WordCamp US 2015 Recap – Part 1

December 4-6, 2015 marked the first WordCamp US. Nearly 2000 people attended the event, which was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania’s PA Convention Center, and thousands of others live streamed it all over the world! I was lucky and honored to go to WordCamp US, as part of Team Yoast.

So, before I get into recapping my WordCamp US experience, I want to publicly thank Joost de Valk for not only treating some of our team to attend, but for being able to meet some of our team members from the Netherlands. 🙂

So, now I can recap WordCamp US. The reason why my experience is broken into several parts is because I took a LOT of pictures. I also wanted to share some stories, because one of the biggest things I’ve been reminded of is to make meaningful connections wherever I go. Ben Fox of Sidekick Pro had emphasized this during his talk at WordCamp Las Vegas 2015 (September 2015), and I’ve taken that to heart. I made it a mission as a representative of Yoast, and also for my own business, to make a lot of meaningful connections. I actually lost my voice by the end of the trip.

Part 1 is dedicated to the WordCamp US pre-party experience.

PhillyPress Cheesesteak Get-Together

On December 3rd, I had put together a little dinner to gather WordPressers and eat cheesesteak together. No branding affiliated… just people wanting to eat cheesesteak and have fun. We gathered for dinner at Sonny’s Famous Cheesesteaks.

Well, it originally was suppose to be a small group of about 15. I lost count. We had more than 25 people show up! It was also a great icebreaker for Team Yoast members to meet each other. 🙂

I was surprised by how many people showed up. There were people I knew, and people I met for the first time, so I really felt grateful that we had a great turnout. For those who attended, and are reading this… thank you. It means a lot that we were able to sit and eat together. 🙂

GoDaddy WordCamp US Pre-Party

After the dinner, Taco (our Community Manager at Yoast) let us know that there was a party that GoDaddy had invited our team too. I’m very grateful for him to have extended an invitation to this event.

While I missed taking a picture of the cool bus that GoDaddy rented out so party-goers could have a ride back to their hotel, I didn’t miss the chance to take some pictures of the event.

Many of the people who attended the GoDaddy party, I knew, so I really enjoyed talking with people I see at many of the WordCamps I go to throughout the year.

I do want to thank GoDaddy for sponsoring and running the event. They really went all out, and there were a lot of happy faces in the large crowd.

Now, I know I haven’t event gotten to Day 1 of WordCamp US, and that will happen, but not in this post because I’m trying not to overload each individual post with pictures.

So, you can find more at my WordCamp US 2015 Recap – Part 2 and WordCamp US 2015 Recap – Part 3.

Did you attend any of the pre-parties? Did you go to the PhillyPress Cheesesteak Get-Together? Let me know in the comments.