Last weekend, me and my friends from the Kuala Lumpur WordPress Meetup group put on WordCamp Kuala Lumpur 2018. The camp was held at the Royale Chulan Bukit Bintang, same venue as last year.
Rindy Portfolio was Lead Organizer while Sam Suresh, Andy Saw and I were co-organizers.
WordCamp weekend began on Friday for us. We collected all of our gear and drove to the hotel separately. We were lucky that we could begin setting up immediately that afternoon.
Later that night, we met with the speakers and sponsors for dinner at Bijan Bar & Restaurant on Jalan Ceylon. Dinner was delicious, and it was a nice way to connect with each other informally before the big event the next day.
Pei Chyi and the kids joined me for a short staycation in KL. We took a stroll down Jalan Alor to end the night.
The next morning, we met at the hotel ballroom bright and early to complete the final setup and begin receiving attendees. Pei Chyi helped set up the balloon decorations. Rindy began opening remarks at 9.00am and with that, the conference was open. I was the emcee in the Nasi Lemak track, with Sam assuming that duty in the Char Kuey Teow track.
Dinner at Bijan with speakers and sponsors 
Dinner at Bijan with speakers and sponsors 
Our awesome volunteers 
Lead Organizer Rindy 
Lorna presenting her talk 
Ivan presenting his talk 
Me presenting my talk 
I think Wapuu was quite popular 
We had 6 female speakers (Sara not pictured) 
That’s a wrap!
Thankfully, everything went smoothly enough. We didn’t have any delays or speakers forgetting to show up. The one speaker drop-out we had happened earlier in the week, so I jumped in to replace that session with a talk about the Gutenberg editor.
The next day, we even had a Contributor Day. Leo stepped up to lead the event. I couldn’t attend because of Aaron’s kindergarten concert. Attendance was really good. Thanks to DOJO KL for sponsoring the venue!
Sidebar about Gutenberg. Despite its failures with accessibility, I’m a big fan of it. I started this post on my iPad, typed most of it on my desktop and am now proofing and editing it on my iPhone–it’s been super solid! Yes, I even managed to upload images and add links from my iPhone. If you haven’t yet, definitely go give Gutenberg a try 😊
Last year I was only a speaker, so this year was a big step up to co-organizer and emcee (plus speaker). I easily 10x-ed my time dedicated to WordCamp this year. As a solo business, that was a big chunk of my time which unfortunately ate into paying client time (sorry!)
On the one hand, it was an excellent experience and a great way to get to know my fellow co-organizers and volunteers better. However I also had much less time to meet and network with attendees. This year I only gave out 3-5 business cards.
Despite that, I don’t have any regrets at all and am really honored to have had the opportunity. I can’t wait for my WordCamp Organizer badge on WordPress.org 😁 Looking forward to WordCampKL 2019 already!
Looks great! Do you know when the next WordCamp will be held in Kuala Lumpur?