This year’s WordCamp Europe took place on June 20-22 in Berlin, Germany. The schedule followed a typical WordCamp structure with multiple tracks, 40-minute sessions, 20 minute break times, hands-on workshops, and a lively afterparty.
Oh, and someone even walked 700km to the event to fundraise for charity.
If you weren’t able to make it out to Berlin for this year’s event, don’t worry — we pulled together this recap to cover all the important takeaways, including links to all the slides and recaps we could find from each presenter.
If we missed anything important, please give us a shout on Twitter (@GoDaddy).
Had the best time at #WCEU in Berlin this year. Love this team and this #WordPress community. Until next time! pic.twitter.com/l1yVOSWQQO
— Tara Wellington (@TaraMacMiller) June 23, 2019
Also: Shoutout to our colleagues at GoDaddy Deutschland for putting together a fantastic highlight reel from the event.
A brief history of WordCamp Europe
If you aren’t familiar with #WCEU, here’s the gist: WordCamp Europe is the largest WordCamp in the world. It’s an annual event bringing together thousands of WordPress users and developers from around the globe to learn, share, and connect with each other.
The first #WCEU, WordCamp Europe 2013, was held in The Netherlands. It’s moved to a different country each year since then: Bulgaria (2014); Spain (2015); Austria (2016); France (2017); and Serbia (2018).
The consistent change of location celebrates Europe and its diverse mix of language, people, and culture. Quoting from the inaugural WordCamp Europe 2013 site:
“WordCamp Europe is the first large-scale WordCamp to be held in Europe. By large-scale, we mean big. And by big, we mean awesome. This is a chance for the European WordPress community to gather together in the idyllic town of Leiden to geek-out, share experiences, do business, and most of all, talk WordPress. It’s an opportunity to welcome WordPress community members from all over the globe to our continent to experience the diversity and culture that makes us so unique.”
Open, inclusive, diverse, and community-driven. The event is a lot like WordPress itself.
WordCamp Europe 2019 sessions & workshops
This year’s WordCamp Europe packed the schedule with 46 regular sessions, 12 hands-on workshops, 12 WP Cafe breakout conversations (a first for WCEU), and 5 facilitated wellness sessions. There was also a WordPress Workshop for Kids and a Contributor Day on the Thursday before the main conference.
We’ve compiled a list of all the sessions and workshops, linking to the decks or posts from their respective presenters. If we’ve missed any links, please let us know.
Session recordings are posted to WordPress.tv as they become available. You can also view the livestream recordings in their entirety on YouTube. Shoutout to Mathieu Sarrasin of Iceable Media for creating a great list of links to the livestream timestamps of each session.
Business sessions
- Doing it wrong with Jenny Beaumont
- The art of networking with Francesca Marano
- A no-fuss primer on change management with Josepha Haden
- The art of pricing with Rahul Bansal
- How fast-growing agencies win business with Simon Cooke
- Understanding what makes a website landing page convert with Rob Hope
- Renaissance jobs in WordPress: Career skills with Nevena Tomovic
- Customer support with Valentina Thörner
- Get things done! 7 Tips to save time with Judith Schröer
- How Gutenberg changed the way we sell WordPress sites with Kåre Steffensen
- Catch the big fish with Shane Pearlman
- Navigating remote working professional relationships with Dee Teal
- How to use postmortems with Daniel Kanchev
- Moving from WordPress developer to business owner with Kevin Stover
Content sessions
- Structured data & blocks with Omar Reiss
- Evolving SEO in a mobile-first world with Aleyda Solís
- Accessible content with Maja Benke
- Copywriting & CTAs to improve conversion rates with Fernando Tellado
- 7 ways to repurpose content and maximise your efforts with Yvette Sonneveld
- How to engage your audience with Jesse van de Hulsbeek, Marieke van de Rakt
Design sessions
- WordPress for non-profits with Charles Johnston
- Variable fonts: The future of web design with Ana Cirujano
- Gutenberg and page builder plugins with Michele Mizejewski
- Designing your first Gutenberg block with Mel Choyce
- Designing in the open, remotely with Mark Uraine
Development sessions
- Develop with Docker with Maura Teal
- Advanced database management for plugins with John Jacoby
- Special characters and where to find them with Torsten Landsiedel
- Modernising WordPress, plugins, and themes with Juliette Reinders
- Semantic content in a block editing world with Joe McGill
- Why you should learn to code with Monique Dubbelman
- How better performing websites can help save the planet with Jack Lenox
- Maintainable CSS architecture in the Gutenberg era with Sami Keijonen
- Custom elements in Gutenberg with Felix Arntz
- Find that bug you made months ago with Git Bisect with David Needham
- WordPress through the bad guys’ glasses with Vladimír Smitka
- On multilingual WordPress sites with Pascal Birchler
- Using blocks outside the editor with Tom Nowell
Community sessions
- The power of free with Brian Teeman
- Why I walked more than 700km to Berlin, and survived with Marcel Bootsman
- Democratising education with Ronnie Burt
- Bringing people to WordCamps with Ines van Essen
- WordPress to blockchain: The future is 100% open source with Sebastiaan van der Lans
Workshops
- The big, bad content planning workshop with Vassilena Valchanova
- REST API with Micah Wood
- WordPress accessibility & WCAG standards with Izabela Mrochen
- SEO for content marketing with Viola Eva
- Pause. Think. Create. with Dennis Hodges
- Deploying a WordPress web server in minutes with George Gkouvousis
- Live website reviews with Michiel Heijmans
- Business planning: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail with Radost Dacheva
- Creating a Gutenberg block with Elio Rivero
- SEO copywriting with Jesse van de Hulsbeek
- How to build a lean SaaS startup with WordPress Multisite with Sabrina Zeidan
WP Cafe discussions
- Advanced SEO thoughts with Robert Jacobi
- Who are the deciders? A governance conversation with Morten Rand-Hendriksen
- It is never too late to find the right career path with Afsana Multani
- Linking together the WordPress Community with Norbert Mayer-Wittmann
- Moving to WordPress: Evolving businesses into successful stories with Alessandro Kaounas
- Investing in the WordPress Community with Mike Demo
- Sell WordPress without talking WordPress with Robert Jacobi
- Development tools, tips & tricks with Alex Bordei
- Why you should go to a silent meditation retreat with Aslam Multani
- Core-Privacy with Heather Burns
- Representing WordPress in the political arena with Morten Rand-Hendriksen
- Progressive WordPress with Pascal Birchler
"We are not campaigning for new freedoms, we are campaigning against the removal of existing freedoms that make our work possible."
