Presentations & Videos

We have updated speaker bios with links to presentation slides, videos and notes on WordCamp from speakers. Have a look; if there’s a (*) next to the speaker’s name, we have stuff for them or from them!

Camper Reviews

Notes and reviews of WordCamp 2010 and various presentations. Most recently discovered listed first:

• Leslie Gilmour
• Andrea Trasatti
• Yoast
• Steve Flinter 1 | 2
• Anthony McG
• Thoroughly Good 1 | 2 | 3
• Niall Harbison
• Freeman Contingent
• Paris by Numbers 1 | 2
• Anna Bee
• Irish Dev
• Sabrina Dent
• Donncha O Caoimh

Photos!

• Martha Rotter
• Ann Donnelly
• Liam de Burca
• Pixie (official photo pool – add yours!)
• Blacknight
• Donncha O Caoimh

Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine

We’ve been inundated with great enthusiasm for Wordcamp Ireland 2010 on Twitter, from attendees, speakers and sponsors alike. We’re delighted so many of you had such a great time, and in the face of so much enthusiasm, we’re going to go ahead and start planning WordCamp 2011 with your help and feedback.

For WordCamp 2011, we promise to:

• Use the right WordPress logo (I’m going to WordPress Hell – Sabrina)
• Block book all rooms at Langton’s so more people can stay there
• Have a smoother registration and check-in system
• Have an online list of attendees so people can find each other after camp
• Re-work the Speakers & Sponsors dinner so it’s more mingle-y
• Signpost the outside of Langton’s so it’s easier to get into!
• Sort out the Conservatory sunlight issue and blackout draping (So sorry about that…)
• Do a better job with lunches (we got slammed by the walk-in registration numbers)
• Have VGA hookup dongle thingies for both kinds of Macs for all rooms
• Have tea, coffee and water available all day every day, instead of tea and coffee service
• Open the bar in the ballroom after the last talk both days so we have our own bar
• Organise volunteer videographers for all sessions, speaker permission allowing
• Organise more volunteer opportunities now that we know what we’ll need
• Do more further in advance so we have a chance to sleep, shower and hang out more with 250 amazing, amazing people

Part of the reason why, after having sworn we would never do this again, we are suddenly mad-keen to host Wordcamp 2011 is that we want want the chance to fix the things we cocked up this year. We genuinely want to know what else you’d like us to do better. Please let us have your feedback in the comments and we’ll do our very best!

SO: Tell us what you liked best, what you liked least, and what just plain didn’t work for you. We do this for the WordPress community, and we want to know what the community wants!

Online purchase for WordCamp Ireland is now closed. However, you can still purchase tickets – we’ll be running a cash desk at WordCamp registration for those who have not been able register before hand.Please note these will be cash transactions only – no cheques, no credit cards.

Guidelines are as follows:

Saturday Tickets:

• ALL tickets purchased on Saturday are €50. There is no discount even if you are only planning to attend on the Saturday.
• Tickets include lunch and coffee breaks both days.
• Tickets may be also be purchased for the optional Saturday Night Dinner. These tickets are €25 each and children under 12 are free of charge.

Sunday Tickets:

• Sunday tickets are €25 each. There is no additional discount for late entry.
• Please have mercy on our souls and bring exact change. The WordPress gods will thank you.

If you are going to do a walk-up registration, we would REALLY APPRECIATE IT if you could add your name to the comments so we can get some kind of vague count. Thanks a lot!

We’ve gotten our very first WordCamp swag made up, and here’s a preview.

Guess what it is. G’wan, guess. We can almost guarantee you won’t nail what it is, and that if you do, you won’t guess what it’s for. But if you do, we’ll give you a prize – just pop your guesses into the comments.

There will in fact be lots of prizes and give aways at WordCamp; our sponsors have offered up some woot swag andwe’ll be running contests and draws all weekend and announcing winners at lunch and after the last event on Sunday.

Get yer lucky shorts on!

We recently became aware that the ticket order form was miscalculating some ticket orders, in particular those where the attendee was trying to purchase extra tickets for Saturday’s dinner. Unfortunately, we became aware of this when a grand total of 56 WordCamp emails we had never seen before, many complaining about the broken checkout calculating an absurd cost for dinner tickets, arrived by email yesterday morning.

According to our mail provider, this was due to “an anti-fraud feature implemented by the control panel vendors” and was corrected on Thursday. I believe some mail may also have bounced; we’re very sorry if you tried to reach us and could not. We’re also very sorry if you tried to order extra dinner tickets with your conference pass and could not.

While dinner will be good, it will not be €2,500 worth of good. The form now correctly calculates the extra Saturday dinner ticket prices at €25 each. If you need to “top up” your WordCamp order with extra dinner tickets you were unable to order before, you can now do that online. Again, our profound apologies.

Below are answers to some of the questions we’ve been getting about ticketing:

1. I didn’t order my tickets because I couldn’t check out correctly. What should I do?
The order form has been fixed. You should order your tickets now.

2. I didn’t order my tickets because I couldn’t get the form to load. What do I do?
Load the form directly. Or, you know, turn JavaScript on. It’s not that evil…

3. I ordered my tickets but not (obviously) the extra dinner tickets I need. What should I do?
You can now order extra dinner tickets on their own form.

4. I ordered my tickets but never got confirmation from you. Did you get my order?
If your PayPal records show a payment to Katherine Nolan, than yes we did. Your name is on the list and we will be sending you a confirmation and ticketing email this weekend as well.

If you have ANY PROBLEMS ORDERING from here on out, please let us know. You can send @WordCampIreland a tweet, add a comment here, or use the contact form. We will send you a PayPal invoice directly if online ordering is failing for you – we genuinely want to make this as easy as possible and apologise for the fact that it has been difficult for some people.

As promised when we launched WordCamp, now that the first 100 tickets (and then some) are gone, we will be increasing our ticket prices as of 1 February. We encourage you to get your tickets while they are still cheap.

While the blog has been quiet, there’s a lot in the works behind the scenes and we’re looking forward to releasing the following into the wild:

• Announcing the next round of speakers very shortly
• Extremely cool swag bag loot for attendees
• Announcing our last few sponsors (we only have four spots left!)

One of the reasons there’s been a delay in finalising the speakers is that we are, frankly, way behind on our WordCamp email. Katherine and I both apologise; we are digging ourselves out of the email black hole this weekend. Holidays, travel and our real jobs got the better of us but WordCamp is full steam ahead and we’ve gone to press with our first printed materials for the conference.

OK sure – not very thrilling for you, but very exciting for us.

Anyway, here’s the venue map of where all the action will be happening, complete with our major sponsors:

Fine, we’ll just sit here and be excited by our map all by ourselves.

We’re delighted to announce that thanks to sponsorship from EURid, the European Registry of Internet Domain Names, WordCamp Ireland will be sporting the lovely .EU Power Station. You’ll be able to recharge your laptop, mobile phone, PDA or other standard gear in the main hall’s Power Lounge, complete with comfy chairs and cozy cups of coffee, and we’ll even let you DJ while you wait!

[ Image credit ]

We spent a lot of time putting together what we think are some fairly excellent sponsorship packages for this conference. As it turns out, sponsors to date have been less concerned about what they can stick in your swag bag and much, much more concerned with their signature cocktails (more on that later – boy, do we have plans for your hangovers…)

But we’ve also named the four rooms we’ll be using for sessions for our four top sponsors. As our lead sponsor, Blacknight gets its moniker on the incredibly impressive, brand-new Set Theatre [more pics] for the duration of WordCamp. It is impossible for us to emphasise enough what a fabulous venue Langton’s is, but this – this is seriously swank.

And if you’re a speaker scheduled for this venue – fear not. It comes with a Green Room with private loo where you can conveniently invert your head prior to stepping out onto this rather imposing stage. It’s scary but you’ll have a chance to walk it before your event, which will help!

We’d love to have you join us as a WordCamp Ireland sponsor – we’ve great packages with real value for the companies and businesses who want to support a critical and huge part of the web community.