How to become a WordCamp speaker (2026 guide)

How to become a WordCamp speaker comes down to a short routine: watch the list of upcoming events on WordCamp Central, find a camp whose call for speakers is open, and send a talk proposal through that camp’s own website before the deadline. Local volunteer organizers choose the program, so the proposals that get picked teach one specific thing attendees can use, come from the speaker’s own work and do not sell anything. WordCamps do not pay speaking fees; speakers are volunteers like the organizers. Most people start at a local meetup or a smaller camp, then apply to regional and flagship WordCamps once they have a talk they have already given and improved.

That is roughly the route I took. The oldest entry in my talk record is a WordPress Floripa meetup in 2020. Since then I have spoken at WordCamps in Brazil, Canada and the United States, and I was selected as a backup speaker for WordCamp Europe 2026 in Poland. This guide covers how the selection actually works, what organizers read in a proposal, and what I would tell anyone applying for the first time. Two companion guides go deeper: WordCamp talk proposal examples you can adapt and the speaker bio and slides checklist.

What is a WordCamp, and who chooses the speakers?

A WordCamp is a conference about WordPress organized by people from the local community. Each one has a team of volunteer organizers, a website under wordcamp.org, and support from the WordPress Community team, which publishes its handbooks and guidelines at make.wordpress.org/community. Some camps cover a single city, some a country, and a few are flagship events that draw people from a whole region, such as WordCamp US and WordCamp Europe.

The program is decided by the organizing team of each camp, usually a small group of volunteers in charge of speakers and content. There is no central speaker pool and no global application. If you want to speak at WordCamp Canada and WordCamp Rio, you apply twice, to two different teams, on two different websites. That matters because each team has its own audience, its own gaps in the schedule and its own idea of what a good session looks like for its city.

Organizers also follow the WordCamp guidelines from the Community team. Two of them affect speakers directly. Talks are there to teach, not to pitch a product or service. And people in official roles, speakers included, are expected to respect the GPL for any WordPress derivative work they distribute, such as themes and plugins. If your talk is really a demo of your premium plugin, expect it to be turned down or sent back for changes.

How does a WordCamp call for speakers work?

The call for speakers is a public form on the camp’s website, usually linked from the home page and announced on the camp’s social channels. The details vary by camp, but the sequence is close to this:

1. The organizing team sets the dates, the venue and the number of session slots, then opens the call for speakers with a deadline.
2. You submit one or more proposals: a title, a description, the format, the audience level and a short bio. Many forms also ask for links to past talks or recordings.
3. After the deadline, the speaker team reads every proposal and builds a schedule, balancing topics, levels and formats.
4. You get an acceptance or a rejection by email. Accepted speakers confirm, and the session is published on the camp’s schedule page.
5. Before the event, organizers ask for final details: a photo, an updated bio, sometimes the slides in advance, and an agreement to the camp’s code of conduct.
6. On the day, you give the talk. Most camps record sessions, and recordings are often published on WordPress.tv.

The best place to find open calls is the schedule of upcoming WordCamps on WordCamp Central. Camps are listed there once they are approved, and each camp’s site shows whether its call for speakers is open. Some calls close months before the event, so check the list often instead of waiting for an announcement to reach you.

What do organizers look for in a talk proposal?

Read the accepted sessions on any camp’s schedule and you will see the same traits. None of them is about being famous.

• A clear promise. The title and the first sentence of the description tell attendees what they will be able to do or understand after the session.
• One topic, not five. A proposal that tries to cover hosting, caching, images, fonts and SEO in 30 minutes reads as a talk without a point.
• Proof that you have done the thing. Organizers want speakers who talk from their own work: projects, audits, mistakes, code they shipped.
• A defined audience. “Beginners who just launched their first site” and “developers who maintain WooCommerce stores” need different talks. Say which one you are giving.
• Fit with the event. A camp with a business track wants business talks. A camp in a city full of agencies may want sessions about client work.
• No sales pitch. You can mention your company in your bio. The session itself has to be useful to someone who will never buy from you.

