Results of the #WCEU 2018 Attendee Survey

Stats, survey results and a final round up of WCEU 2018

Our satellites have been orbiting and we can finally share the WCEU 2018 attendee observations that we collected in our survey.

We could tell from your smiling faces that you were enjoying WordCamp Europe. Now the polls are in and it’s official: you loved it! With 566 total responses to our survey from 49 different countries, an overwhelming 93% of attendees rated their experience as “amazing” or “great”.

Before going into the rest of the survey results, let’s do a quick recap of the some of the numbers we shared during our closing remarks.

WCEU in numbers

  • We sold 2368 tickets to folks attending from 76 different countries.
  • A record-breaking 2085 people attended in all, with 529 participants at Contributor Day.
  • We had 808 sign-ups to view WordCamp Europe via Livestream, from 37 countries.
  • A total of 65 speakers honoured us with their presence this year, from 17 countries.
  • 37 sponsors, and 44 microsponsors, brought us the funding we needed to make the event a success.
  • Our Public Relations team organized 68 interviews for 9 Media Partners, with a total audience reach of 200k.
  • Social Media numbers went way up this year, with more than 1.5M in audience reach on Twitter, and over 4k unique views on Instagram.
  • We were 54 organizers strong across 10 teams, and supported by an additional 170 volunteers during the event.

Survey results

  • 49% were attending WCEU for the first time.
  • And for 37% of those folks, WordCamp Europe in Belgrade was their first ever WordCamp.
  • 98% said they would recommend WCEU to a friend.
  • 90% are very likely to attend WCEU in Berlin in 2019.

The top 10 rated activities and services were:

  1. Volunteers
  2. The talks
  3. Meeting sponsors
  4. The After Party
  5. Info desk
  6. The official app
  7. Event swag
  8. Workshops
  9. Live captioning
  10. Open networking

The top 10 talks were:

  1. Keynote and Q&A – Matt Mullenweg     
  2. Technical SEO to grow your WordPress business – Joost de Valk     
  3. The Ethics of Web Design – Morten Rand-Hendriksen     
  4. Beyond Gutenberg – Matías Ventura     
  5. Progressive WordPress Themes – Alberto Medina, Thierry Muller     
  6. WordPress in 2019 – Noel Tock     
  7. Accessible Design – Maja Benke     
  8. JavaScript APIs in WordPress – Adam Silverstein     
  9. WordPress and Inclusive Design – John Maeda     
  10. Anatomy of a block: Gutenberg design patterns – Tammie Lister

The top 3 workshops were: (Gutenberg anyone?)

  1. (Gutenberg) Block Development with React – Zac Gordon, Julien Melissas     
  2. Let’s Build a Gutenberg Block – Lara Schenck     
  3. Roundtable with the Gutenberg team – The Gutenberg Team

78% of attendees said they most definitely want to see workshops again next year!

How was the organization?

Pretty great according to you! 94% rated us “great” or “amazing” and it looks like we’re finally getting food right, with a strong 80% positive rating. The venues were also rated 80%, no doubt because of the rocket-propelled decor the design team dreamed up.

43% rated the After Party as “off the hook”, and an additional 21% rated it as “good”, with only 24% who didn’t attend.

Top 5 things we absolutely did right that you want us to continue:

  1. Workshops
  2. The PWA (our official app!)
  3. The Contribution Room
  4. The live band at the After Party
  5. Food buffets with lots of choices

Areas where we can still improve:

  1. WiFi
  2. Quiet areas for the After Party
  3. Greater capacity for workshops
  4. Air conditioning
  5. More sustainable (less throwaway) swag
  6. Diverse speakers and topics

We’ll use the feedback from our attendee survey and take on board everything we did well and can improve upon for our next mission: WCEU 2019, landing in Berlin on June 20-22. Tickets will become available from September 1st, 2018 and you can head over to the WCEU 2019 site to subscribe for updates.

Until then, look back at the photos and videos from WCEU 2018.