Early bird tickets for LoopConf 2026 are open, and if WordPress is part of how you make a living, this is one of those “pay attention now, figure out travel later” moments.
The next LoopConf is scheduled for September 23-24, 2026 at Grand Valley State University’s Pew Campus in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan. Sessions are listed for 9am-5pm both days, with an after party included for ticketed attendees and a little wink on the site to keep Friday, September 25 open for “some unscheduled fun.”
The early bird ticket is currently listed at $249, which is $100 less than the $349 standard ticket. LoopConf says early bird tickets are fully refundable until June 30, 2026, then transferable after that. There’s also a $500 Community Sponsor option that includes one ticket plus logo placement on the event website and select printed materials.
Why LoopConf matters
LoopConf has always sat in a different lane from the average WordPress event. WordCamps are broad, local, volunteer-powered, and wonderfully unpredictable. LoopConf is narrower on purpose: a curated room for developers and engineers who build with WordPress every day.
WordPress is still carrying a huge chunk of the web, but the questions developers are wrestling with are bigger than “Which hook do I need?” AI is changing workflows. Plugin security keeps getting harder. Sustainability is not a cute side topic anymore. Platform independence is back in the conversation. Client communication still makes or breaks the work, no matter how good the code is.
That is the useful promise of LoopConf. Not “come hear a bunch of talks.” More like: come sit with people who are thinking seriously about what WordPress development becomes next.
Last year showed the lane clearly
LoopConf’s 2025 London event gave a pretty clear preview of why this conference is useful. The official WPSessions archive for LoopConf London 2025 lists sessions from John O’Nolan, Ryan McCue, Ivelina Dimova, Juliette Reinders Folmer, Ross Wintle, Ana Rodrigues, and Rashmi Nagpal. That lineup tells you something. LoopConf is not only about writing cleaner code. It is about the conditions that make good WordPress work possible.
Rhys Wynne’s thoughtful recap of LoopConf 2025 called it “an independent WordPress, tech and design conference”. His biggest takeaways clustered around three themes: returning to a less monolithic web, making open-source work sustainable, and becoming better developers in a world where AI can produce more code but cannot replace judgment, communication, or taste.
That is exactly the kind of conversation WordPress needs more of. The talks Rhys highlighted touched the FAIR project and decentralization, owning your online presence, project maintenance and funding, lessons from long careers in development, practical communication, AI-assisted plugin security analysis, and AI-powered image workflows. Less “look at this shiny thing” and more “how do we keep building responsibly?”
WP Engine’s recap of the 2025 event described LoopConf as a one-day conference for WordPress developers and engineers, with open-source leaders, web developers, learning, collaboration, and post-event networking at The Oyster Shed. Yes, sponsor recap language is still sponsor recap language. But even through the polish, the signal is clear: this was a room built for serious WordPress practitioners.
The real value is between the scheduled things
The session list is important. Speaker curation matters. Recordings are great too, especially since LoopConf says ticketed attendees will get access to session recordings after the event.
But conferences like this usually earn their keep between the official sessions. The hallway conversation with someone who solved your exact deployment problem. The dinner where a plugin maintainer explains the tradeoff behind a decision you have been side-eyeing for months. The sponsor booth chat that turns into a partnership. The “wait, other people are worried about this too?” moment that turns a private concern into a community conversation.
You can watch a talk later. You cannot fully recreate the room.
Online events are efficient. In-person events are sticky. They turn names into people, ideas into collaborations, and vague concerns into shared momentum.
Who should consider going?
LoopConf is probably not the best fit for someone looking for a gentle introduction to WordPress. It is also probably not the right event if your main goal is a broad local community meetup.
But if you are a developer, technical agency owner, product engineer, freelancer, plugin builder, performance/security person, or technical leader who builds with WordPress for clients or products, LoopConf is aimed directly at you.
- If you are trying to use AI without turning your workflow into a gimmick, pay attention.
- If you care about the independence and sustainability of the WordPress ecosystem, this is your kind of room.
- If you want better technical conversations than “what page builder do you use?”, this is the one.
- If you sponsor, hire, or partner in the WordPress space, the smaller 200-attendee format may be a feature, not a limitation.
Early bird is the practical moment
The best argument for buying early is simple: the ticket is cheaper, the refund window gives you some breathing room, and the event is far enough out that travel can still be planned instead of panic-booked.
For a two-day, developer-focused WordPress conference, $249 is a reasonable door price. If attending means flights, hotel, and time away from client work, the math still has to math. But if you already know you want to be in the room, the early bird window is the moment to decide.
WordPress needs big-tent gatherings, local meetups, contributor days, product events, and hallway-heavy conferences where the people building the thing can compare notes honestly. LoopConf is one of the latter.
If you can make it to Grand Rapids next September, it looks like a room worth being in.
Get LoopConf 2026 tickets here
Disclaimer: The WP World is a media partner of LoopConf 2026.