WordCamp Savannah 2010

WordCamp Savannah is almost here, and you’d be surprised how many little details there are to take care of just before everything happens. To that end, we’re looking for some volunteers to help make this WordCamp super crazy awesome. An hour or two, a whole day, the whole weekend… how much time you want to volunteer is up to you. It’s a great way to get more involved and meet some of the organizers and speakers. Check out the volunteers page for more information and let us know if you’re interested. Thanks!

People have been asking if we can make some of those “I’m attending” badges to put in their site sidebars. Your wish is our command! We’ve made a set of badges for attendees, speakers, and sponsors, available on the Badges page.

If you bought a ticket early, the schedule might have said we weren’t sure if we would be able to provide lunch on Saturday, since we didn’t know how much money we would raise. I’m glad to say we have raised enough money to feed everyone, and a BBQ lunch from Angel’s will be provided on Saturday by Gold level sponsor Automattic.

Lunch on Sunday is going to be potluck; we’ll talk about it on Saturday at the event.

The commemorative t-shirts have been ordered. We ordered a handful of extra ones in the most popular sizes to try and account for late registrations, but anyone registering from this point forward will not be guaranteed their preferred size if there’s a last minute run on tickets. Anyone who registered before this announcement will be guaranteed to receive the size they chose when they signed up.

The shirts are green in more ways than one. They’re green in color, like the trees of Savannah with their hanging moss. They’re also green in intent: we chose an eco-friendly blend fabric that can stand up to the humidity without getting soaked, and combines organic cotton with recycled polyester and a little bit of rayon. They’re cut loosely, like comfy old P.E. shirts, and are nice and light. We hope you like them!

It’s a good problem to have, right? 50+ people registered for the full-day newbie workshop on Friday, so we are now sold out of those tickets. You can still register for the regular Saturday/Sunday WordCamp tickets, but if you wanted to attend the separate Friday workshop, you’ll need to hop onto the waitlist. We’re close to selling out for Saturday and Sunday also, so if you were planning to come but haven’t bought your ticket yet, now is the time. You can buy Sat/Sun tickets and get on the Friday waitlist at the Tickets page.

Right now we have 113 people signed up for the inaugural WordCamp Savannah, yay! We’re going to be ordering our commemmorative t-shirts in a couple of days in order to get them in time for the event, so if you or anyone you know is planning to come but hasn’t registered yet, now’s the time! While we will be taking registrations right up until the event and will even do walk-ins (albeit at $5 more per ticket), to play it safe with our lovely sponsor money, we’ll only order as many shirts as we need. That means everyone should register by the end of the week if possible to guarantee getting a t-shirt at the event. Spread the word. Thanks!

Tickets are now on sale for WordCamp Savannah. Please sign up sooner rather than later, since the questions in the checkout form will help us plan the best event possible. Go get your ticket now!

And don’t forget to tell your friends, your co-workers, your local social groups, any and all local publications about WordCamp Savannah.

I’ve gotten a number of emails over the past couple of weeks from people who are interested in coming to WordCamp Savannah, but wonder if they’ll be able to keep up with the presentations because though they are thinking of using WordPress, they haven’t started yet. Since there are probably a fair number of people in this situation in Savannah, we’ve put together a full-day. pre-event workshop on Friday, August 20, 2010, to help these people ramp up. Since not everyone needs this, it will be ticketed as a separate event, but thanks to the generous sponsorship on Automattic, the company behind wordpress.com, it’s super affordable, and comes with some freebies.

Each workshop attendee will be walked through the setup of a site on wordpress.com and will learn about different content types, how to customize their site using themes and widgets, and how to use the features built into WordPress. You’ll also pick up tips on better blogging, SEO, building an audience, and integrating media into your site. By the end of the day you’ll have your own wordpress.com site with a customized design, and will have the vocabulary you need to understand the sessions over the rest of the weekend. Did I mention that the workshop instructors will include Happiness Engineers from wordpress.com? You’ll be getting information straight from the source, and will meet the people who provide wordpress.com’s famous 24/7 free support.

I’ve seen workshops like this go for $250 or more; you can get ours for only $30, and it will come with a free 1-year CSS upgrade (a $15 value) to enable your site design customizations during the workshop. If you have any questions about the workshop, leave a comment on this post and we will answer it here. Note: this workshop is a separate ticket from the rest of WordCamp weekend, so if you want to attend the weekend sessions as well (and you should, it will be awesome!), you’ll need to buy a ticket for the workshop *and* a regular WordCamp ticket. Trust me, it’ll be worth it.

The workshop will go from 9am to 5pm, and will be held at the SCAD River Club.

Step right up and get in the ground floor to sponsor the first ever WordCamp Savannah! We’ve got sponsorship opportunities for every budget, and hope to rack up the best collection of local and internet sponsors we possibly can to cover the costs of what we’re expecting to be an amazing community event. What will that amazing event be like, you ask?

• We’re expecting around 200 attendees, but can admit up to 500 if demand is high.
• We’ll be offering workshops for new WordPress users, sessions for current users and developers, and workshops for more advanced techniques.
• We’ll have a Genius Bar where WordPress experts will help people fix problems with their sites or figure out how to achieve new ideas.
• Food. Drink. Afterparty.
• Local WordPress practitioners as well as visiting speakers will provide a well-rounded program.
• Video coverage of the event will provide more exposure after the fact on WordPress.tv.

Since we all know it can take a while to get things organized, we’d like to confirm our sponsors by July 10, and get final payments processed by July 31 to ensure that we can cover our costs.

Note: Sponsors from within the WordPress “industry” should be aware that we will be adhering to WordCamp sponsorship guidelines and will only accept sponsors that are neither actively violating the WordPress license nor promoting businesses that are.

Become a sponsor now!

Hooray, we have a venue! SCAD Student Media has come on as a primary event sponsor, and as a result we will be able to hold WordCamp Savannah 2010 at the fantastic River Club. This converted warehouse space has two stories with room for a couple hundred people on each floor. This will allow us to run multiple tracks, so that people can decide for themselves what they want to learn about. Since the River Club is currently used as an event space, it’s all set up for projecting presentations, and can double as the afterparty space to boot. We’re so lucky that SCAD has this space and is donating it to the cause, so thank you, SCAD Student Media, for your helpful generosity!