Selecting and working with a production company

Check out our latest guidelines for in-person events!

The information in this document about online vendors is applicable only for WordCamps that have a date on the schedule or under budget review with the understanding that they’d be working with a professional vendor as on 23rd July 2020. Other online WordCamps (including those that are currently in planning) will need to find local sponsors if they wish to work with vendors. We will be updating the handbook to reflect the latest information, shortly. You can find more information in the following blog post.

WPCSWPCS The collection of PHP_CodeSniffer rules (sniffs) used to format and validate PHP code developed for WordPress according to the WordPress Coding Standards. May also be an acronym referring to the Accessibility, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, HTML, etc. coding standards as published in the WordPress Coding Standards Handbook. has some identified vendors when it comes to production companies, however, you may want to work with a local vendor who speaks your language. That’s great! If so, here are some suggestions as to what to look for with a production vendor. Broadly, the scope of work for a production company will include the following: 

Pre-production (getting ready for 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.)

  • Scheduling time with speakers to help them get prepared, checking their audio and visual quality, and walking speakers through what will happen during their talk. 
  • Working with room moderators and explaining how moderation tools work.
  • Receiving graphics and presentations, and preparing them for the live event

Production (hosting WordCamp)

  • Managing the online event and ensuring that everything goes smoothly
  • Loading and running presentations and slides

Post-Production (delivering to WordPress.tv)

  • Edit and add titles (add intro), cleaning up any issues
  • Encode to spec
  • Upload to WordPress.tv

Captioning

  • Display live captions during each session at the WordCamp (not auto-generated) in the talk language itself.
  • Nice to have: During post production, the captioning company does a final review on the captions by correcting any mistakes, before submitting the videos to WordPress.tv for publishing.

To secure a quote from your vendor, it is important to share the following information: 

  • Dates and times of your WordCamp
  • Number of days and tracks you are planning on
  • Estimated number of speakers
  • Videos post-production

Questions that you will want to ask include:

  • What platform do they recommend you use and is it fully accessible? 
  • Will they cover all of the services listed above? 
  • How many people will be dedicated to your WordCamp?
  • Does the quote include captioning? 
  • What graphics and slide requirements do they have? 

Note: Some vendors may not support captioning by default. You may need to contact a separate vendor (and get a separate quote) for captioning services. While reaching out to the captioning vendor, it might be a good idea to enquire if they have worked with your production vendor.

When you are ready to move forward with a production company, please request a quote or estimate, and use that to inform your budget. WPCS will sign the quote after the budget has been approved. 

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