Hello everyone 👋!
In this article, i will talk about my experience during the WordCamp Athens 2022 conference, organized by the WordPress community.
Some background
This was actually the first time i ever attended a tech conference, something i always wanted to do since i study computer science. But many of these big-name conferences were never held in Greece, or at least i wasn’t aware of any. Not to mention that these major events had very expensive tickets. So going abroad was a big no for me. But then i started digging a little deeper, i joined some local community slack groups and there it was. The events channel. This is where it all started.
At the time i was an undergraduate student, working for a research group at my university department (but that’s a story for another time). But i also had experience in building websites using the WordPress CMS. I’ve been doing this job since my early high school years, helping out my dad as a graphic designer who got into website design. So yea, i was very familiar with the WordPress platform and terms like HTML, SEO, plugins, domain names and hosting.
Finding the event
So back to our story. Scrolling through the events channel of this slack group, i found a post about a WordCamp conference. At first i didn’t know what it was about. But after reading the description i realized that it was a community-organized event, dedicated to the WordPress platform and web technologies in general. Also held in Athens, great news!
I immediately rushed to see the ticket price and, in my surprise, it was very cheap compared to the ones organized abroad (✨including the student discount✨). That was it, my chance to attend one of these cool conferences. But i didn’t want to go alone. See now, the problem was that none of my friends were into programming / tech stuff, thus they would be terribly bored to go with me. But then i thought of my two research colleagues (the group that i mentioned earlier), and so i texted them. They were really excited about it, so i booked the tickets and we were ready to go!
The big day
Entering the conference
On the 9th of April, my friend and I are walking towards the event location. Unfortunately, one of the guys couldn’t make it due to being sick a few days before, and was still recovering. Nonetheless, we managed to get him a bag of goodies and swag, as well as his personal name tag. Stonks!
Bags full of loot!
The conference took place at the Megaron Athens Concert Hall, a beautiful building that i had never visited before. There was a big hall where all the sponsors had set their banners and filled their tables with even more swag! Notebooks, pens, stickers and t-shirts, even stress balls! We knew we were in for a treat.
GoDaddy stand - they had a cool social media contest
Attending the speeches
Of course there were two rooms for all the speeches and presentations that took place during the event. These were split in two tracks, A and B. Both tracks were executed in parallel, so we had to choose which speech to attend each time.
Overall every presentation was very constructive and had a lot to offer, not necessarily about WordPress, but rather any subject related to website-building or managing data on the web. As a junior-level developer, i had no problem following any of the subjects as they were well-organized by every speaker and not heavily detailed with technical information.
Room A- the big amphitheater
Room B- a smaller and rather flat room
Eat o’clock
There also was a lunch break with provided food 😋, which we really appreciated and enjoyed in a nearby park under the sun. We were each given a bag with a sandwich of choice (meat or fish), balsamic vinegar salad, chocolate cake for dessert, and of course some soda drinks.
As i mentioned there is a really cool park next to the Megaro building, perfect for a picnic or a quick walk. If you ever happen to be nearby, make sure to pay a visit!
Conclusion
I had so much fun attending WordCamp this year and i am really looking forward to doing so next year as well. The WordPress community is very passionate and well organized, kudos to all of the volunteers that made it all possible! 👏
Finally, here’s a collage of me and my buddy Panos having a blast and enjoying our first tech conference! (check out karamolegkos.dev for some epic no-css stuff!)
Till next time! ✌️
All photos were taken by the official WordCamp Athens event website