Look at my own accepted session for WordCamp Canada 2025. The description is one sentence: hosting, caching layers, CDN, image and script strategy, what to use, what to skip and what each choice costs. It names the scope, it promises a decision framework, and it does not mention a single product I sell. The proposal examples guide breaks that abstract down and gives you templates for other topics.

Which talk formats can you apply for?

Formats depend on the camp. Read the call carefully, because some camps only accept regular sessions and others have tracks for workshops, panels or short talks. These are the formats I see most often:

My first appearance at WordCamp Canada, in 2024, was a panel: Accessibility in the Digital Space. A panel is a good way to get on the stage of a larger camp, because the preparation is different. You do not build slides. You prepare positions, examples and short answers, and you listen to the other panelists.

How do you pick a topic you can defend?

Pick the topic you could talk about for an hour without notes, then cut it down. The best signal is repetition at work. If clients, colleagues or people in community groups keep asking you the same question, that question is a talk.

For me it was performance. In audits I keep finding the same structural problems on WordPress sites: hosting, page cache, database, render-blocking assets and third-party scripts. That became the material for my talks on Core Web Vitals in practice, the critical rendering path and the WordPress performance stack. Later, the questions changed. Developers started asking me what the job will look like with AI writing more of the code, and that turned into Staying Relevant as a WordPress Developer in 2026.

A few filters I use before writing a proposal:

• Can I show something real? A site I worked on, a profile from DevTools, a decision I would make differently today.
• Is it still true next year? Talks built on a plugin’s settings screen age fast. Talks about how browsers and servers work last longer.
• Do I have an opinion? “Here are ten tools” is a list. “Here is the order I fix things in, and why” is a talk.
• Can a beginner follow the first ten minutes? Even advanced talks need an entry point.

If you need ideas, the talk proposal examples include a table of topics by track.

How to become a WordCamp speaker if you have never spoken before

Start small and local, then move up. Speaking is a skill you practice in front of people, and the first versions of any talk are the worst ones. Meetups exist for exactly that.

Recordings help more than people expect. When a speaker team has two similar proposals, a link to a video of you explaining the topic clearly is strong evidence. Several of my early sessions are on YouTube, including the 27th WordPress Floripa meetup and WordCamp Floripa 2021, and I still link them when a form asks for past talks.

If English is not your first language, the same ladder applies. I gave my first talks in Portuguese, in Brazilian events, and only then applied to camps in Canada and the United States. Many camps outside English-speaking countries also run their programs in the local language, which is a good way to start.

My path: from a Floripa meetup to WordCamp US

This is my WordCamp record plus the meetups and conferences that came before it. Dates and titles come from the official pages and recordings.

Between those WordCamps there were other stages that taught me just as much: TDC Business and TDC Future in 2023, the Abradi Core Web Vitals webinar, DevFest Rio Grande do Sul in 2024 and PHP Conference Brazil in 2025. The full list is on my talks page.

Three things I take from that record. First, the early WordCamps were online, and that was fine. A recorded online session at a Brazilian camp counts as a real talk, and it became material I could point to later. Second, the same talk can go to more than one camp. Staying Relevant was accepted at WordCamp US in August 2026 and at WordCamp Canada for November 2026. The Canada abstract is a little longer than the US one, because I added a line about the market being AI driven and globally competitive. Adapting an abstract to each camp is normal. Third, the topics followed my work. The performance talks came from audits, and the career talk came from conversations with developers.

How do you prepare once you are accepted?

Acceptance is when the real work starts. Confirm quickly, because organizers often keep a waiting list and need to know who is coming. Then plan backwards from the date.

• Reply to the organizers and confirm the session, the format and the length of your slot.
• Send the bio and photo they ask for. Write the bio in third person and keep a short and a long version.
• Build the talk around three or four sections, each with one example. Rehearse it out loud with a timer at least twice.
• Make your slides readable from the back of a room and in a recording: large type, high contrast, little text per slide.
• Prepare a version of every demo that works offline. Venue Wi-Fi fails.
• Book travel early if the camp is far away, and check visa rules if you are crossing a border.

