WordCamp Austin 2017

WordCamp Austin will be at Fair Market, one of the newest event venues located in the vibrant East Side of Austin. Fair Market is centrally located, less than a mile from Downtown and blocks from a number of public transportation hubs.

We’re fortunate to hold WordCamp right after a total renovation. Fair Market’s already great mixed indoor/outdoor space will be even better! The outside will have covered seating, a number of lounge areas, and a large grassy lawn for relaxing. The inside will have brand new bathrooms and catering facilities without losing their iconic “hipster warehouse” feel. Fair Market is one of Downtown Austin’s leading venues helping Keep Austin Weird.

 

For lunch, you’ll get to choose from a number of Austin’s hottest food trucks offering a wide range of options. Right on the premises. Want BBQ? You’ll get some amazing brisket. Looking for something lighter and greener? That’ll be there too. Or maybe something more exotic? Not a problem!

 

Fair Market is right at the start of East 6th, the current hotspot for nightlife in Austin. You can get to dozens of bars, nightclubs, and coffee dives by walking just a few blocks. And it’s Austin, so you’ll find food trucks peppering the streets selling everything from Venezuelan cuisine, to gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches, and tacos. So many tacos. Just get enough rest to rock WordCamp! You don’t want to sleep through our great talks and collaborative sessions.

WordCamp Austin is being held on a busy weekend. We know! We looked for a better weekend, when not so much was going on, but that’s apparently a rarity these days. With Formula 1 in town at the same time, downtown hotels are unfortunately at a premium. It’s the positive, though, right? We have a great venue in a vibrant part of town right next to downtown. There’s a ton to see & do that weekend and it won’t be 1 million degrees, as we’ll be in late October. What’s not to like about that?

The most Austin thing is to complain about Austin, so we’re staying away from that. Looking at how to power through the race day crowds, we’ve started searching for hotels outside the most expensive parts of town.

Venue

WordCamp Austin will be at Fair Market, one of our newer event venues located in the vibrant East Side of Austin. A great indoor space, an as-great on-site outdoor space, with lots to experience around it.

Find a ride to the venue

Lyft and Uber are back in Austin! Use them to your heart’s content.

Ride Finder is a handy site that will let you do a price comparison between the various ride share services in Austin.

A service that gets recommended quite a bit is Ride Austin. If you’re feeling charitable, you can automatically round up your fares and donate the proceeds to your local charity.

Austin Capital Metro and other and public transportation is another way to get around Austin. This guide has a listing of all the forms of transportation and how to get more information.

Hotels & Lodging

There are a number of area hotel and lodging options in the $200 a night range & lower. Here are some ways of getting your hands on one before they fill up.

Checking Kayak is an easy way to find more available hotels under $200 a night in the Austin area.

An Airbnb search finds a few hundred options.

Austin’s own HomeAway has some available properties to rent, too.

Things to Do in Austin

Austin is a vibrant city with a very social and active social and music scene. View the Austin Visitors Guide for more if this is your first visit. The website also has a full events calendar and more tips about everything Austin.

We hope this helps. We’ll keep an eye on things as best we can and will update this page periodically. More to come as we get further into the year!

WordCamp Austin’s presentations will all follow one of our three tracks. Plus, there’s a bonus pseudo-track for the independent-minded!

Starting a website: The Full Picture

For those who are just starting out, we’ll have a day-long track where you can get handsy with WordPress. There will be a series of talks that cover the full picture of running a WordPress site. We’ll have speakers that will teach everything from SEO to design, marketing to plugins, and eCommerce to blogging.

Making a living with WordPress

Do you pay your bills using WordPress? Are you a freelancer? Work for an agency? Develop plugins and themes for a living? Provide support, hosting services, or specialized niche use cases? This track is for you! We’ll have lessons, deep dives, tips, and tricks from speakers who have made (and failed to make) a living using WordPress.

WordPress as a Solution

When you get to high-end applications, there are always complex, niche problems that developers face. How can WordPress provide a solution to those problems? Today, that answer often involves the REST API. WordPress also provides complex solutions for eCommerce and online learning. This track will explore many of the creative applications of WordPress solving today’s technical challenges.

Build your own session

Want to talk about something else? Start your own session! Throughout the venue you’ll find tables with whiteboard signs. If you’ve got a topic that you want to talk about, write it on the sign. Like minded Campers can come over and join you. Start your own conversation where you can learn from each other by sharing the successes and failures you’ve personally experienced.