Category Archives: Announcements

Last minute schedule change, new speaker announcement

It’s bittersweet that we have to announce a last minute change in our schedule. Guy Warner is not able to present on contributing to open source at tomorrow’s event. 😭  However, we’ve confirmed that Joseph Scott has swooped in to our rescue to take Guy’s place.  🎉

If you’ve been to WCSLC before, you know Joseph. He’s a developer at Automattic, active at the UtahWP meetups, and has spoken at many events around Utah and beyond. We’re thrilled that he was able to come to our rescue at the last minute. 😍

MOJO Afterparty

MOJO Marketplace has been generous enough to cover the afterparty again this year at WCSLC. The WordCamp SLC afterparty will be held at The Green Pig Pub, the same location as last year. This is a great opportunity for attendees to wind down, network with others, and recap everything you learned at WCSLC. Consider this the extended hallway track, where great conversations are had.

The Green Pig is a sports bar, a little like an Applebees. Their food is amazing, I recommend you try the sliders (vegetarian available). They have a full drink menu and cocktails as well.

WordCamp SLC is a safe place and we expect attendees to adhere to all the terms of the Code of Conduct while at the afterparty. If you do plan on consuming alcoholic beverages, please remember to play it safe and call Uber for your free ride home using “wcslc2015” code when you sign up.

MOJO Marketplace offers premium WordPress themes at their site mojomarketplace.com. Be sure to check them out and thank them for sponsoring WCSLC.

The WCSLC party starts at 7pm, and we hope to see you there!

Parking, Public Transportation and Uber

As we are getting closer to the event, you may be wondering where to find parking or how you will get to the event. Don’t worry we have you covered.

Parking

There is parking available at the City Library located on 400 S between 3rd E and 4th E. The cost of this parking is $3 hour with a $12 max. There is parking on the street that is free on Saturdays but it is limited. Parking at the City-County Building is restricted unless you have a handicap permit. With a permit the parking is on the east side of the building and the ADA entrance is south of the main steps.

Trax

If you want to ride the local public transit, a day pass for Trax is only $6.25. You will need to find your way to the Blueline Route. Once you are on Trax you will need to find either Courthouse Station or Library Station. Library Station is about 1/2 a block east and Courthouse Station is about 1 1/2 blocks west of the venue. Both are within walking distance.

Uber

Uber has been a great sponsor for us at WCSLC. They are back again this year with a free $20 to first-time Uber riders. This is a great way to support our sponsors and get a free ride to the venue. Download the app and signup using the coupon code “wcslc2015” to receive your credit.

Looking forward to seeing everyone no matter how you get there!

Show off your support with website badges!

We’ve got badges to bling up your site. If you’re sponsoring, volunteering, speaking at, or sponsoring this year’s WordCamp SLC, we’ve got you covered. Starring our Wapuutah, our site badges will add the necessary *pop* your site desperately needs to engage your visitors. 😉

Head over to the Site Badges page to download the image files or copy the code into a text widget or a post on your site.

Color your own Wapuutah, get a free WCSLC ticket!

Haven’t gotten your ticket to WordCamp SLC yet? Here’s a way you can get a free one.

We’re quite fond of Wapuutah and we know you guys are a creative bunch. So we’ve created these coloring pages so you can color your own Wapuutah just like when you were in Kindergarten! (Or, I suppose, if you have kids, you could let them color it. Or you could pretend your kids colored it and do it yourself, we won’t judge. Coloring is fun!) The coloring pages look like this:

wapuutah-coloring-page

 

Once you’ve completed your masterpiece, scan it or take a picture and post it to Twitter with the hashtags #wcslc and #wapuutah. We’ll pick a handful of our favorites and send you a coupon code for one free ticket. Make sure you’re following @wcslc, too, so we can send you a direct message letting you know that you won.

Wapuutah coloring pages will be available at WordCamp SLC, too, so you can have fun coloring them at WCSLC or take some home with you to share with other Wapuu-friendly family members!

Download the WordCamp SLC 2015 Wapuutah Coloring Page

Meet Wapuutah, the WordCamp SLC Wapuu

wapuutah_holding_a_classic_canteen

This cute little guy is Wapuutah, the WCSLC Wapuu. What’s a Wapuu? Well, legend has it that one day, when WordPress co-founder Matt Mullenweg visited Japan in 2009, the Japanese WordPress community asked him if they could design a WordPress mascot. After all, Drupal has the droplet guy, PHP has an elephant, Github has the Octocat, but WordPress…well, we just had a big W. Matt said, sure, so long as it’s GPL and is designed by someone who understands the open source community. Some time later, Wapuu was born, designed by Japanese illustrator Kazuko Kaneuchi (who had previously designed the NetBeans mascot Neko-Bean) and made his (or her) first appearance at WordCamp Fukuoka in 2011.

Since then, Wapuus have come in many shapes and sizes, with WordCamps adopting the cute, furry critter and adding some local color specific to their WordCamp. You can browse through a gallery of past Wapuus on the Wapuu Archive page (my personal favorite is Wapuunk from WordCamp London).

For WordCamp SLC, our little Wapuu takes the camp part of WordCamp literally, and is decked out with everything she needs for a trek through our beautiful mountains visible from the site of WordCamp SLC 2015. Wapuutah was designed by Velda Christensen — you can follow her on Twitter at @supernovia and, when she’s not Engineering Happiness at Automattic, she occasionally blogs at LegendOfVelda.com.

New at WordCamp SLC: Workshops!

We’re doing something new this year for WCSLC — workshops. What is a “workshop”, you say? I’m glad you asked!

Workshops are informal, low-key, demo-based presentations. They will be held in a smaller room, with more time for direct interaction with the presenter and one-on-one questions and answers. The format will be a lot like a presentation you might see at a WordPress meetup. It also gives us a way to provide more options for you guys who want to see great content and presenters. Some presentations work better in this smaller, more intimate format and we’re excited to be offering something new.

Over the next couple weeks we’ll be introducing you to our workshop presenters like we did for our speakers. Stay tuned!

Call for Sponsors

Would you like to help make WordCamp SLC happen and show your support for the WordPress community? Sure you do! Let us know that you’d like to be a WCSLC Sponsor!