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!

Mark your calendars! Ticket sales for WordCamp San Francisco 2013 will open on Thursday, May 23, 2013 at 10am Pacific. The link to purchase tickets will be here on the WCSF 2013 website.

We’ll be releasing 700 General Admission tickets — valid for attending WCSF in person for both days, Friday and Saturday (July 26-27). In addition to the General Admission tickets we will be offering 50 Microsponsorship tickets. Microsponsorship is something we are offering for the those WordPress fans who want to give back a little something but aren’t in a position to sign up for a traditional sponsorship package.

Registration fees will be $40 for the 2-day General Admisson tickets and $200 for the Microsponsorship ticket. We will not be offering single day passes. Please note that we can not offer refunds at this time. If you find after purchasing your ticket that you won’t be able to attend after all, you can give your ticket to someone else or just consider the expense a donation to the WordPress Foundation.

If you are unable to come to San Francisco for the conference but would like to watch from your house (with or without a mouse), on a train, in a tree, in a car, or on a boat¹ or anywhere else you have wifi, you can purchase access to the live stream. Live stream access can be purchased with, or without, a WCSF 2013 shirt. Live stream access is $20 for the whole event including the shirt and $10 for the whole event without the shirt. Please note that shirts are sent out a couple weeks after the event.

¹ We do not recommend viewing the WCSF livestream in the rain. Goats and foxes not provided by WCSF.

As the official, annual WordPress conference, WordCamp SF has to be great and big. Organizing a great, big event gets pricey in San Francisco, as we’ve mentioned, which is why we depend on financial support from WordPress-based and related companies, local businesses, and even WordPress lovers who’ve done well for themselves to help cover the event costs and keep ticket prices as accessible as possible. This year, we’re happy to be offering a two-day program, and as always, we depend on sponsors to help us make it all happen.

Your sponsorship will help pay for things like the venue rental, live stream, lunches and coffee, and commemorative t-shirts. So please — dig into your marketing budget, outreach allotment, or petty cash drawer to support the most anticipated WordCamp of the year. Check out the support levels and their associated benefits and get in touch to set up your sponsorship for WCSF 2013. Thanks!

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!

Howdy! We’re excited to announce the dates and venue for WordCamp San Francisco 2013. Please mark the dates in your calendars, do a little dance, and get pumped for WCSF 2013!

Dates

July 26-27, 2013, plus Contributor Day¹ on July 28, 2013

Location

Mission Bay Conference Center
1675 Owens St, San Francisco, CA 94158

More details to come soon, so stay tuned by subscribing to this site, and don’t forget to follow us on Twitter.

If you have an opinion on who should speak at WordCamp SF this year, fill out this 3 question survey to nominate your favorite speakers from WordCamps around the world.

Would you like to be a speaker at WordCamp San Francisco? We invite you to apply.

¹ Contributor Day — formerly referred to as “Hack Day” or “Dev Day” — is for WordPress developers and contributors who want to work on WordPress core tickets by writing code, fixing bugs, documentation, support, etc, with other experienced WordPress contributors.