WordCamps Paying For Speaker Travel

[Andrea Middleton]

This discussion started here: https://make.wordpress.org/community/2014/08/27/speaker-travel-for-wordcamps/

I think this topic would benefit from face-to-face discussion. My sense is that this centers around the emphasis we put on “localness” for WordCamps, but I think it also addresses issues of financial responsibility.

[Joe Dolson]

As a fully self-employed (and therefore self-funded WC speaker), I definitely think this is an important area of discussion. It’s not at all clear cut what WordCamps should provide, but as much as I’ve found speaker gifts (bags, etc. ) to be neat, I’m not sure that’s the best use of funds.

[Aaron Hockley]

+1 – good topic, and I could see it growing a bit (either on purpose or accidentally) into the “What should a WordCamp be” question as noted in many of the comments on that post. We’re seeing more non-WordCamp events spring up that seem to be appeasing some of the folks who didn’t like the guidelines of a WordCamp.

I’m happy to share some experiences of how we found non-traditional WordCamp speakers for WordCamp Portland in years past (both local and non-local… and we covered zero expenses for any of them).

[Xavier Borderie]

Count me in.

[David Decker]

For a lot of “Freelancers” or small agencies the whole travel costs (and anything in that field…) is often a big burden and the reason why lots of them cannot even visit those events: WordCamp Europe, San Francisco and all this “bigger” events…

At WordCamp Europe, I saw some speakers were from Automattic or other bigger agencies, so the speakers might get paid by those. — I’d like to know if that’s true or not.

And my question is: what should be done or what is needed to pay all speakers, for example for WordCamp Europe, the travel costs??? Especially for those “community speakers” that are not backed up by Automattic or their own “big agency” (whatever).

For example: I personally need not a T-Shirt, if that would help to financially support more speakers that otherwise could not speak at such an event.

[David Decker]

Personal exapmple:
Maybe I would be myself at WCSF this year, if I had found the post about financial support earlier this year. I found it end of September, when the program was already closed. Back in summer there was no real info available on what was planned for the whole events in San Francisco. This forum here should have been open since spring of this year or so… All way too late in my opinion. At least, it’s great a forum was/is here to post such thoughts, concerns etc.

Maybe it’s only me or not, don’t know. However, for a lot of reasons, travel planning, vacation planning is done at the beginning of a year, or at least in spring. I’d like to know in that time frame where I could fly in October of a year and if any financial support my be available.
I know this may be difficult, especially for the organizers, however, it would extremely help for visitors from other countries to plan a visit longer and help to gain financial support (also from other sources).

[Marko Heijnen]

This is a really good topic. I’m now lucky to be in a position that most of my WordCamp travels are paid for but I do know how it hard it was when I was a freelancer.

I totally get that a WordCamp should be local but I also would love to see that a WordCamp has a good mix of speakers and that can be challenging in certain countries. As what David said, a lot of speakers who are from abroad are mostly from bigger agencies. And being part of WordCamp Belgrade, I would love to invite some foreign speakers so the people in Serbia can meet with people who are more involved in the project.

Side note: Sorry David, I should have said something to you about it.

[Petya Raykovska]

Meeting people from the global community at the local WordCamp is one of the perks of being involved in the first place. Local meet-ups do a lot in terms of skill share, but the great community vibe and the cultural diversity is one of the things that can help grow local communities by attracting more people to show up in the first place.

I believe there are great potential speakers outside the big agencies who may deserve a little Foundation backup.

I’ll be happy to be a part of this discussion.

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