To help you easily navigate Downtown Chandler during your time at WordCamp Phoenix, we have created a map for you. We have annotated the days and the tracks/events that will be hosted, so you don’t have to go mad trying to figure out where you need to go or where you need to be.

Friday Registration

Crowne Plaza San Marcos Hotel
One San Marcos Place
Chandler, AZ 85225

Saturday Registration

Chandler Center for the Arts
250 N Arizona Ave,
Chandler, AZ 85225

Sunday Registration

Gangplank Chandler
260 S Arizona Ave,
Chandler, AZ 85225

To download the PDF of the map, you may also download it HERE.

A huge shout-out to all of our Community Sponsors. Because of their generosity, we have been able to give out 6 free conference passes to attendees who otherwise would not have the means to attend the conference.

CODYL
codyL is a website development company providing a range of web based business solutions to their clients. Utilizing and specializing in the WordPress platform, we help both smaller and larger businesses build effective websites that create a better user experience for their audience and, in turn, achieve their business goals online. They are passionate about design and development and driven to produce results.

Website: http://codyl.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/codyLdotcom
Twitter: https://twitter.com/codyL (@codyL)

CREDLY
Credly helps the world recognize lifelong achievement by offering the leading platforms for verifying, sharing and managing digital badges and credentials. Credly is a powerful web service and a universal framework for issuing, earning, displaying and rewarding achievement in the form of digital credentials and badges. Our system includes: a web application to store, display, manage and share lifelong credentials, a free mobile app for earning, issuing, displaying, and sharing credit and an “Open Credit” API to seamlessly integrate into existing sites, applications, functions, workflows and online communities.

Website: http://credly.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Credly
Twitter: https://twitter.com/credly (@credly)

CYBERCHIMPS
CyberChimps is a responsive WordPress theme design and development company that develops themes you can trust including iFeature Pro, Responsive, Business Pro, and Eclipse Pro. CyberChimps is comprised of a team of WordPress professionals that have over 7 years of WordPress experience and believes in supporting customers, designing premium products that just work, and giving back to the WordPress community.

Website: http://cyberchimps.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cyberchimps
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cyberchimps (@cyberchimps)

POSITIVE ELEMENT
Positive Element is a “boutique” custom web design firm focused on creating web sites for professionals, authors and small businesses that are user-friendly, easy to maintain and easily optimized for search engines and social media. We develop primarily in WordPress and SquareSpace, creating unique web sites that reflect client brands and meet their specific, individual needs.

Website: http://www.positiveelement.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/betsela (@betsela)

STICKERGIANT
We Print Custom Stickers. Every Sticker Has A Story. Stickergiant.com was designed to print super high quality stickers quickly. Our service and quality is both guaranteed and legendary, a winning combination. The best materials make the best stickers and we don’t skimp on sourcing the best sticker material and laminates. Quality Material. Quality Color. Free Die Cutting. Free Artwork Services. Legendary Support and Advice.

Website: http://www.stickergiant.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stickergiant
Twitter: https://twitter.com/stickergiant (@stickergiant)

WordCamp simply would not be possible without our phenomenal sponsors. So, it gives us great pleasure to welcome two additional sponsors:

Platinum Sponsor – WiredTree

Bronze Sponsor – EventDay

Be sure that you’ve got your ticket so you don’t miss out on an action packed weekend!

WIREDTREE
WiredTree provides Managed VPS and Managed Dedicated Servers to WordPress users worldwide from our Chicago-based data center and offices. Every WT server is backed by 24×7 telephone support, ticket support with 15 minute average response times, and is fully managed and monitored by WiredTree to maximize uptime and minimize frustration. All servers come ready-to-run with cPanel/WHM and are optimized and security hardened with firewall and anti-spam out of the box. With experience in SSD technology, MariaDB, Memcached, WordPress plugins, server optimization, and LiteSpeed Web server, WiredTree can take your site’s performance to the next level.

Website: http://www.wiredtree.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/WiredTree
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/wiredtree/ (@wiredtree)

EVENTDAY
EventDay is a total solution that helps small business and large conferences manage the entire lifecycle of your event, conference or meeting. We offer a world class conference and meeting management application and specialize in online registration and super-fast check-in service using QR codes and smartphones.

Website: http://www.eventday.com
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/EventDay
Twitter: http://twitter.com/EventDay (@EventDay)

BeardPress.com was launched to the community to showcase the facial hair of some of our “WordPress greats”.  As we all know, there are many amazing women in the WordPress world who are equally great, but who were not sporting the 5 o’clock shadow.  So in the spirit of community and camaraderie, Carol Stambaugh and April Holle created ToePress.com to join the fun and solicit some involvement from some of the awesome WordPress women in our community.

We hope that everyone (men and women alike) will join the fun and submit some fun pictures of fingers and toes.  And for those coming to WordCamp on Saturday, look for the ToePress station where you can get nail polish and the coolest ever nail art… in the form of the WordPress logo.  We are happy to collect donations at the ToePress table that will go toward the Fresh Start Foundation.  This local charity provides job training and resources for women in need.

Special thanks to WeLikeNailPolish.com for sponsoring the ToePress station.

Our team at GoDaddy is focused on helping you to have a very fast and reliable WordPress site. But here’s a dirty little secret: WordPress is fast. Content, plugins, and themes make it slow. If you have a website that is feeling a little sluggish, you can use WebPagetest to get back on track.

