WordCamp US has announced its speakers. The schedule has real substance. Phoenix is waiting.
Now comes the part that matters just as much as the lineup: the room needs more WordPress people in it.
WordCamp US 2026 lands at the Phoenix Convention Center August 16, 2026, and ticket sales are lower than they should be for a gathering with this much going on. That is not a guilt trip. It is a practical invitation. If WordPress is part of how you make a living, build a business, serve clients, create content, or find your people, this is one of those weeks worth putting on the calendar.
The speaker list is no longer hypothetical
The official speaker roster now includes 35 51 57 people from across the WordPress ecosystem. You will find names many regular WordCamp folks already know, including Brian Coords, Jamie Marsland, Kathy Zant, Miriam Schwab, Nik McLaughlin, and Michelle Hunt … alongside plenty of people you may not have met yet.
That mix matters. The announced program is not just a stack of familiar talking heads or a parade of vague future-of-everything slides. It reaches into the work WordPress people are doing right now: AI-assisted development, practical automation, agency business models, editorial workflows, security, accessibility, and a beginning WordPress track for people who need a confident place to start.
There are sessions on AI agents, guardrails, legal questions, and search. There are conversations about maintenance, WP-CLI automation, block themes, content systems, and the changing agency model. There is room for the person shipping large sites, the person trying to make their first site better, and the person who has been quietly wondering where they fit in the community.
A WordCamp is not valuable because the badge says you attended. It is valuable because you put yourself in the conversations that change what you build next.
Four days is a different kind of ticket
A general admission ticket is $100. (Use MEETUP50 for 50% off for a total of $50.) Student tickets are $25. For that, WordCamp US is offering four days that move from contribution and discovery into learning and connection.
- Sunday, August 16: Contributor Day, where first-timers and regular contributors can work together on the open-source project.
- Monday, August 17: Showcase Day, with real projects, demos, and ideas worth bringing back to your own work.
- Tuesday and Wednesday: sessions and workshops across four tracks, from AI and technical WordPress to honing your skills and Beginning WP101.
- Wednesday night: the WordCamp US social, because some of the best next steps happen after the session room empties.
The ticket page also points to hands-on workshops, the Happiness Bar for one-on-one help, the Career Corner, and the Sponsor Hall. In other words, this is not a two-day conference where you sit in a ballroom, collect a tote bag, and go home with 47 browser tabs you will never reopen.
Why you need to be there
It is tempting to think every useful WordPress conversation will find its way into a livestream, a podcast feed, a Slack channel, or a recap thread. Some will. But a healthy in-person event is not just the recorded sessions. It is the person you meet while looking for coffee. It is a five-minute question at the Happiness Bar that saves you a week. It is hearing an agency owner describe a problem you thought only you had. It is realizing that a contributor team has room for you.
That human layer is especially important right now. WordPress is working through real shifts around AI, product expectations, business models, publishing, and the open web itself. We need more people in the room who run sites, support clients, make plugins, teach beginners, and care about where this ecosystem goes next.
A smaller crowd does not make an event more intimate in the good way if it means fewer perspectives, fewer first-time connections, and less momentum for the people doing the work. The speakers have done their part. Organizers have done theirs. Sponsors have helped keep access affordable.
The rest of us have a fairly simple part to play: show up if we can.
Come with a purpose
Do not buy a ticket because you feel like you should. Buy one because you can name one thing you want to get better at, one person you want to meet, one question you want answered, or one way you want to contribute.
Then come to Phoenix ready to have the plan change a little. That is usually where the useful stuff starts.
Get your WordCamp US 2026 ticket and help make the room as strong as the program.