Once WordCamp San Fancisco is over, the party will just be starting!

Join many other WordCamp attendees at Automattic’s brand new office space at 132 Hawthorne Street, in SoMa. Automattic is a 30 minute walk from the Mission Bay Conference Center. There are also buses and trains to take you most of the way there. Consult the MUNI website to plan your trip using public transit. Of course, you can always try out Uber or Lyft, or cab your way over as well. If you choose to walk, on your way, you’ll pass through South Park and South Beach district of San Francisco, AKA “Startup-Central.”

Music, snacks, and tasty beverages will be provided. Simply bring yourself (and your WCSF Badge!) over to the space for a fantastic time. We can’t wait to see you there!

When: Saturday, July 27th, 7PM – 11PM
Where: Automattic, 132 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
What: Drinks, Snacks, Amazing People, Fun Times, Valhalla

PS– Guests must have their WCSF badge or a handstamp (available at registration) to get in.
PPS – All ages welcome, must have valid ID (over 21 yrs) to drink alcohol.

The Contribute Day takes place on July 28th at Automattic’s awesome New Offices, located at 132 Hawthorne Street, in SoMa, off Folsom Street, between 2nd and 3rd.

We’re looking forward to having so many great WordPress contributors of all disciplines in town for WordCamp San Francisco. If you’re a WordPress developer we’d love to have you come hack with us. AND, there are plenty of other ways to contribute to WordPress as well. Current and would-be contributors are welcome to attend and work on any number of efforts on the WordPress project, from writing core patches to subtitling WordPress.tv videos. If you can’t attend in person, hop onto the #wordpress-dev IRC channel to help out from afar!

People who come to this event will be 1000% focused on contributing to or learning how to contribute to the WordPress project. Veterans and future veterans are welcome.

It’s altogether possible roving “press gangs” (they’re really friendly, though) will be around to help the newbies and lead fun and exciting “How to Contribute” sessions.

Basically, if you’ve been looking for an opening to learn how you can add your contribution to WordPress, this is the perfect opportunity!

The Specifics

When: 11am-6pm
Who: Everyone who wants to contribute to WordPress core, Documentation, and more
Where: Automattic, 132 Hawthorne Street, San Francisco, CA 94107
Food: We’ll be sure to keep you fed and watered.

If you have questions about Contribute Day please contact us. See you there!

Ticket sales have been strong, and the attendee list is shaping up to be one of the best of WordCamp San Francisco. There are still tickets on sale, but that won’t last! Now is the time to get your travel worked out and your accommodations booked. In the past when we’ve arranged hotel room blocks for WordCamp SF, attendees reported finding better deals using their favorite discount hotel room booking site. Since that seems to work out better (and cheaper!) for everyone, we’re not reserving room blocks this year. If you want to be close, look for hotels located within a few blocks of Market Street in downtown San Francisco with easy access to the MUNI trains that go directly to the WCSF venue as well as BART stations for transfer to/from the airport. If you are unfamiliar with the area read hotel reviews for information about the neighborhood or ask a local. There is great variance in ambiance from block to block in the South-of-Market and Downtown areas.

We want everyone to be able to enjoy WordCamp San Francisco in real time, so you can purchase a ticket to the the WordCamp Live Stream and participate over social media with the #wcsf hashtag. You can choose your Live Stream ticket with or without a WordCamp San Francisco 2013 T-shirt.

We’re counting the days until we get to see you guys in SF!

PS: We’re finalizing the details for the WCSF afterparty. Stay tuned here for the details!

If you’re just tuning in, WordCamp SF 2013 is getting close — here’s a snapshot of where planning stands:

• Speaker applications are now closed! Thanks to everyone who applied, and to those of you who took the time to respond to our survey on your favorite conference speakers. Once selected, we’ll be inviting speakers to post here with more detail on their sessions, so keep an eye out.
• Sponsorships are still available! There are still plenty of sponsorships up for grabs, and the $200 microsponsorships — a great way for freelancers, smaller development shops, and WordPress fans to give a little more back to the WordPress community — will be on sale with General Admission ticketing. Check out all the sponsorship options.
• Tickets go on sale in 14 days! Tickets will be on sale starting May 23, so mark your calendars.
• RSVP for the San Francisco WordPress 10th Anniversary shindig! Join us as we celebrate 10 years of the best CMS on the internet, and look forward to the next 10. (Okay, maybe we’re a little biased) Full details and RSVP link here.

If that’s not enough to whet your WordCamp whistle, check out these photos from 2012. Don’t you want to be in on the fun? We thought so. Can’t wait to see you all there.

Life is good when you submit speakers to WordCamp San Francisco.

In the interest of as much “life-goodness” as possible, we wanted to remind you that you can submit speakers and talks to WordCamp San Francisco! Now’s your chance to help populate the speaker schedule! If there’s something you’d like to see, or a talk you’d like to give, let us know! We can’t wait to hear from you.

The deadline to submit is May 1st, and the organizing committee will select from your submissions to announce the speaker schedule in a few weeks. May 1 is just over a week away and the deadline for submissions will have come and gone before you know it.

Time is running out.

Previous speakers are a diverse group of women and men:

• Sheri Bigelow – Automattician, photographer, web designer, and avid kayaker
• Nir Eyal – Stanford Lecturer and serial entrepreneur on how habit-forming online products are built
• Mika Epstein – Known fondly as “Ipstenu” on the forums, Mika is a WordPress guru of the first order
• Noel Tock – Founder of HappyTables and the Zurich WordPress Meetup organizer
• Sara Cannon – Designer and founder of Ran.ge, a premiere digital agencies
• Adii Pienaar – Founder and CEO of WooThemes

Submit your talk

If you have a topic you’d love to present to the community, now is your chance. Click over to the speaker application form to let us know what the topic title (and a few other details) are. It will be awesome to see you speak onstage at WordCamp San Francisco!

Nominate a Speaker

Have a favorite content creator, entrepreneur, developer, or designer? Is there someone that you think has something awesome to say to the community? Do you have a hero that you want to see give a talk? We always see awesome folks from in and outside of the WordPress world who share their work and their ideas with us on stage. This year, we’re expecting more of the same! Submit speakers here.

Remember, the deadline to submit talks and nominate speakers is May 1.

We’re excited to hear from you!

We’ve just dropped the last number into the spreadsheet for the 2013 WordCamp San Francisco budget and wanted to share it with you: take a look at what goes in to making WordCamp San Francisco happen.

Transparency in WordCamp planning and fundraising is helpful no matter the size of your WordCamp, and doubly so when you’re planning the Uber WordCamp — aside from being the first WordCamp there was and the official annual WordCamp conference, WordCamp San Francisco features Matt’s State of the Word address and just happens to be in the (really expensive) tech capital of the world. We want to be model WordCamp citizens and use an organizing process we’d be proud for any other WordCamp to follow.

Sponsorship options for WordCamp San Francisco are a bit different than those for most other WordCamps; if you’re wondering why, take a look at the budget. It’s all in the name of giving you the most awesome WordCamp experience possible while still keeping tickets priced at the WordCamp standard $20/day.

If you take a look at the breakdown, you’ll see that renting a large enough venue for 800+ WordPress fans with good public transportation options is over $30,000. Throw in costs for the A/V , food, and swag that keep 800 attendees and 500 live stream participants engaged and happy, and it’s not surprising that the WordCamp San Francisco budget looks a little different than most other cities’.

That being said, we’d love to bring the budget down! If you’ve got ideas for ways to reel in the numbers — a low-cost or donated venue, a friend who has a t-shirt printing factory, whatever — let us know!