{"id":2132,"date":"2018-06-29T06:46:26","date_gmt":"2018-06-29T06:46:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fastcomet.com\/blog\/?p=2132"},"modified":"2022-06-10T06:17:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T06:17:14","slug":"wordcamp-europe-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fastcomet.com\/blog\/wordcamp-europe-2018","title":{"rendered":"Making the Future Together at WordCamp Europe 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Last week, seven of our FastComet members, including thousands of WordPress community members and I have gathered for the WordCamp Europe<\/a>, and it has been an absolute blast! Just like it is every year. We had to leave bright and early on Sunday morning with heavy hearts, because we really loved all events during this WordCamp and cherished every single moment there. Tired, but at the same time excited, we\u2019re back and ready for a new product launch (more info soon!) and several other ongoing projects. A week later, it seems logical to look back with smiles on our faces when we think about the largest European WordPress event of the year. Let us share our thoughts about it with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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\"FastComet<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

What\u2019s So Special About WCEU?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

For those who don\u2019t know what a WordCamp is\u2026yeah, it\u2019s hard to describe. All in all, WordCamp is a conference that\u2019s completely devoted to WordPress. It is an event that\u2019s organized by volunteers only, made to bring people with similar interests together in a certain area and discuss, while also learning more about WordPress, collaborating on projects, networking, and much more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But in its nature, WordCamp is a lot more than that. A WordCamp today is a good chance to reunite with some friends, make a couple of new ones. You can spread some of your expertise and knowledge with people to help the platform in its further growing and development, or learn everything you don\u2019t know yet. The engagement and connections go beyond any other conference you could have ever attended. That\u2019s really the core of open-source in countless ways.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WCEU is by far the largest annual community-lead WordCamp in Europe, and it\u2019s one of the biggest globally. As such, WordCamp Europe has significant influence over the international spreading of WordPress. The event continued from June 14th to the 16th \u2014 only weeks after the WordPress 15th Anniversary. It was great to find out that the number of attendees has risen, while there were much fewer people that have not shown up. This year WCEU brought in 2085 visitors from 76 countries. The whole event was live-streamed to hundreds of viewers on the web. Many attendees were from Europe, but there was also no shortage of people from North America, Asia, etc. Nevertheless, it isn\u2019t always only about the numbers; the event had plenty of memorable moments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WCEU 2018 Location<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

After 4 years of hard work, WordCamp Europe 2018 took its place in beautiful Belgrade – the capital of Serbia. It is an old city in the center of the Balkans with great food, culture, amazing architecture, nightlife, and most importantly \u2013 an incredible open-hearted WordPress community. This was a wonderful opportunity for Serbia to show its worldwide famous hospitality. WordCamp 2018 is also an affirmation of long years of hard work that local people have been contributing to both the WordPress and open-source communities overall. It is worth noting that in just four years the WP community in Serbia grew exponentially – from 300 to roughly 7000 members! Is that a reason good enough for Belgrade to be the host of the WordCamp EU 2018? No doubt about it!<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Belgrade,<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

We got a memorable taste of Serbian architecture with the WordCamp being split between two venues. The main conference happened in the colossal Sava Center. A short walk from the Sava was to the second area; the Belexpo Center. It was the primary social focus. Both the after-party and contributor day were held inside Belexpo Center\u2019s giant hall.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"WCEU<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

The organization of the whole event was undoubtedly perfect. Hats off to the people who thought about every single detail and made everyone\u2019s experience memorable, ensuring that every person entering the Sava Center experienced a smooth registration process and was informed exactly where to go and what to do afterward.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Notable Sessions<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The first day of WordCamp EU went on with a Contributor Day, followed by two days full of great talks. Spirits were as high as they could be and the Sava Center was filled with rookies, developers, designers, bloggers, web hosting professionals and more who were waiting to soak up all the sweet knowledge that industry leaders and influencers would share. The talks were very diverse, ranging from \u201chow-to\u201d workshops, presentations on SEO, finan\u00adcial fore\u00adcast\u00ading, helpful tips about building a business, social media marketing, and plenty more. With Gutenberg scheduled to go Core in WordPress 5.0<\/a>, this was always going to be the WordCamp of Gutenberg. However, there was also a good focus on JavaScript, mental health, and accessibility.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"FastComet<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Matt Mullenweg: The Future of Gutenberg<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The peak of day two was, of course, Matt Mullenweg\u2019s awaited 50-minute keynote session, where he laid out the roadmap in details. Gutenberg will follow it for the next few months and all the things around WordPress they\u2019re actively working on to a full audience. Matt is a huge inspiration for the whole WordPress community and the WordPress lovers always anticipate his lightning talk with lots of excitement.<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Matt<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

If by any chance you are still not familiar with Gutenberg, Matt describes it as much more than a simple editor. It\u2019s supposed to be the next phase of WordPress which would keep it thriving for 15 years to follow. One of the main problems Gutenberg solves is the ease of editing content visually. Gutenberg offers editors the opportunity to have much more control over content layouts within a post. It does that simply by providing a flexible block-based user interface, which has been a very hot topic since it was initially announced that it would be included in WordPress version 5.0. You may also check our detailed overview of the Gutenberg WordPress editor<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The refreshed writing experience that will be provided by Gutenberg is only the beginning. Eventually, this new concept of \u201cblocks\u201d would apply to the whole site development and overall design experience. Matt also did not forget to share his excitement in regards to the copy-paste feature which has not been so easily accomplished in the past. You can now easily copy\/paste from places such as Microsoft Word, Evernote, Office 365, Google docs, random web pages, and more.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ultimate question was of course: when will Gutenberg and 5.0 be officially released?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We could have a 5.0 as soon as August. Some of these things that I put up there, I\u2019m very, very sure about. The big thing that we\u2019re not sure about is as we vastly increase the average usage of Gutenberg across hopefully 100,000 sites. \u201cWhat\u2019s gonna come in?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

The last part of roughly 20 minutes of the session entailed the well-known Q&A, allowing the audience to ask Mullenweg some important questions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And the full Matt\u2019s Gutenberg roadmap for the following months entails:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

June 2018<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n