing most of the work rather than guiding their team through it, raise that observation with them. Encourage them to:
- Document key processes and decisions as they go.
- Involve other team members in tasks that build transferable skills.
- Treat this year’s event as a training ground for the people who may lead next year.
This is not about adding extra work. It is about doing the same work in a way that leaves the team stronger for the future.
Supporting future leadership and host city planning
Where applicable, help the global leads think ahead about future events. This can include:
- Identifying potential future global leads from among the current team leads and organizers. Look for people who are growing into the role and encourage the current global leads to invest in developing them.
- Supporting preparation for the call for next year’s host cities, which typically needs to begin well before the current event wraps up.
Your guiding principle
As a mentor, your job is to guide and support, not to organize. You are not a member of the planning team, and you should not take on organizing tasks.
When you spot an issue or have a concern, follow this order:
- Share it with the global leads first.
- Follow up with the relevant team lead as needed.
- If it remains unresolved, escalate to the Program Managers, and then to WordPress Foundation leadership if necessary.
This approach respects the organizing structure, keeps communication clear, and helps organizers build confidence and ownership over their own planning process, with you there to guide them.
