Photo by Matthew Hamilton on Unsplash
I went into WordCamp US 2026 in Phoenix with questions. A lot of questions.
Just over a month before the event, the public attendee list looked like it was sitting somewhere around 300 people. For the flagship WordCamp in the U.S., that gets your attention.
By the time we arrived in Phoenix, though, the story had changed in a big way. Attendance had climbed to nearly 1,200 people, which is a pretty remarkable jump in a short period of time.
So first, credit where credit is due. The community showed up. And once people got there, WordCamp US felt alive.
But Phoenix also made something very obvious to me, and I think it is worth talking about. Maybe WordCamp US does not need to be bigger. Maybe it just needs to feel fuller.
The elephant in the very large room
The Phoenix Convention Center is enormous. And I mean enormous. It is the kind of place where you can leave a session for coffee and accidentally achieve your daily step goal.
That works when you have several thousand people. When you have around 1,200 people spread across a convention center built to accommodate much larger events, the math starts working against you.
A room with 100 people in a smaller venue feels packed. Put those same 100 people in a giant ballroom and suddenly everyone looks like they arrived four hours early.
That perception matters more than people sometimes want to admit. Speakers notice it. Sponsors notice it. Attendees notice it. And anyone looking at photos on social media notices it too.
There were moments in Phoenix where the event could look much quieter than it actually was. That was not because people were not there. They were. The problem was that we had 1,200 people trying to fill a space that felt designed for 3,000 to 5,000.
That is a venue problem, not an attendance problem.
Make 1,200 people feel like 1,200 people
If I were looking at the next WordCamp US from an event strategy perspective, this is where I would start. Take those same 1,200 attendees and put them into a venue designed for 1,200 to 1,500 people.
Now everything changes. Sessions feel full. Sponsor areas feel active. Hallways have energy. People actually bump into each other.
And yes, that matters. Some of the best business conversations at conferences happen because you run into someone you were not planning to see. You grab coffee together. You sit down for five minutes. Five minutes becomes 30. That is conference magic.
Huge venues can accidentally kill some of that. When everyone is spread across multiple floors and half a city block, you lose some of the natural collision points that make events valuable.
I would much rather hear, “WordCamp US sold out,” than, “Why did that session look empty?” A sold-out event creates urgency. It creates momentum. It creates FOMO. And from a sponsor perspective, a packed venue feels a whole lot better than an oversized one.
Less space, more attention
There is another benefit to going smaller. You can spend more time and budget making the attendee experience better.
Phoenix in August is not exactly sweater weather. We were dealing with temperatures well above 100 degrees, so something as basic as water becomes a legitimate event operations issue.
Water should have been everywhere. Coffee too. Every floor. Every major gathering area. If I have to go on an expedition to find a bottle of water at a conference in Phoenix, we have missed something.
This is the unglamorous side of events that I actually think matters the most. You can have beautiful branding, giant stages, cool lighting, and a great app, but if attendees are thirsty, confused, tired, or walking half a mile between sessions, they are going to remember that too.
The best event operations are invisible. Water is there before you need it. Coffee is easy to find. Seating is where people naturally gather. Signage actually tells you where to go. The basics work so well that nobody has to think about them.
That is where I would put more attention.
Some big names were noticeably missing
The sponsor side was also interesting this year. There were some great companies supporting WordCamp US, and the companies that showed up deserve credit for continuing to invest in the community.
But there were also some pretty noticeable gaps. GoDaddy was not on the sponsor roster, which is particularly interesting when you consider that Phoenix is basically in their backyard. SiteGround was missing. Patchstack was missing. And overall, I noticed fewer of the European hosting, infrastructure, and security companies that I am used to seeing around major WordPress events.
Some of that is understandable. Flying teams from Europe to Arizona is expensive. Budgets are tighter. Companies are being more selective. And event ROI is under a microscope everywhere right now.
But that is exactly why WordCamp US should be paying attention. The WordPress business ecosystem has always been an important part of the event: hosting companies, security companies, agencies, infrastructure providers, SaaS vendors.
Those companies do not just bring sponsorship dollars. They bring people, relationships, jobs, partnerships, customers, and a lot of the commercial energy around WordPress. If some of those companies are becoming more selective, the answer should not be to shrug. The answer should be to understand why.
Smaller could actually be better for sponsors
This is where attendance, sponsorship, and venue strategy all connect. Put 1,200 people in a massive convention center and a sponsor may look around and think traffic is light. Put those same 1,200 people into a tighter, better-designed venue and suddenly the booth is busy all day.
Same attendance. Completely different experience.
As someone who has spent a lot of time around sponsorships and business development, perception matters. Sponsors want conversations. They want traffic. They want people stopping by naturally. They want to feel like they are part of the event, not parked somewhere attendees visit twice a day.
A smaller private venue, hotel conference property, university campus, performing arts venue, or creative event space could make WordCamp US feel much more intentional. And if it sells out? Perfect. That is a good problem.
Contributor Day was the standout
For me, the best part of WordCamp US was Contributor Day. Not even close.
The new hackathon-style approach brought a completely different energy into the room. It felt active. It felt creative. It felt like people were actually building things.
Instead of everyone quietly sitting in separate contribution groups, there was more collaboration, more experimentation, more movement, and more ideas bouncing around the room.
You could feel people thinking. You could feel people trying things. And you could feel people getting excited when something worked. That is what open source should feel like.
The best part was that it did not feel overly formal. It felt like, “Here is a problem. Here are some smart people. Let’s see what happens.”
That energy is incredibly valuable. If WordPress wants to attract new contributors and keep experienced contributors excited, that kind of format is absolutely worth building on. More of that, please.
The event was actually very good
Now, after all of that critique, here is the most important part. I had a very good WordCamp US. A really good one.
I had great conversations. I reconnected with people I have known for years. I met new people. I had partner meetings. I recorded interviews. I talked about hosting, security, infrastructure, AI, partnerships, and where this industry is going.
And probably, somewhat hilariously, I talked about AI more than I talked about WordPress. At WordCamp.
That says a lot about where the industry is right now. The technology conversations are changing fast. AI is now touching hosting, security, support, development, infrastructure, agencies, and business models. That makes WordCamp US more important, not less. It is one of the few places where all of those parts of the ecosystem still come together.
WordCamp US is changing because the industry is changing
WordPress is no longer just a CMS conversation. It sits in the middle of hosting, cloud infrastructure, ecommerce, security, domains, agencies, development, publishing, and now AI.
That means WordCamp US has an opportunity to evolve with the industry. It does not need to become a giant enterprise tech show. It should still feel like WordCamp. That community element is what makes it different.
But it can become more intentional about how the business ecosystem fits into the event. It can make sponsors feel more connected. It can make attendees feel better cared for. It can create more spaces for conversations. And it can stop worrying so much about whether the venue looks big enough for some hypothetical future attendance number.
Build the event for the people who are actually coming. That is the opportunity.
Phoenix proved the community is still there
I came into Phoenix wondering what the event would feel like. A month earlier, with the attendee list hovering around 300, I was genuinely concerned. Then nearly 1,200 people showed up. That matters.
New people came. Longtime community members came. Sponsors came. Partners came. Developers came. Hosting companies came. People sat down, talked, built things, debated ideas, made connections, and left with new relationships. That is a successful conference.
There are things I would absolutely change. I would use a smaller venue. I would make water, coffee, seating, and gathering spaces easier to access. I would work hard to bring some of the missing hosting, security, and European companies back into the sponsor ecosystem. And I would lean even harder into what worked so well at Contributor Day.
But I would not walk away from Phoenix thinking WordCamp US is in trouble. Quite the opposite. I think Phoenix showed that the community is still there. The trick now is designing the event around the community we actually have.
If WordCamp US is currently a 1,200-person event, build the best 1,200-person event on the planet. Pack the rooms. Fill the hallways. Sell it out. Make sponsors happy. Make attendees comfortable. Make people want to come back. Then grow when demand tells you to grow.
Bigger is not always better. Sometimes full is better. And Phoenix proved there is still plenty worth filling the room for.