Tag Archives: Chicago

This past weekend I made the just over three hour drive to Chicago from Indiana with Ryan Imel. This was my 2nd WordCamp and was looking forward to visiting one of my favorite cities. I have several friends living in Chicago from medical school and we made plans to save some money and crash both nights on their floor. With plans set and a place to sleep we hit the road for what turned out to be a really fun weekend of hanging with great people from the WordPress community.

Upon our arrival in Chicago we made our way down to the area surrounding DePaul University, where the WordCamp was to be held the following morning. We put out a feeler on twitter and made contact with some people at a local pub called Sheffield’s They had several great craft beers on tap and at least four separate areas to eat and drink, a very cool place. (oh and I had a great pulled pork sandwich!)

The best part about WordCamps is the opportunity to meet and get to know the people I read about and see their work all over the web. This past weekend was no let down and to those of you who I met, it was such a pleasure and I look forward to running into you at future WordCamps. I wanna give a brief run down of the parts of the camp I enjoyed and the things I didn’t.

The WordCamp Chicago facilities were great, being that #wcchicago was held at DePaul University, I expected a nice and comfortable atmosphere with class/conference room style setup. Overall, the close proximity to several restaurants made our lunch breaks easy and kept our stomachs full. The event staff was helpful and prepared for the over four hundred attendees, registration was quick and the two days of camp went smoothly overall.

The obvious downside to the WordCamp was lack of internet the first day. Upon arrival we were given usernames and passwords to the school internet only to find out the flood of new users crashed the system. Ryan and I were a bit frustrated because the plan was to live blog the event. Every WordCamp, Ryan live blogs on WPCandy and I was excited cause this was the first time I was able to help out with it. Nonetheless, we did the best we could by simply using our 3G connection and iPhones to monitor the twitter stream and post updates to the live blog for the first part of day one. It was kinda cool to know that even without the computer we were able to still get some decent content up on the site for those following along.

The 2nd day there were no issues to be seen, internet was great there were some decent speakers and life was good.

As is widely known about going to WordCamps, the after party and the after after parties are the most anticipated and memorable parts of the events. The after party was held at a place called McGees (looks likes the pub uses WordPress too) and we were served beverages and food for three hours. If your wondering, I approve!

Overall, I had a great time, the event, the people, and the place was a perfect combination for those of us who love WordPress to come together, share, discuss, and collaborate. Congrats to the coordinators and to the event as a whole! Job well done!