WordCamp Asia 2026 — who needs this conference the most may never come

WordCamp Asia 2026 is coming. You can watch a live stream comfortably — sitting in your chair with a mug in hand, in real time or whenever you want.

Why bother to get out of the comfort zone and actually go to the event?

If you’re reading this, 99% that know the answer — because you’re part of the WordPress community. It’s not the workshops that aren’t streamed. And it’s not even Contributor Day — at least not on its own. It’s the community. A crowd of proactive, open-minded, curious people from all over the world — coming together not just to share knowledge, but experience, perspectives, and wisdom. And they don’t make a big deal out of it. That’s just how they live.

But we are in a bubble. And to understand what’s inside, you have to step into it. Maybe out of curiosity. Maybe out of love for WordPress. Maybe in search of knowledge — or simply the company of like-minded people. But first, you have to find this bubble. And even though it may seem like it’s in plain view, it isn’t.

Bubble shift

When I started in web development, I relied on the examples I had at hand. They weren’t the best — but they worked, and I didn’t know any better. When I moved to WordPress, I followed the same logic: I googled what I needed. Most of the time, the answer was, “Add this to functions.php.” And it worked. I was solving problems as they appeared, and everything seemed fine. Yes, there was spaghetti code — I knew that — but it didn’t feel like a big deal. When you’re building the next “great feature,” there’s no time for mundane refactoring. And I never really thought about who was building the system I was using for free. Who was maintaining the documentation. Or who those “weirdos” were, answering questions on the support forums. I didn’t need to ask anything — everything had already been asked and answered. Until one day, I found a question with no answer. I figured it out myself. And registered just to reply. That was 2017. 

Around the same time, I got “lucky.” My boss messaged me on WhatsApp: we were switching from WordPress to another system. Just like that. He wanted a new, “cool” look — and the whole rebuild was sold through design. My opinion didn’t matter, and I knew arguing was pointless. I had worked with that system before and had been deeply unsatisfied. So this “amazing opportunity” was upsetting on its own — even without the fact that no one had bothered to ask me. To distract myself, I started looking at IT events. And, oh wonder, I discovered my local WordPress meetup — something I had been completely oblivious to before. Only then did I start noticing WordPress events in the dashboard. Before that, they were a blind spot. You don’t miss what you don’t know exists.

After a couple of local WordCamps, I went to WordCamp Nordic — and it blew my mind. It changed me. I came back home so excited that I kept chasing tickets to WordCamp Europe 2019 — and eventually bought one right in the middle of a “new marketing strategy” presentation by a self-proclaimed guru. There were a lot of ambitious words. Nothing more. With a degree in marketing, I had heard it all before and wasn’t impressed. But no one was asking for my opinion — so I found something else to occupy myself.

The e-store rebuild took almost two years. Costs went up. Stress went up — for everyone, including the agency. And somehow, part of the blame landed on me. I “should have warned them.” I “should have explained” how complex the backend really was. Before the rebuild, nine integrations with third-party systems had been working smoothly — and therefore, invisibly. The agency seemed to believe that an e-store is just a set of nice-looking pages and a plugin to get orders. How is that even possible? My guess — they weren’t going to conferences. We’ve switched to this new system and I resigned. With a surprisingly light heart, I went to WordCamp Europe 2019.

What’s the point of this story?

I was unsatisfied — and that pushed me to find the WordPress community. The growth came as a side effect of getting involved. The agency, on the other hand, was perfectly satisfied with the “cool designs” they were producing — and unaware of everything else. Is this a unique case? I don’t think so. In this situation, they were working with another system — and the lack of knowledge turned the project into a nightmare. With WordPress it would not have been so obvious. You can make things “work” with very little knowledge. And the real problems only appear later — when the maker is long gone.

I’ve met people who optimize only for their own short-term gain. They make money quickly, avoid anything that doesn’t pay immediately, and don’t think about how the client will live with the project after the contract ends. They are convinced they already know everything. And sharing knowledge? That’s “naive” — because everyone is a competitor. I’m glad they rarely come to events. But at the same time, they shape how others see our industry — by delivering poor work. And this is the part we can’t fix. Because they’re not coming. They’re outside the bubble — unaware of everything that doesn’t come with a paycheck.

Some site owners leave WordPress in frustration, unable to find a good developer. Others come to conferences to understand what the system is actually capable of — and what went wrong. But these are the curious ones. The ones who ask questions. The ones who don’t accept being stuck. They sense that something doesn’t add up — and go looking for answers. You could say it’s good that they come. But they come out of necessity.

WordCamp Asia 2026 is getting closer

And in India — in Mumbai — there’s a real opportunity to raise web standards, spread best practices, and expand what people believe is possible with WordPress. People from all over the world will come together to contribute to new features, take part in the WordPress 7.0 release, share knowledge, learn, have fun — and simply meet each other. This kind of experience can change how you see your work. Sometimes, it can change much more than that. But the people who need it the most may never come.