So an Irish guy walks into a WordPress conference and a great time was had by all.
(May have nothing to do with the Irish guy who was present)

This weekend saw me moving my base of operations to Paris. To Paris? For a WordPress event? That’s right WCParis 2016

The CAP15 Venue for WCParis 2015

Yep and it was pretty great. Let me first explain however that I live in France. The land of wine and baguettes 🙂 Yes we live in that wonderful age when you can sometimes live and work remotely with companies.

Jenny Beaumont opening WCParis

I was there representing Blacknight as a micro sponsor for the event.

James Larkin representing Blacknight at WCParis

The majority of the talks were in French, however there was still a rather good turn out of non French speakers for such an event.

Turnout for WCParis opening talk
It was a two day event in a rather amazing location.

With two channels of talks running at the same time on both days it just wasn’t possible to attend them all. They will however be available hopefully in the near future over at wordpress.tv

Salle Conferences 1 - WCParis

Highlights for me of the two days?

Meeting Lego Yoast! (Not to mention Taco and Michiel)

Blacknight meeting Yoast Lego

Meeting people. Hanging out with such a great and welcoming community was worth it in itself.

Hanging Out with a great mix of people after WCParis

There were of course the talks, highlights of those would be case studies of Buddy Press with Sylvie Clément, Emilie Lebrun on how to deal with WordPress projects for large clients, Claire Bizingre on accessibility in your themes.

Chris Lema’s talk on accelerating sales was excellent ( Very little to do with WordPress in that one and it was one of the 4 English talks given).

Chris Lema talking about accelerating sales at WCParis

Another great talk on the Command Line Interface for WordPress by Kirsten Cassidy leaves you with so many ideas of what’s possible. Now to find the time to play with some of these things.

Kirsten Cassidy talks about the WordPress CLI at WCParis 2016

As with all events however you get out of the events what you want. If you’re planning on leaving a full fledged dev after a 1 hour talk you’ll be greatly deceived. If you’re looking to get a better understanding about the power of WordPress and some tips and tricks in the process then you’re in luck. You can also go to talk to people who make themselves freely available to help out with any of the various problems you might encounter in using WordPress.

To wrap up I’d just like to say a huge huge thanks to Jenny Beaumont, all the amazing team, and everyone who made my trip so very welcoming.

The Final Curtain at WCParis

See you next year (or sooner)

EXTRA: It wouldn’t be a blog post on Paris without some tourist shots now would it?

The Eiffel Tower

The Eiffel Tower Paris

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