This year, due to the Covid-19 crisis, the WordPress community faced a tough decision – to cancel or postpone WordCamps – the traditional yearly events gathering in one place developers, users and open-source fans in different cities all over the world.
Of course, this made us sad. DevriX is an integral part of the WordPress community. Our lead contributors have been actively involved in organizing and supporting the WordCamp conferences in Bulgaria and Europe for the past 9 years. Sharing in-person and exchanging ideas is what makes these annual WP events so special to us.
After the pandemic outbreak, the Bulgarian WP community didn’t want to risk the health and safety of the local WordPress members, so it put the organization on hold. A few weeks later the organizers started discussing the possibility of holding the conference digitally. The WordCamp Central also issued recommendations to organize all events online-only.
WordCamp Europe was held in June entirely online and resulted in one of the most successful editions ever. Over 2,500 registered attendees from more than 140 countries have taken part in the virtual event, according to the community stats.
And while many WordCamps around the world were cancelled and postponed for 2021, the Bulgarian team decided to gather the whole community digitally at the first Online WordCamp Bulgaria on October 24th.
The event will bring together developers, digital experts, marketers, bloggers, and everyone that lives and breathes WordPress for a fruitful and interesting digital conference.
But that’s not all. In 2020, we also mark the 10th Anniversary of WordPress in Bulgaria and this makes the event even more special for all local members. (If you’re already as excited as we are, sign up for the conference here.)
What’s New at Virtual WordCamp 2020
DevriX’s CTO and WordPress Core contributor Stanko Metodiev is the lead organizer of the event this year so we asked him to share some insights on the first ever digital WordCamp in Bulgaria.
“There are three new announcements around this year’s event. The virtual location – we had all brainstorming sessions, meetings with speakers, sponsors and all involved parties happening online. The pricing – WordCamp Bulgaria is 100% free. Usually, the WordCamp’s policy is to keep ticket prices as low as possible so they can be affordable and welcoming for everyone.”
As there are no actual costs, the sponsorship packages are also free.
“This is a gesture aiming to say big thank you to all the sponsors and micro sponsors supporting the local community since the early days. We decided that they deserve praise on our website. Let’s give them our round of applause for making this event possible through the years.”, adds Devrix’s CTO Stanko Metodiev.
Our WordPress Technical Support Specialist Plamen Georgiev is also taking part in the organization. One of his main tasks is to secure the smooth online streaming. WordCamp Bulgaria 2020 will be streamed using a new platform called StreamYard, where attendees can watch and join the conversation online. The event will also be available on Twitch.tv, YouTube.com and WordCamp Facebook page.
Hooray to @wpdevrix for sponsoring #WPCampus 2020 Online at the undergraduate level!
They are a boutique #WordPress development agency that provides ongoing development and consulting retainer plans.#HigherEd #HEWeb https://t.co/CuBxIk3AKm
— WPCampus (@wpcampusorg) July 23, 2020
WordCamp Bulgaria 2020 Speakers & Sessions
The organizers have invited eight remarkable speakers from the community who will share their knowledge and experience on everything WordPress-related and beyond.
Mario Peshev
If you are a freelancer, service provider, or WordPress agency that offers design and development or you build sites, don’t miss this talk. DevriX’s CEO Mario Peshev will share strategic and actionable insights on how to diversify and strengthen your offering and stand out from the competition to get more clients and deals done.
“Diversify and adapt according to the business needs of your target audience. If your clientele is heavily impacted by COVID, come up with cheaper plans covering the basics, turnkey solutions that “get the job done”, as well as other workarounds that could solve a painful problem”, said Mario Peshev when asked what is the most important advice he would give in terms of doing business during a pandemic.
According to him, being compassionate and adaptable to meet the client’s needs is what we all need to do right now.
“Productize your services to improve adoption rates. Being flexible is being compassionate – your services are in demand and will be as long as you can adapt alongside your clients.”
Joost de Valk
Joost de Valk is the founder and Chief Product Officer (CPO) at the search engine optimization WordPress plugin Yoast. Ten years ago was his first appearance on WordCamp Bulgaria, where he spoke about how to make sure your content is found on search engines. This year we will be able to hear exactly the same topic but modernized as its 2020 edition.
We are always thrilled to learn his new take on content creation, Google ranking and indexation and best SEO practices we need to apply nowadays to get our page rank on the first page.
Pavel Pavlov
Pavel Pavlov is an experienced developer with an impressive portfolio of projects. For the last 5 years his focus is on building WordPress websites. During WordCamp Bulgaria 2020 he will talk about how to improve your online shop and grow your sales using WooCommerce. The popular eCommerce CMS is a preferred choice by many developers and business owners as it provides flexibility, reliability and supports multiple plugins.
Justine Toms
Justine Toms is a veteran blogger and a marketing expert with 20+ years of experience, lecturer, teacher and author of books. At this year’s WordCamp she will share some success stories on how businesses and individuals can benefit from blogging.
The talk will cover useful tips and tricks on how to make your business blog successful in terms of technology, content and best practices. Stay tuned for great examples from Bulgaria to get you inspired to improve your blogging skills and change your whole approach in blogging.
See all WordCamp Bulgaria speakers and sessions here.
Wrapping up
Each WordCamp event around the world is happening thanks to the community. Bulgaria is not an exception. Organizers, speakers and volunteers gather together to create this special event for the community.
Sign-up for a FREE ticket and join us online on October 24th at 10:00 am. We are expecting you!