One of WordCamp Orlando’s stand-out features is our commitment to a central theme for every year. It all started back in 2013 with our evergreen logo and a general “camping” theme.
From here, we knew we could go even further, and thus the convention theme was born and cultivated:
2014 – Video Games / 8bit Art
2015 – Harry Potter (or to avoid legal issues, “The Magic of WordPress”)
2016 – Legos (again, to avoid copyright, “Building with WordPress”)
2017 – Superheroes
2018 Sends WordCamp Orlando To Space!
We typically choose the theme for the upcoming year within a week or two from the end of the current year’s camp. This year, the preliminary idea for our theme came about a week or two prior to the 2017 camp. We started with “epic space battles” a’la Star Wars, and over the course of a few months moved more toward space exploration a’la Star Trek, until we decided to drop the attempt to emulate an existing intellectual property and craft our own tale of the stars.
To quote directly from our design brief, written by the wonderful Erin Denton:
This year we are going to put attendees in their own space theme narrative. The conference is taking place on an inter-solar system space spacestion ( the ISS Gutenburg, if you will ) where visitors arrive from all over the solar system to learn about WordPress.
This theme uses space exposition, real places, celestial objects, and space industry history, that the attendee/speaker can immerse in. The focus is on the attendee/speaker being the star of their own space narrative, versus focusing on already famous/renowned pioneers/vehicles in space industry.
We believe that this will give us creative freedom, to not only distance ourselves from the already many space themed camps taking place in recent past and future– but provide a sense of whimsy/fantasy that has always been an integral tenet of Orlando WordCamps.
TLDR: We are using Earth space exploration history canon but we are totally writing a space conference fan-fic. (lol)
Become a Part of Our Interstellar Crew!
Just as our understanding of the stars beyond our galaxy is ever evolving, so is our website. Come back often to see the newest features and updates on conference speakers, sessions, workshops, and parties.
Don’t forget to grab your tickets, especially to the workshops, as they are limited to only 75 seats per workshop and when they’re gone, they’re gone!