Hi everyone!
We hope that you’ve enjoyed an awesome day at WordCamp Vancouver. We strive to make each WordCamp better than the last. Please take a moment to fill in this brief survey and let us know how the event was for you!
Author Archives: Joey Kudish
WordCamp Vancouver is tomorrow!
WordCamp Vancouver is tomorrow! Can you believe it? We sure can’t! Can you even hold in the excitement?
Here’s some important information for you to know for tomorrow.
- WordCamp Vancouver takes place at BCIT Downtown Campus at 555 Seymour Street – Vancouver, V6B 3H6. We recommend walking, biking or using public transit to get to BCIT Downtown Campus. If you use public transit, please get off at Granville station (using expo/millenium line) or Vancouver City Center (using Canada line). If you are arriving by car, please note that the BCIT parking lot will be closed on August 17th. There are other public parking lots nearby, notably on Seymour St. Parking on the street may be difficult and/or costly. We’ve shared more details about venue, transportation and accommodations here.
- Registration and some light networking begins at 8:00a. Opening remarks kick us off at 8:50a and speakers begin at 9:15a. Opening and closing remarks will be given in both the Conference and Atrium rooms but not the Board room.
- You do not need to bring anything to prove that you’ve registered to the event. We’ve got you covered.
- Generally speaking, we don’t recommend chugging along your heavy laptop. Bring your phone or tablet, sure; but this once a year event is a great opportunity for you to mingle, network and learn from other WordPress minded individuals, your pressing emails or work can wait ;). We’ll even provide something for you to take notes!
- There will be tea, coffee and water available throughout the day. Some light breakfast pastries will be served with registration. Please do not expect to have a full breakfast. Lunch will be served at 12p. Other small snacks will be made available throughout the day as well.
- The schedule is posted here. It will also be available on the home page of this site, on printed banners and in some of the swag given to all attendees during the day. There are 3 tracks in 3 rooms. The conference room and the board room are on the second floor of the building. The atrium is on the 8th floor of the building. Don’t worry there is 5 elevators and lots of signage to get you there in time for that session you want to see!
- We did make one small change to the schedule since it was originally posted. Please note that due to the last minute nature of this change, some of the printed materials will not have this change incorporated. Sorry! Due to unforeseen circumstances Bruce Gruenbaum has had to cancel his talk. As a result, we have added a new speaker, Ben Lobaugh at 11:15 in the Atrium. He will be speaking on Taking flight with Jetpack development.
- We’ve got a great after party planned at Rogue Wet Kitchen and Bar, just a few blocks away from the venue at 601 W. Cordova St. The party starts at 6p. We hope you can join us there!
- Thanks so much to all of our sponsors. We’d like to highlight BlueHost, DreamHost, Washington State University and of course BCIT for making the event possible!
- There will be volunteers at the event wearing black and blue WordCamp Vancouver shirts that say “WordCamp Ranger” on the back of them. If you have any issue, questions or comments during the event, just find one of us.
In addition, if you have any questions at all before, during or after the event, please contact us by leaving a comment below, emailing us or tweeting at us (@wordcampyvr and/or #wcyvr).
See you soon!
WordCamp Organizers Jill, Flynn and Joey
Thank you False Creek Level Sponsors
Thank you so much to our False Creek sponsors! Once again, without the help of our sponsors we simply wouldn’t be able to put on this event. So please make sure to thank them when you see them this weekend!
At the False Creek level, we have the following companies to thank: 10Up, Forge & Smith, SFN Design, WPML, Kimbo Design, and Jukebox Print.
Thank you Burrard Inlet Sponsors!
Thank you so much to all WordCamp Vancouver sponsors. Without their generous help, WordCamp wouldn’t be the same or wouldn’t be at all!
We’d like to highlight and thank our Burrard Inlet Sponsors:
Code Poet
If you use WordPress to build things for other people, we want to make your life easier. No matter whether you freelance on a solo basis, lead a small web shop, make plugins in a dark closet, or crack the whip at a large design firm, our aim is to become your go-to source of information and resources to help you expand your WordPress skills and know-how. To make you better at what you do. To make it easier to make your living and look great doing it.
