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Our takeaways from WordCamp Brighton 2016

Angelo and Michael on our sponsorship stand at WordCamp Brighton
Angelo and Michael on our sponsorship stand at WordCamp Brighton. Photo credit: Annette Völckner

Last weekend our team helped organise, sponsor, and even spoke at WordCamp Brighton 2016!

WordCamp Brighton was very special for us. It was held in our hometown and we’ve been involved with it from the very start. Six members of our team were organisers and had been volunteering their time to help out in varied areas.

Tom Chute helping out on the registration desk at WordCamp Brighton
Tom Chute helping out on the registration desk at WordCamp Brighton. Photo credit: Annette Völckner
Tom Still, Lauren and Tom Chute along with the other organisers and volunteers.
Tom Still, Lauren and Tom Chute along with the other organisers and volunteers. Photo credit: Annette Völckner

Our Founder & Director David Lockie was lead on Sponsors with assistance from Sarah and Laura. Tom Still was lead on the design and development of the WordCamp Brighton website, graphics, Wapuu and swag with design assistance from Tom Doidge. And Tom Chute helped organise all of the volunteers.

James Morrison delivering his talk at WordCamp Brighton.
James Morrison delivering his talk at WordCamp Brighton. Photo credit: Gemma Evans

Our Head of Support, James Morrison presented a talk on the lessons he’s learnt using WordPress Multisite. In it he covered what WordPress Multisite is, when you’d need to use it and when not to use it, and the key differences between single site and multisite. You can view the slides here.

Michael on our sponsorship stand.
Michael on our sponsorship stand. Photo credit: Gemma Evans
Volunteer photographer Annette Völckner entering our competitions on our sponsorship stands.
Volunteer photographer Annette Völckner entering our competitions on our sponsorship stands. Photo credit: Gemma Evans
An attendee entering our buried treasure game.
An attendee entering our buried treasure game. Photo credit: Annette Völckner

We were also top-tier sponsors of WordCamp Brighton and had a stand where we played two different traditional fair games. The first was a guess how many sweets are in the jar game. Can you guess how many there were?

Our WordPress rock sweets!
Our WordPress rock sweets! Photo credit: Gemma Evans

The second game was to guess where we had buried some treasure in our sandbox beach scene.

The beach scene in our buried treasure game.
The beach scene in our buried treasure game. Photo credit: Gemma Evans
Lots of competition entries for our buried treasure game. Each flag marks an entry.
Lots of competition entries for our buried treasure game. Each flag marks an entry. Photo credit: Gemma Evans

Here’s what the team had to say about WordCamp Brighton 2016:


Michael on our sponsorship stand.
Michael on our sponsorship stand. Photo credit: Annette Völckner
Michael Rochester

Michael Rochester

Brighton was my third WordCamp, and the smallest I’ve been to, but it was in no way less fun. The atmosphere was electric (following a very energetic opening remarks) and everyone I met was great to chat to.

The talks were great, the highlight for me was security is everyone’s responsibility by 34sp’s Tim Nash. This talk covered how security is something we should all take responsibility for. His talk gave real word examples of issues, and talk about how we can easily circumvent these issues by following simple rules (Tim seems very keen on backups).

Outside of the talks, the helpers were extremely helpful and the food provided for lunch was great.

As I manned one of the stands, I had a great opportunity to meet lots of people and talk to them about their experiences with WordPress. It was interesting to hear the many different background WordPress developers come from, and in some cases, receive sage advice from some long-standing developers.

All in all, I can’t wait for #WCBTN 2017

Michael asking a question at James Morrison's talk.
Michael asking a question at James Morrison’s talk. Photo credit: Annette Völckner

David Lockie

David Lockie

WordCamp Brighton felt like an event where people could spend quality time together and get to know people. It was a really special event for us at Pragmatic, felt like a really good reflection of Brighton and the great community we have down here.

Plants on our sponsorship stand.
Plants on our sponsorship stand. Photo credit: Gemma Evans
Jacob Wilson

Jacob Wilson

It was an incredibly well-organised event, with some very well-written and engaging talks and a more than welcome atmosphere.


Adam Hollister

Adam Hollister

I really enjoyed the first ever Wordcamp Brighton! There were a ton of great speakers, a conference full of nice attendees from all ends of the WordPress spectrum, and a really fun afterparty.

I’d have to say my highlight of the weekend was David Hilditch’s talk on scaling WooCommerce to 1 million products on a basic server. David completely destroyed the myth that WooCommerce can’t scale past ~5000 products without drastically affecting performance. It just takes a bit of know-how and time to optimise for a database of that size. I now know to keep an eye out for any rogue plugins performing table scans as that seems to be one of the main offenders!

All in all a brilliant start to what will hopefully be a regular event for all us WordPressers here in Brighton.

Adam listening to the talks at WordCamp Brighton.
Adam listening to the talks at WordCamp Brighton. Photo credit: Annette Völckner

Ryan Golds

Ryan Golds

WordCamp Brighton was really enjoyable and organised brilliantly. I particularly enjoyed the lighting talks and seeing James complete his multisite talk. It was also great seeing what a strong WordPress community there is in Brighton.


Ian Pugh

Ian Pugh

The atmosphere was great and I was especially happy to see James from Pragmatic give his first ever conference presentation which went down really well with the audience. We met a lot of wonderful people and have had loads of follow-up contact since the event.

Laura helping out at WordCamp Brighton with Ian on our sponsorship stand on the left.
Laura helping out at WordCamp Brighton with Ian on our sponsorship stand on the left. Photo credit: Annette Völckner
Laura Nelson

Laura Nelson

I had such a great time at WordCamp Brighton! This time around I was part of the organising team, and had the very enjoyable job of looking after the sponsors.
It was brilliant to see all the organising team’s hard work pay off, and all of our attendees, sponsors, and speakers enjoying themselves.
Many people commented on how much they liked the laid back Brighton vibe of the event, so if you didn’t make it this year, make sure you come down and experience Brighton’s approach to WordCamp in 2017!

Laura and Lauren with Wapuu.
Laura and Lauren with Wapuu. Photo credit: Gemma Evans
Sean Blakeley

Sean Blakeley

The inaugural WordCamp Brighton was a day to remember. A great turnout and great to see so many of the WordPress community coming down to Brighton for the day. Stand out presentations were Tim Nash’s talk on website security and of course Pragmatic’s own James Morrison’s exhaustive talk on WordPress Multisite. I’m sure we’re all looking forward to next year already!

We’re currently on the lookout for new talent to join our team! Get in touch if you’d like to learn more.

We hope you enjoyed WordCamp Brighton as much as we did! What were your highlights from the conference?