Paraphrasing a participant in the #WordPress in the Political Arena #WPCafe session at #WCEU pic.twitter.com/JFIL2B19gM— Morten @ home (@mor10) June 22, 2019
Matt Mullenweg’s WordPress summer update
Officially titled “Matt on WordPress” in the WordCamp Europe 2019 schedule, Matt Mullenweg’s WCEU keynote served as a mid-year summer update on the status of WordPress and, most importantly, the progress of the Gutenberg block editor’s next phase.
There were demos of Gutenberg in the wild; upcoming Gutenberg features; new block types currently in development; mobile app support; plus Q&A about licensing, governance, and the future of themes in the age of Gutenberg.
See more: Matt Mullenweg’s Summer Update (WP Tavern)
Spotted on social
Some highlights from the social media backchannels of #WCEU:
Dear #WordPress-Family! @mm_mikemeister re-translated my #Sketchnotes on @motherofcode's talk about https://t.co/a4knYZbEPW on @WCEurope /#WCEU in english. Please #retweet and donate!! pic.twitter.com/kfEYC2qwJy
— Ania Groß (@SketchnotesAG) July 6, 2019
It's extra hard to get everything you have to say about @WCEurope in one blog post. But I tried! Here's my #WCEU recap: https://t.co/T8veBRVR4V pic.twitter.com/IRiQdZ0JQ5
— Vassilena Valchanova (@vasvalch) July 2, 2019
It was really nice meeting to @topher1kenobe in a person at @WCEurope the man behind @heropress.😎🤘
Really you are doing a great work and thanks for creating a such an amazing platform for all @WordPress geeks who want to share their stories. ❤️#WordPress #WCEU #WordCamp pic.twitter.com/IMeC7WIADh— Nidhi Jain (@jainnidhi03) July 1, 2019
Some #morningmotivation and wise words from Woodrow Wilson, 28th president of the United States, recently applied to web development and design at @wceurope 2019 in Berlin 🇩🇪💪🏼✨ #WCEU#wordpressscotland #wordpressmeetup #wordcamp #webdev #webdesign pic.twitter.com/aUpv1s1pY9
— Design33 (@design_33) July 2, 2019
And the winner is ….. @carolasperi 🎉🎉🎉
Was proud of you for winning @GoDaddy giveaway MacBook PRO at #WCEU in Berlin. #Congratulations 👏 pic.twitter.com/mOCAkFqDCp— Manny (@manny) June 25, 2019
View this post on Instagramзачекинился на #wceu2019 see you next year in #Porto #wceu2020, mates
A post shared by andrew (@andrew.krk) on
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Michał (@wp_get_michal) on
View this post on InstagramA post shared by Nahid Ferdous Mohit (@nfmohit) on
View this post on InstagramHeute geht es um WordPress #wceu We are recording #wceu2019 #wordpress #berlin #wordcamp #webdesign
A post shared by Grafist Design & Photo Agency (@grafistdesign) on
Looking ahead to WordCamp Europe 2020
The next WordCamp Europe takes place in Porto, Portugal on 4-6 June 2020. The venue is the Super Bock Arena / Pavilhão Rosa Mota at Jardins do Palácio de Cristal.
If you’re interested in helping put on the event, the call for organizers is open until July 15, 2019. You can find all the details on the WordCamp Europe 2020 website.
Come help us make #WCEU 2020 a reality! Submit your application to be a WCEU 2020 Organiser now! 📅 https://t.co/hhzrf3uBD0 pic.twitter.com/3DQR8aUCx1
— WordCamp Europe (@WCEurope) June 22, 2019
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