You’re part of a tribe of WordPress designers and developers over 10,000 strong, spanning the entire globe. CodePoet.com aims to bring the working knowledge and real world strategies of those people into one place, for you tap into.
CA Cloud
CA Cloud is the leading provider of on-demand cloud hosting services in Canada with enterprise infrastructure, easy-to-use tools, and guaranteed performance with a click of the mouse. CA Cloud offers prebuilt high performance Elastic Cloud Servers, fully scalable resource pools at a fixed cost, and easy to use Shared Cloud Hosting and CDN with everything you need to build WordPress sites and Blogs in less than a minute, or SaaS Applications and databases for webapps. CA Cloud IS 100% Canadian-owned. Get 1 month free with promo code WORDCAMP2013.
Sparkjoy Studios
Sparkjoy Studios is a Vancouver web agency focused on client relationships that function like partnerships. We create web assets and craft people and search-friendly content for our clients. Sparkjoy specializes in using WordPress for blogs, event ticketing, content management, and as a framework for custom plugins and web applications.
Thank you sooooo much sponsors!
Venue sponsor: BCIT
Without a venue… well without a venue, there simply wouldn’t be a WordCamp. Thank you SO MUCH to BCIT’s High Tech Professional Programs (HTP) for sponsoring the venue for this year’s WordCamp Vancouver.
British Columbia Institute of technology is BC’s largest post-secondary institution. BCIT offers part-time and full-time courses and programs in technology, trades, engineering, business, and health.
High-Tech Professional Programs, a department within the School of Computing at BCIT’s downtown campus, offers intensive programs that combine business, professional, and technical skills in a realistic work environment. You’ll learn from experienced professionals in a team-based cohort model and will have an opportunity to make valuable industry contacts through work terms and sponsored projects.
And a quick reminder that WordCamp takes places at BCIT Downtown Campus located at 555 Seymour Street – Vancouver, V6B 3H6. We’ve posted an array of information regarding location, venue and transportation as well.
Thanks BCIT!
Georgia Straight Sponsor: Washington State University
Thank you so much to all WordCamp Vancouver sponsors. We’d like to highlight and thank Washington State University for sponsoring WordCamp Vancouver as a Georgia Straight sponsor.
Founded as the people’s university in 1890 in Pullman, Washington State University seeks to fulfill its mission by transforming lives globally through world-class education, research, and community outreach. More than 26,000 students attend WSU at campuses in Pullman, Spokane, the Tri-Cities, and Vancouver, as well as through the Global Campus, a nationally recognized online learning environment serving people worldwide.
Because of a shared philosophy about serving the public good, the University is committed to being a leader in the WordPress community and in improving the web.
Visit wsu.edu for more details, and if you spot anyone from WSU at WordCamp please make sure you say thanks!
Georgia Straight Sponsor: DreamHost
Sponsors are an integral part of what makes WordCamp possible. Thank you DreamHost for donating to WordCamp Vancouver as a Georgia Straight sponsor.
DreamHost is a global Web hosting and cloud services provider with over 350,000 customers and 1.2 million blogs, websites and apps hosted. The company offers a wide spectrum of Web hosting and cloud services including Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), Dedicated Server Hosting, Domain Name Registration, the cloud storage service, DreamObjects, and the cloud computing service DreamCompute.
Visit DreamHost.com for more details, and if you spot anyone from DreamHost at WordCamp please make sure you say thanks!
Thank you DreamHost!
What do you want to know about running a WordPress business?
As part of WordCamp Vancouver 2013 we have a panel discussion about running a WordPress Business. The panelists have a vast array of experience, from freelancing to sole proprietorships to agency work and beyond, and this is your opportunity to tap their knowledge to help you on your way to building your own successful WordPress business.
Shawn Johnston, Grant Landram, Justin Sainton and Curtis McHale will be part of the panel, which will be moderated by Morten Rand-Hendriksen.
