Gathered in sunny Torino, Italy, over 2,000 WordPress enthusiasts made this year’s WordCamp Europe the biggest (and most exciting) yet!
Experts and companies from all backgrounds met at the Lingotto Conference and Exhibition Centre to collaborate on an even more inclusive and high-performing WordPress ecosystem.
For a third year in a row, we were honored to take a spot among amazing sponsors and support the entire WordCamp team for another spectacular event.
Let’s catch up on the highlights!
Event overview
The growth of the event was anything short of impressive.
From meticulous organization to new developments based on feedback from the past years, networking and mingling with fellow WordPressers was easier than ever.
WordCamp Europe 2024 captured the essence of Torino, and the energy inside the venue was almost as high as the summer temperatures in Italy.
- 3 days full of events
- 2,000+ participants
- 70+ countries
- 60 presentations and workshops
- 50+ speakers
- 40+ sponsors
What’s new in WordCamp Europe 2024?
Along with traditional formats, this year’s WordCamp Europe honored more non-technical topics and dedicated ample coverage of hot topics like the latest changes in Google Search.
Teamed up with Google representatives, the WC team perfectly catered to questions with a lot of talks and workshops, shedding more light on what SEO folk (and businesses) can expect in the coming months.
WordCamp Connect was another great first this year. It offered a platform for the community to share their experiences with WordCamp and WordPress and encouraged active participation from the audience.
A testament to innovation, WordCamp Playground offered an interactive mobile experience where event participants can collect digital puzzle swag from sponsors to configure a website. Many of our partners took part in this new project, and we’re looking forward to joining in the fun next year!
Contributor day
The flagship Contributor Day marked the beginning of the event, bringing together over 700 contributors divided into 25 teams.
Both devs and non-devs were on fire as they joined forces to improve various projects, including:
- Accessibility
- Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB)
- Sustainability
Our team got in on projects like Core Performance, Community, Testing, Documentation, and Marketing. We also focused on helping get more showcases out of companies that use WordPress.
Conference days: the highlights
Engaging with the WordPress community during the exhibition days is always a high point for us!
Surrounded by many great partners, such as Atarim, Hostinger, Omnisend, and FastSpring, we set out to kickstart exciting collaborations. More on that is coming soon.
Beyond showcasing NitroPack, we talked with lots of current and future customers, fellow partners, and agencies. Many of you approached us to discuss issues around TTFB, improve performance, and better understand how NitroPack does things differently with the built-in CDN and server optimizations.
We’re grateful to all of you who stopped for a quick chat, and we can’t express how much you inspire us to keep building solutions that push the envelope!
1:1 performance consultations
The highlight at our booth was the site speed consultations held by Ivailo Hristov (CTO @NitroPack) and Google’s own Adam Silverstein.
In little over two hours, they helped six businesses and performance enthusiasts resolve page speed issues on their websites, solving unique challenges with practical techniques and a granular look into performance intricacies.
Together, they crafted a better (and speedier) user experience for site visitors, further underlining the transformative power of speed in the online landscape.
The events
One thing is undeniable for WordPressers—they know how to have fun away from the screens!
Luckily, WordCamp Europe is known for its countless side events and opportunities to chat over a nice cocktail or two. This year, however, was extra special for us because we got to co-organize our first side event—Ciao World.
Together with Elementor and Cloudways, we launched the first party for WC, gathering over 300 amazing people who couldn’t wait to catch up after their last WordCamp. The evening was a blur of great music, friendly faces, and loud laughter to make even the Italians proud.
The Green Pea was definitely a hot location, and on Friday, we got to attend not one but three parties there.
And not to mention the Closing party where we got to travel to a parallel universe surrounded by magicians and people dressed up as famous actors from Italian movies. It was grand!
Your favorite merch
For anybody who’s visited our booth over the past three years, you know we love to be on theme.
From colorful socks to fun Wapuu pins, traditional symbols from our country, and amazing prizes, you will go home with some special mementos to look back on until the next WordCamp.
This year, we honored the birthplace of the Fiat 500 with branded miniatures that everyone raved about, along with a real-size version Google brought with themselves to make the experience whole.
And don’t worry, we’ll be stocking up on the socks you all love so much for the next event! ;)
Notable talks and speakers
WordCamp Europe 2024 featured an intriguing lineup of speakers. The 60 presentations and workshops, which were held across three tracks, covered topics around development, sustainability, SEO, AI, business, design, security, and more.
Catch the replay of all presentations from day one and day two below:
The topics around SEO attracted waves of people as speakers like Montserrat Cano, Isaline Muelhauser, Tina Reis, Travis Lima, and Lidia Infante shared WordPress and WooCommerce-specific insights on how to navigate your optimization efforts during development, website relaunch, and well beyond once you start challenging your biggest competitors in the SERP.
Matt Mullenweg delivered the WordPress Summer Update, highlighting the importance of the contributor mentorship program and WCEU Contributor Day. He also shared a demo of Translate Live and an update on the Data Liberation initiative. Matt held another audience-favorite Q&A session where he addressed various questions straight from the community.
As avid fans of speed optimization and automation, we found one portion of Matt’s talking points most intriguing. He addressed a recent trend—”speed building challenges”, where spectators watch WordPress experts as they build websites in real-time.
Not only is this a great way to hone your development skills, but it also allows you to explore new ways of addressing potential performance issues before you launch a new project.
Closing Speeches
Before the curtains fell, the event’s organizers expressed their gratitude for the community’s unwavering support and invited everybody to the traditional group shot.
Coming Up Next
And although it’s only been a couple of days since we said our farewells, we already miss the vibrant community and good Italian coffee.
Luckily, we already have a date for WordCamp Europe 2025, which will be held in Basel, Switzerland, from June 5 to 7, 2025. But before that, mark your calendars!
We’ll be seeing many of you at WordCamp US 2024 in September first.
Until then!
