WordCamp Lagos 2018 Debrief

We had been holding meetups for 4 months consistently and had not less than 80 people in attendance at those meets when it was suggested that we plan for a WordCamp. I had then told myself, it wouldn’t take up all my thoughts and time, it will just be like organising a meetup, i was wrong.

I kid you not, volunteering for a cause you are passionate about is a full time job, but that’s another story. Planning for WordCamp took up all my thoughts and time, it required my 100% commitment, but guess what? It was super fun, a learning curve and enlightening!

Preparing the team

The first thing I did when I knew I was leading 2018 was to select an organising team from within the community, i automatically selected members who were knowledgeable and passionate about WordPress and who had showed up at every meet and indicated interest in planning for the WordCamp. If you are part of the WordCamp Lagos 2018 organising team and you are reading this, thank you very much for everything you did. I appreciate all your hard work and I hope next year’s WordCamp will be bigger and better.

Planning

The organising team met fairly early on in person to talk about what we wanted to achieve with WordCamp. We had an overall goal which was to bring the WordPress community closer and we were mostly all on the same page. We also met virtually on hangout every Sunday by 8.00pm and had monthly meetings after our usual meetup events. We also had teammates who did not reside in Lagos, even i don’t. 

That’s not to say that things went perfectly. Time kept flying past, and as at the first day of the week to the WordCamp, ticket sales were still very low, hence we had to use our discretion to arrive at a number of people to expect and cater to. Two weeks before the camp, we had introduced the option of payment via bank transfer, this is somewhat due to the low rate of adoption of Nigerians paying for things online. Interestingly, we had 30 people who chose this route and 17 people who paid at the venue. In all,  I’m happy to say that we did however manage to get everything arranged in time and eventually the day arrived.

WordCamp

I’m happy to report that the general consensus from folks I have spoken to (and the surveys that went out afterwards) was that WordCamp Lagos 2018 was a success. We had a total of 17 individuals come from Benin (the country, not the state), and they were very pleased to be in attendance as well. In total we had 18 people come from outside Nigeria who were not Nigerians and in their invitation letter as requested by the consular at the embassy/border, i had to state that i (using my company name) accepted full immigration responsibility for each and every one of them. This was a scary thought but i was optimistic.

The survey sent out after last week indicated so far that we managed to satisfy about 96% of the population and about 4% were unhappy judging from the survey results, i personally apologise to those, we are sorry. We’ve already started assimilating the survey responses with plans to either improve on or rectify some of the mistakes we made. If there is one lesson i have learnt from WordCamp, it’s identifying the strengths of teammates and delegating work to them on those areas where their expertise can shine.

All speaker slides links are up already, please click here to view or download. Videos will be uploaded and available on WordPress.TV as soon as possible, stay subscribed for updates.

Budget

This was in no way easy, because paypal merchant features are not available here and a host of other issues, we had to process the fund locally. We had to build a plugin to use and have it integrated into the website here, thanks to Tunbosun for that work which was not easy, he also never left my side throughout the pre and post planning phase, Bede and Taylor inclusive, every teammate did their best. Then we had to use my registered company name and bank account to process and administer these funds through Paystack payments solutions provider which only accepts corporate accounts, they are wonderful and highly supportive by the way.

We were able to raise the amounts we stated in our approved budget, the difficult part in spending was deciding on the number of attendees to cater to and waiting to order items the week of the WordCamp. We wanted to minimise left overs, this also meant prices of some items went up higher than anticipated. Fortunately we made the correct decisions, but not much profit left when we were done. The only item that did not go round was name-tags for a number of people who came in the afternoon.

You can take a look at the final budget here.

At the end of the day this worked out pretty well, but it added the extra headache of having to worry about payment processing and banking fees, which i didn’t even think about.

Wrap up

Since my first experience with a WordCamp in Cape Town in 2017, I always look forward to a WordCamp, its a great place to meet new WordPress folks, catch up with old friends and celebrate the local community. Thanks to all sponsors, speakers, volunteers, attendees and organisers that made wclagos2018 possible, i now have first hand experience in making a WordCamp happen in my region, it wasn’t easy but we are all excited to improve for next year.

However, WordCamp Lagos 2019 will be take a better and different approach, and planning will begin not less than 6 months before the d-date. A few of the organising team have already discussed an idea to run a more stripped down WordCamp that will take place for two or three days, with more of a focus on practical learning, sharing and contributing.

To all the people who volunteered their time this year, the organising team, speakers, volunteers and anyone else who helped make it happen, I thank you again. If you are reading this and you want to be a part of 2019, please visit the https://wpnigeria.org site or click here to join the WordCamp Lagos channel on Slack.

Finally, to those of you who may be reading this internationally, if you have the means I cordially invite you down to Lagos for WordCamp next year. I promise this time we’ll get it right and make it more memorable 😉

I leave you with a two photos taken by our photographers, Adeoluwa Adediran, Art43Media and Olufemi Oso. Click here to view the photo album!

Hope to see you next year! 🙂