If you love building on WordPress, it’s time you were in a room full of other people who do too. WordCamp US lands in Phoenix on August 16–19, and this…

WordCamp US 2026: 7 Reasons to Connect with Your WordPress Community

By WordPress.com Staff on July 21, 2026

If you love building on WordPress, it’s time you were in a room full of other people who do too.

WordCamp US lands in Phoenix on August 16–19, and this is your chance to connect with the WordPress community.

If you’ve never heard of WordCamp, here’s the TLDR: it’s a conference built entirely around WordPress, run by the same open-source community that builds the platform you’re using right now.

And at the WordPress.com booth, we’re championing the theme: WordPress for the future. This year, we’re offering a sponsor code WordPress.com-friend20 for 20% off general admission.

Take a look at the full WordCamp US 2026 schedule to see what’s on the horizon this year.

Get 20% off WordCamp US tickets

What is WordCamp US?

A large crowd of WordCamp US attendees waving for a group photo beneath a decorative dragon boat in the convention center lobby

WordCamp is four days of practical sessions, workshops, and conversations with people who build, use, and improve WordPress

The two main conference days run across four tracks: AI, Technical WordPress, Honing Your Skills, and Beginner WordPress. They cover everything from AI guardrails and agency pricing to modern dev workflows and your first WordCamp. Every track mixes talks with hands-on workshops, so you leave with something you can actually use, not just notes.

But the sessions are only part of the value. WordCamp US also puts you in the same rooms, lunch lines, and hallway conversations as people working through the same publishing, business, and technical questions you are.

Take a look at our WordCamp 2025 wrap-up to see how it went: The 5 Best Things About WordCamp US 2025.

7 Reasons To Attend WordCamp US 2026

WordCamp US gives you four days to solve problems, build skills, make useful connections, and see where WordPress is heading.

Here are seven reasons to make the trip to Phoenix:

1. Showcase Day: See how far WordPress can go

A grid of website screenshots from the WordPress Showcase, including sites for Taylor Swift, Disney, NASA, Noma, and Ubisoft Quebec, all built on WordPress

On August 17, teams running some of the internet’s biggest, highest-traffic sites walk through exactly how they build features, manage publishing, and keep things up and running when millions of people show up at once.

Think of it as the WordPress Showcase pulled off the page and put on a stage. Previously featuring platforms behind Disney, NASA, and major publishers, explained by the people who actually build and maintain it.

Past Showcase Days have brought out teams from Wikimedia and CANCOM. Expect sessions on catching bugs before they ship with automated testing and running the Block Editor inside a fully custom app. This is the kind of detail you only get from people who’ve actually shipped it, not talked about shipping it.

2. Get unstuck, on the spot, for free

A group of WordCamp US attendees laughing together around a table of laptops and coffee cups while one person films with a microphone

The Happiness Bar is a free, drop-in help desk where you sit down with a real WordPress expert and get help with whatever has you stuck. Bring your laptop, your WordPress.com site, and the problem.

Code review, plugin questions, a site doing something weird, or the classic “I don’t even know where to start” – it all counts. There’s no ticket queue, appointment, or charge.

If you’ve ever spent an hour searching forums for an answer that was two sentences long, this is the in-person version of skipping straight to those two sentences.

3. Turn your WordPress experience into your next job opportunity

Attendees working on laptops at long tables in a large ballroom during WordCamp US, with Career Corner shown on the screens at the front of the room

Career Corner, inside the Sponsor Hall, is a low-key place to explore what comes next. Browse the job board, meet sponsors that are hiring, and talk directly with company representatives.

There are no appointments and no formal pitch, just people open to a useful conversation.

A separate hands-on workshop gives you half a day to build a complete site, whether it’s for your portfolio, business, ecommerce store, or personal brand.

Bring the project you keep pushing to next week, then use the focused time, accountability, and support from experienced WordPress people to finally get it moving.

4. Figure out what AI actually means for your site, beyond the hype

Large illuminated hashtag WCUS letters on stage in front of a silhouetted WordCamp US audience during a session

AI runs through the heart of this year’s program, with practical sessions on content, search, development, automation, and the legal questions site owners need to understand.

If you’ve felt behind on this topic, this is a chance to catch up with people working directly on these problems.

Sessions cover guardrails for using AI tools responsibly, what it means to prepare your site for AI agents as a new category of visitor, and the legal and ethical questions that come up when you start handing AI tools to clients.

5. Learn WordPress without feeling like the only beginner in the room

Two WordCamp US attendees chatting over coffee at a wooden picnic table on artificial grass near the Happiness Bar, with a Wapuu plush toy on the table

You don’t need to arrive fluent in PHP or WordPress terminology.

WordCamp US is designed to welcome first-time attendees, with guides, sessions, mentors, and spaces to help you find your footing.

All conference sessions are recorded and posted to WordCamp US YouTube afterward, so you can prioritize live workshops and questions without losing every overlapping talk.

Check out: A First-Timer’s Guide to WordCamp US

6. Contribute to WordPress itself, no experience required

Three WordCamp US attendees working together at a table, one taking notes by hand while another types on a laptop

Contributor Day on August 16 opens the event, and it’s open to anyone – you don’t need to have contributed before or know how to code.

Join a team working on WordPress core, documentation, design, training, accessibility, or translation, and spend a day helping build the software instead of just using it.

For a WordPress.com user, it’s also a chance to see how the open-source software underneath your site gets made – and help improve it. You can contribute in person or remotely through the Slack #contributor-day channel.

Help teams covering everything from Core AI and accessibility to documentation, photos, marketing, support, and training.

7. Make Phoenix worth the trip

The downtown Phoenix, Arizona skyline at dusk with Camelback Mountain and desert rock formations in the foreground, host city of WordCamp US 2026

WordCamp US is a compact downtown trip: the airport is less than five miles away, the official hotel is a five-minute walk from the air-conditioned convention center, and the light rail from the airport costs less than $5.

Why not spend an evening or extra day checking out these events:

The Van Buren has a different concert each night of WordCamp.
Sports fans can see the Phoenix Mercury play the Portland Fire on August 16.
For a slower evening, Desert Oasis Garden After Dark runs illuminated trails daily, with a quiet night on Sunday and jazz along the trails on Wednesday.
Phoenix Art Museum also has ‘pay what you wish’ Wednesday and a Phoenix Symphony gallery performance on August 19.

Keep the middle of the day for WordCamp, then use mornings and evenings for Roosevelt Row: local coffee, tacos, pizza, cocktails, and desert scenery you cannot get anywhere else.

Don’t miss out on WordCamp US 2026

Two WordCamp US attendees hugging and laughing at a crowded evening social gathering

WordCamp US 2026 runs on August 16–19 at the Phoenix Convention Center.

General admission is $100, while student tickets are just $25. Use sponsor code WordPress.com-friend20 for 20% off general admission.

Your ticket covers: