On November 4th, 2017 we had WordCamp Jakarta 2017. I was the lead organizer. The event was a great success and I can say this is the largest WordCamp (so far) ever to happen in Indonesia. I would like to share some of my experiences with you all.
The Preparation
I applied to Become an Organizer for WordCamp in May 2017. After getting accepted I had a first interview and preparation. On June 1st, 2017 WordCamp Jakarta 2017 was officially accepted and ready for the next step.
I contacted all my friends who are active in the WordPress community to help me organize the WordCamp — 7 people answered and afterwards we had our first meeting. I’m truly blessed with my organizing team and would like to give special credits to them (Aaron, Viking, Niels, Wibowo, Thoriq, Dzikri, Sofyan).
Moving forward we had plenty of things on our to-do list. Here are some of them:
- Where is our venue?
- Event date?
- Who are our speakers?
- Let’s get sponsors
- Sell a lot of tickets!
- Launch our website
- Create our social media
- Speaker and sponsor dinner
- After party?
- Design, printing, t-shirt, banners?
- etc.
That’s a pretty big list we needed to finish before November 4th, 2017.
The Challenges
There were plenty of things going on during the hard times of WordCamp preparation, requiring us to work harder, think smarter, and act faster!
Challenge #1: We don’t have a venue that fits our budget
I still remember making a lot of phone calls, emails, and browsing to find all hotels or venues to host our event. The issue was either budget or availability — some venues had availability but were way over budget, and some venues that fit our budget were already fully booked. Eventually our endeavour bore fruit. We finally got a venue that fit our budget and had availability. It didn’t take me long to say yes and book the place.
Challenge #2: We don’t have enough speakers
We had 40 days to go, and we didn’t have enough speakers. Our target was 14 speakers, and at that point we only had around 8 submitted. As you know, a lot of participants wait for the speaker lineup before they purchase tickets. So no speakers, no ticket sales. We needed to act and get more speakers to submit their talks. As a team, we found all the speakers we could and encouraged them to submit. In 1 week, we got a lot of submissions. Suddenly we had more than we needed, and now we needed to go through the vetting process and pick speakers based on their topics.
Challenge #3: We don’t have enough ticket sales!
With no participants, there will be no WordCamp. 14 days to go, we still had 150 tickets to sell. I was thinking to myself: how can we sell those tickets? We discussed and came up with a strategy. Here are some of them:
- Don’t wait for all speakers to submit — start announcing speakers in batches.
- Encourage speakers to help us promote the event. Some of the speakers are influential in the community, so the more people know, the higher the chance they will attend.
- Encourage current participants (those who already bought tickets) to bring their friends.
- Be more active on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
- Email blast to WordPress meetup groups.
- We found all the WordPress agencies in Indonesia and submitted invitations through their contact forms.
- … etc, whatever we needed to do to get exposure.
The result: We sold 150 tickets in just 14 days. Thanks to the whole team!
Challenge #4: We don’t have enough sponsors!
This one would be a nice story. We tried our best to find sponsors as soon as we could, but we had very little interest from sponsors. Anyway, we kept trying. And to be honest, I almost gave up. Then, like 3 weeks before the event, suddenly I received more phone calls than I expected. I still remember a day that was spent entirely handling sponsor requests and questions.
I believe our strategy and hard work brought results. And of course I did pray at every step. And finally, we got more money than we needed! The surplus was returned to the foundation for the next WordCamp.
Challenge #4 and happiness: I became a father in September
Yes, on September 22nd, 2017 my daughter was born. She is so lovely. Both mom and baby are healthy.
She was born 1 month before our WordCamp. And if you notice, all the challenges from #2, #3, and #4 happened in that same month before the event. I told this story during the after party. All I can say: “What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”
The Result
318 tickets sold, 279 attended the event
18 speakers, 18 awesome sessions
… a lot of new friends!
And from the feedback I received: 94% are happy and want to attend the next WordCamp in 2018.
Photos
Here are some of our photos.
Special Thanks
Special thanks to my lovely wife for all her support and love that kept giving me energy and encouragement in all conditions.
Special thanks to all my co-organizer team, mentor, and volunteers: Rocio, Aaron, Niels, Viking, Sofyan, Bowo, Thoriq, Dzikri, Devin, Dini, and Dodi.
Special thanks to all the speakers, sponsors, and participants.
See you all at the next WordCamp in 2018.
Thanks to Gutenberg. This post is written with Gutenberg for the first time!