The WP Conf to “fork” WordCamp Los Angeles

I was tagged in a tweet by Brad Williams that referenced The WP Conf, which is currently only a half-finished website, but is an independent WordPress conference slated for late this year, and calls itself, “a WordPress conference forked from WordCamp and WordCamp Los Angeles.”

Based on intensive investigative journalism… er… I mean, based on the author of the posts on the site, it was simple to discover that community veteran and WordCamp LA organizer Austin Passy is at least one of the people involved in The WP Conf. I quickly reached out to Austin for more info, to see if he can share more about the event. He had the following to say:

I was just ready after running WordCamp LA for four years to move on. But I enjoy organizing and am good at hosting events and parties, and I wanted to create a new breed of a WordPress conference. I think the community is ready for something different but at the same time can run concurrently with WordCamps.

-Austin Passy, organizer of The WP Conf

Austin also shared that at this time he and his girlfriend Jeana Carter are currently the only organizers. This isn’t the first non-WordPress foundation backed WordPress conference. You may be familiar with PressNomics, WordUp, and WP Camp. Pre-Pressnomics, there was also talk about a WordCon, that later dissolved.

Passy hasn’t totally committed to calling it a for-profit event, or a not-just-for-profit event. The buzz on social media about the event caught him a bit off guard.

For-profit WordPress events shouldn’t be surprising, given the size of the ecosystem, and I personally think they should be encouraged. What the WordPress Foundation does for WordPress events around the world is incredible, but that doesn’t mean it has to be the only format.

This is a big, free and open software platform and community; there is no reason our conferences can’t be diverse as well.