Free Ticket Giveaway: WordCamp UK, 18-19 July, 2009
Posted on 12. May, 2009 by Chi-chi Ekweozor in Inspired, Your Opinion, Please
I’m giving away a free ticket to attend WordCamp UK 2009, the WordPress UK Conference in July. Read on to find out why!
It’s been an absolute pleasure to be involved in the planning for the second ever WordCamp UK conference.
WordCamp UK is the informal annual gathering of WordPress publishers, designers and developers based in the UK. This year it is taking place in Cardiff, Wales, on the weekend of 18-19 July 2009.
WordPress is a very popular content management system (CMS) regularly used by bloggers world over as the open source platform of choice for a blog. This site is proudly powered by WordPress and joins thousands of others around the UK running the platform.
Back in the summer of 2007 when I was considering CMS platforms for a re-launched Real Fresh TV website, I came across a little known South African freelance WordPress developer called Adii who worked with me to develop the current version of the Real Fresh TV site.
He has since gone on to greater things including the launch of his company, radiiate, and the very successful WordPress theme design business, WooThemes.
I’m proud to have been involved in popularising the WordPress platform in some way in the UK and jumped at the opportunity to support the growing community of WordPress developers up and down the country.
WordPress powers sites for the great (number10.gov.uk) and the good (twestival.com). Number10.gov.uk is the Prime Minister’s website. Twestival.com was a series of tweetups around the world that raised money for Charity:Water on 12th February.
I’m helping with the press for WordCamp UK 2009, and have over recent months contributed to the very active WordPress UK list managed by Tony Scott alongside developers Simon Wheatley and Laura Kalbag who have toiled away to develop a bi-lingual WordCamp UK 2009 website. The site’s content will be available in Welsh and English.
There are many more other contributors on the list, sign up if you’re based in the UK and are interested in WordPress development.
I am micro-sponsoring WordCamp UK 2009 and will also be speaking on Building Audience & Community at the event alongside the illustrious Chris Garrett, a well-known UK blogger.
It’s been a delight to watch the plans for the conference come together and I’m particularly excited that WordPress founding developers Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little will be present.
Matt will be discussing current WordPress developments covering both WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
Matt is highly respected in web circles not only for developing one of the world’s most popular blogging platforms but for doing it all at the tender age of 20-something. He is one of PC World’s Top 50 People on the Web, Inc.com’s 30 under 30, and Business Week’s 25. Find out more about Matt.
Manchester-based Mike Little who piped up to help Matt develop an open source version of b2, the earlier iteration of the software that became known as WordPress will also be speaking.
Mike recently founded his own independent business providing WordPress-powered web solutions having worked in blue chip IT firms for a very long time.
The early bird registration for the conference is just £25 for the two day event, rising to £35 on 31st May.
Sponsors are still being courted and if you’d like to sponsor WordCamp UK 2009 please take a minute to download the Press and Sponsorship Pack which I helped write!
If you’d like a free ticket to attend WordCamp UK 2009, just leave a comment after this post letting me know what you think of WordPress!
I will select a comment at random and award the lucky commenter a free ticket to WordCamp UK 2009. You are responsible for arranging your transport to Cardiff and your accommodation whilst there.
Speaking of WordPress development, I’ve been busy managing the design and development of the new website for the Arts Council’s AmbITion project, managed by Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA). Obviously, it’s powered by WordPress…
It’s been a pretty hectic few weeks; the site is scheduled to go live in coming days. I’ll be posting more about the new AmbITion website soon.
For other write ups on WordCamp UK 2009, check out posts by Neville Hobson and Jeff Van Campen.
What are you waiting for? Leave me a comment and grab that free ticket to WordCamp UK 2009!
Update:
You have until 9am on Thursday 14th May to enter. Good luck!
Update – Thursday 14th May: We have a winner! Grace Long, your entry was chosen by the Random Number Generator at random.org! Read on to find out more. Thanks for entering all!
Related posts:
- Free WordCamp UK 2009 Ticket Giveaway: We have a winner!
- The Case for Open Source in Enterprise aka What I Learnt at WordCamp UK 2009
- WordCamp UK 2010 is happening in Manchester… woot!!
- b.TWEEN09 and WordCamp UK – The Media and Web Conference Season begins
I just discovered that Word Camp would be in my own back yard this year. I’m planning to get my ticket before the price goes up, but it’d be great to get one for free!
Good luck everyone.
In my opinion, WordPress is the best blogging platform around today. I’m definitely going to Cardif in July and looking forward to meeting the makers and all WP fans!
Having used Wordpress on the majority of my websites I can see why its one of the most popular platforms for web designers. The ease of use, the vast amount of quality themes and the huge user community makes it a wonderful tool for beginners and professionals. Would love the opportunity to meet other like-minded designers/developers in Cardiff.
Wordcamp is walking distance from my home. Cool! With wordpress being my cms of choice it would be great to attend
Thanks for the mention
The reason I love WordPress is that the community and driving developers behind it are a force for good, and not greed. The idea that anyone can have a voice just using a simple wordpress.com account, or build their full-blown company web site using a wordpress.org installation is totally inspiring to me.
That’s not to mention all the awesome work of theme and plugins authors who make WordPress even better and the bloggers and content creators who really push the boundaries of what WordPress is.
I’ll be at WordCamp, and I’m looking forward to meeting everyone else there.
Hi, I have just found out that this year’s Wordcamp will be held just down the road from where I live. I have been interested in using Wordpress for some time now and would really love to be able to dip my feet into the world of Wordpress and find out more about it. It would be a great opportunity to meet the Who’s Who of Wordpress and its developers. I certainly would love to come to attend, meet and have a chat with everyone. It will be a bonus if the ticket will be free.
@Laura Kalbag:
Thanks for your comment, what a positive force of good that was!
Sorry for not spotting it till now, pretty busy on other (WordPress related) stuff.
)
Look forward to meeting you at WordCamp!
Came across this great site where you can watch TV and play internet radio on your PC it currently has over 2000 channels and is adding more all the time. It’s called want It Cheaper TV and at the moment its FREE with no subscription charge at all, check it out at: http://www.wantitcheaperTV.co.uk
So you would like to know what I think of WordPress ? Hmmm well I think it Presses Words well. If it were simpler to Press Words with;say like an iron,that would be even better for Word Pressing on with.
@Ossie Jesson:
Thanks for your comment but the competition has closed!
Closed yesterday at 9am as it says in the blog post.
I hope to run more WordPress competitions like this so stay tuned!