Why We’re Sponsoring The #WPLDN WordPress Meetup

We’ve joined the sponsor list for #WPLDN, London’s monthly WordPress meetup. Here’s why we think it is worth it.

What Is #WPLDN?

#WPLDN runs on the last Thursday of every month and has done since 2008. Forty to fifty developers, designers, agency owners and in-house teams turn up to The Bridge in Southwark for two talks, a hosted Q&A, free pizza and a proper conversation afterwards. Tickets are free. Every talk is recorded and published under a Creative Commons licence on the #WPLDN YouTube channel, so the value of each session travels well beyond the room itself.

That isn’t unusual in the WordPress world. WordCamps, meetups and contributor days have always been free, community-led and generous with their content. The GPL ethos of “share what you build” extends naturally to “share what you learn”, and #WPLDN is one of the more consistent expressions of that ethos in the UK. Dan Maby and the team have kept it running for 18 years, and the room is what it is because of their work, not anyone else’s.

Why We’re Sponsoring

The honest reason is that we owe the community more than we’ve put back in.

We’re a WordPress agency. We’ve hired through this community, we’ve learned from it and we’ve released open-source plugins (PersonalizeWP and Filter AI) on the back of conversations that started at events like this one. Paul Halfpenny, our founder and CTO, spoke at #WPLDN in 2024 on how personalisation drives conversion. The room was generous with its time. We left with new connections, great questions and a clearer sense of where our work fits in.

Sponsoring is one small way to give some of that back. Several companies in the WordPress space have been supporting #WPLDN long before we showed up. We’re glad to be on the list alongside them.

Growing #WPLDN

Dan and Nathan, the lead organisers of #WPLDN, have a clear and modest ambition: keep the meetup free, keep the talks open and bring more new voices onto the stage. New speakers are particularly welcome from groups that are under-represented on WordPress stages today. The same goes for first-time attendees. If you’ve ever wondered whether #WPLDN is “for you”, it is.

Anyone can help support the event directly. #WPLDN now accepts community sponsorship through GitHub Sponsors, and tiers start at a few pounds a month and scale up to covering pizza, drinks or venue hire. If your business runs on WordPress, this is a small payback with a real effect.

Four Things You Can Do

• Come to the next meetup. Register on the #WPLDN Meetup page. It’s free and you’ll be welcome.
• Apply to speak. Submit a talk at wpldn.uk/speak. New voices are exactly who the organisers want to hear from.
• Watch the back catalogue. Every talk lives on the #WPLDN YouTube channel. Paul’s talk on personalisation is one of many; pick whichever topic interests you.
• Support #WPLDN on GitHub Sponsors. Even a few pounds a month makes a difference.

We’ll see you at the back, near the pizza!