The WordCamp speaker checklist has the complete list, with a bio example in three lengths and a slide checklist I use myself.

What happens on the day and after the talk?

Get to the room early. Find the session volunteer or moderator, test the projector with your own laptop and adapter, and check the microphone. If the session is recorded, the camera crew may ask you to stay in a certain area of the stage. Repeat audience questions into the microphone, so people watching the recording can hear them.

After the session, publish your slides and link them from the camp’s session page if the organizers allow it, and from your own site. When the recording comes out, add it to your talks page. Each recorded talk is evidence for the next call for speakers, and it keeps working long after the event. Thank the organizers too. They are volunteers who gave up evenings and weekends to make the event happen.

Should you apply alone or with a co-speaker?

Some camps accept proposals with two speakers, and for a first talk that can help. You split the preparation, you have someone to rehearse with, and the nerves are shared. It works best when each person owns a clear part of the talk, for example one explains the problem and the other shows the fix on a real site. It works badly when two people take turns reading slides.

Check the call before you apply as a pair. Some camps limit the number of speakers per session. If the form has a single speaker field, use the notes for organizers to explain that you plan to present with someone, and add their name and bio there.

Do WordCamp speakers get paid?

No. WordCamp speakers are not paid a fee. Organizers, volunteers and speakers all take part as volunteers, which is part of what keeps ticket prices low. Camps usually give speakers a complimentary ticket. Travel and lodging are normally paid by the speaker or by the speaker’s employer, and if a camp offers any help with costs, its call for speakers says so. Read that part of the call before you apply to a camp in another country.

Speaking still pays back in other ways. A recorded session is public proof of what you know, and organizers, developers and companies find you through it. But if you need a fee to justify the trip, WordCamps are the wrong events for that. Paid speaking happens at private company events, corporate trainings and some commercial conferences.

Why do WordCamp proposals get rejected?

Most rejections have nothing to do with the speaker’s skill. There are more proposals than slots, and organizers have to balance the schedule. Still, these are the problems I see most often when I read weak proposals:

• The title is clever but does not say what the talk is about.
• The description is one line of buzzwords, or three paragraphs with no clear takeaway.
• The topic is too broad for the slot.
• The talk is a product demo dressed up as a tutorial.
• The same topic was already covered by another accepted speaker, and yours added nothing different.
• The audience level is missing, so the organizers cannot place the talk in the schedule.

A rejection from one camp says nothing about the next one. Ask the organizers for feedback if they offer it, rewrite the proposal and send it to another camp. Being turned down a few times before the first acceptance at a large camp is normal.

Frequently asked questions

How do I apply to speak at a WordCamp?

Find the camp on the schedule of upcoming WordCamps at central.wordcamp.org, open its website and look for the call for speakers. Fill in the form with a title, a description, the format, the audience level and a short bio before the deadline. Each camp runs its own call, so you apply separately to every WordCamp you want to speak at.

Do I need to be an expert to speak at a WordCamp?

No. You need to know your topic well enough to teach it, and you need real experience with it. Many camps actively look for first-time speakers and local voices. A clear beginner talk from someone who just solved a problem is often more useful to attendees than an advanced talk that loses half the room.

Do WordCamp speakers get paid?

WordCamp speakers are volunteers and are not paid a speaking fee. Camps usually give speakers a free ticket. Travel and lodging are usually covered by the speaker or the speaker’s employer unless the camp’s call for speakers says otherwise.

How far in advance should I apply?

As soon as the call opens. Calls for speakers often close months before the event, especially for flagship camps like WordCamp US and WordCamp Europe. Check WordCamp Central regularly and keep a proposal ready so you can submit within the first days.

Can I give the same talk at more than one WordCamp?

Yes. Speakers often give the same talk at several camps, updated each time. I gave Staying Relevant as a WordPress Developer in 2026 at WordCamp US 2026 and at WordCamp Canada 2026. Adjust the abstract to each audience and mention where you gave it before, with a link to the recording if one exists.

If you organize an event or a company training and want a session on WordPress performance, Core Web Vitals or the WordPress developer career, see my talks and the topics I can bring to your stage.