There is lots of ground to cover and lots of topics that can be discussed, and to ensure you get what you want out of the panel discussion and walk away with valuable insights we are asking for your participation:
What do you want to know about running a WordPress Business? Are there any particular topics or questions you want the panelists to address? Are there particular issues you feel are preventing you from getting where you want to go? Are you looking for real life examples of how to handle a certain situation? Are you looking to expand or branch out but don’t know where to start?
You’ve got two ways to let us know your pressing your questions and we’ll do our best to include them in the conversation and get the answers to get you on your way:
- Leave a comment below
- Or, alternatively send a message directly to Morten, the moderator of the panel, using the contact form on his site.
Pacific Ocean Sponsor: Bluehost
Without the contribution of our sponsors, WordCamp simply wouldn’t be possible. Thank you Bluehost for making a huge contribution to WordCamp Vancouver and the WordPress community at large as a Pacific Ocean sponsor.
Bluehost has been a WordPress partner since 2005 and powers over one million WordPress sites. Their goal is to provide outstanding hosting services and customer support for the best possible price. Bluehost is also constantly innovating and upgrading their services and infrastructure at no additional cost to their customers. Join the millions of other website owners that have already chosen Bluehost and see how they can help you with your site.
Visit bluehost.com for more details, and if you spot anyone from Bluehost at WordCamp please make sure you say thanks!
Thank you Bluehost!
Accommodations & Transportation
Hey everyone!
With WordCamp Vancouver (you have your ticket already, right? less than 50 left! hurry up!) fast approaching, we wanted to share some important information with you regarding accommodation and transportation.
As several WordCamp Vancouver speakers, sponsors and attendees will be travelling from out of town, we thought we’d give you a few recommendations for accommodations in our lovely city of Vancouver, as well as transportation information.
Arriving in Vancouver
If you are arriving via air, it’s inexpensive and easy to get from the airport to any Downtown destination taking the Canada Line rapid transit rail link from the airport. In almost all cases the cost from the airport is about $9 and $3 on the way back. Ticketing machines accept bills, coins, debit and credit cards. It takes about 30 minutes to get from the Airport to Downtown. Cabs from the airport to Downtown usually cost about $40 and take about the same time, sometimes longer when there’s bad traffic. Public transit in Vancouver is offered by Translink. Google Maps offers reliable public transit directions.
Hotel Recommendations
We’ve gathered a few hotel recommendations for you:
Sandman Hotel, rooms starting around $160 per night
Lonsdale Quay, rooms starting around $170 per night
Rosedale on Robson, rooms starting around $170 per night
Holiday Inn Vancouver, rooms starting around $175 per night
Hotel Le Soleil, rooms starting around $186 per night
Metropolitan, rooms starting around $229 per night
Opus Boutique Hotel, rooms starting around $270
Fairmont Vancouver, rooms starting around $360 per night
All of these hotels, with the exception of Lonsdale Quay (which is a quick seabus ride away) are within walking distance of the WordCamp venue.
There is also a number of great apartments/rooms for rent on AirBnb, raging from $45 to $250+ per night. While we cannot recommend specific rentals, we’ve heard great things about using AirBnb and do recommend the service as a whole.
Transportation information
As a reminder, the venue for WordCamp Vancouver 2013 is BCIT Downtown Campus located at 555 Seymour Street – Vancouver, V6B 3H6. The venue is in the heart of Downtown Vancouver and within walking distance of several hotels.
We recommend walking, biking or using public transit to get to BCIT Downtown Campus. If you use public transit, please get off at Granville station (using expo/millenium line) or Vancouver City Center (using Canada line).
If you are arriving by car, please note that the BCIT parking lot will be closed on August 17th. There are other public parking lots nearby, notably on Seymour St. Parking on the street may be difficult and/or costly.
Use these tools to help plan your trip to the BCIT Downtown Campus:
Map
We’ve prepared a helpful map of many key and recommended locations around Vancouver. Including the airport, venue, the after party location and all of the recommended hotels from above. We’ve also added a number of recommended activities, restaurants and attractions for out of own attendees. Please note that BCIT, the WordCamp venue is indicated by the blue WordPress logo whereas the after party location is indicated by the grey logo.