This post will show you how to look past the report card, and become an advanced WebPagetest user.

Don’t use this…

Use this!

Load Time
This is the time it takes for the browser to stop spinning and completely load your website — typically 3-7 seconds.  Load time is largely dependent the number of requests (images, css, javascripts) and bytes in (images, video, slideshows).

Choosing a responsive theme can reduce the load time for your site by only showing what your user’s browser needs to display.  This can reduce the number of requests needed to render your site in the browser more quickly.

You can also reduce your load time by choosing proper image sizes for your posts (usually medium), and remove unnecessary widgets and plugins from your site.

First Byte
This is the delay between requesting your site and when it starts to display in the browser.  You want this under 1-2 seconds to make your site feel fast.

A caching plugin like W3 Total Cache or WP Super Cache can lower your first-byte time. You can also use P3 Profiler (a GoDaddy plugin) to see which plugins are slowing down your site.

Speed Index
Google’s speed index measures how quickly your site appears on the screen, even if it hasn’t downloaded completely. A speed index around 5,000 is average, and lower is better.

Top: low speed index – Bottom: high speed index

Your speed index will naturally improve as you optimize your site.  Advanced users should look into removing render-blocking javascript.

Be careful, animations, complex color schemes, interstitial dialogs, and auto-playing slideshows / videos can artificially inflate your speed index.

First vs. Reload
Compare the first visit and the reload visit to your site. A drop in the scores tells you that the browser is caching your site effectively.  This means that return visitors will have a much faster experience.

Example of well cached results

If your site isn’t caching properly, you can use the Browser Caching module in W3 Total Cache, find a mod_expires tutorial, an nginx tutorial, or ask your host.

BONUS: Content Breakdown
Click on the “Domains” tab to make sure you’re not hosting half of your site with Google, Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook due to the amount of widgets and embedded media on your site. Reducing requests to third-party domains can make your site feel snappier.

Some third-party requests can help your site, like images delivered through a content delivery network (CDN). Too many third-party requests can slow down your site’s load time, though.

The team at GoDaddy is happy to help you start 2014 off right with a fast and fresh site!

Hey Phoenix!

A big hello from everyone at WP Engine. We’re excited to see you all very soon.

WordCamp Phoenix is one of the major WordCamps of the year, and we’re incredibly excited for the opportunity to join the whole community for a weekend of amazing talks, connections, and great conversations.

If Phoenix will be your first ever WordCamp, welcome!

If you’re a veteran of the WordPress community, we’re looking forward to connecting again.

Everyone is welcome to come by our booth for some brand new WP Engine swag. We’ll have stickers and soft WP Engine T-shirts of all sizes.

WP Engine will also have some exciting news to share as well, so stay tuned….

Who is WP Engine?
WP Engine is the one of the most mature premium managed hosting platforms for websites and applications built with WordPress, powering tens of thousands of websites.

Businesses such as Discovery Networks, HTC, VM Ware, Atlassian, Asana, and Country Music Television rely on WP Engine’s platform. Our customer service team of WordPress Experts specialize in hands-on service.

Developers love WP Engine because they know that the people at WP Engine understand the challenges of developing WordPress sites and have built an entire development toolkit with features like the one-click staging area, push from staging to production with a click, and .git for version control and deployment.

Information about why top WordPress developers, bloggers, and enterprises trust WP Engine for their managed WordPress hosting needs can be found at www.wpengine.com.

See you all this weekend!

P.S.: We want to say a quick thank you to the WordCamp Phoenix Organizers for all their hard work putting the event together.

From 9am to 11am on Sunday, January 19 please join us for WordCamp for Kids. This special WordCamp session will be lead by Suzette Franck. She is the WordPress evangelist for Media Temple and a veteran WordCamp speaker. Past attendees and their parents look forward to attending each year and will be there helping out with the class.

The session is a fun experience and can be a very useful skill for young ones to learn. Each child will come out of the class with a functioning website (with parental supervision, of course). Past graduates of WordCamp for Kids have started their own websites and started blogging.

Please register here if you are planning to attend WordCamp for Kids. We are looking forward to seeing you & your little ones.

Planning to be at WordCamp for the phenomenal Foundation Friday sessions? Fantastic!

You may be interested to know that while you are finding something tasty for lunch, just showing your badge at some of the Downtown Chandler restaurants will get you a discount. Here’s what’s cooking in Downtown Chandler and how much you can save:

• Bourbon Jacks (10% discount)
  Bourbon Jacks blends traditional country with contemporary appeal, boasting a fresh, innovative menu, extensive drink selection, and an exciting atmosphere equipped with live entertainment and large HD TVs.
• 
  Brunchies (10% discount)
  Part of the Serrano’s family restaurants, Brunchies serves up Mexican breakfast and lunches that draw customers from all over the valley.
• Coach & Willies (10% discount)
  They offer a full menu with many tasty options, including their signature lobster bisque! C&W’s new one of a kind design includes 31 HD flat screen TV’s where you can watch all your favorite sports teams while in a warm and friendly atmosphere.
• Murphy’s Law (15% discount)
  This friendly neighborhood people’s bar offers over 50 beers and a full line of spirits 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The menu features local favorite dishes like fish and chips, beef & chicken Shepard’s pie, vegetarian and skinny menus and more
• Paletas Betty (10% discount)
  Find a delicious seasonal menu of handmade Mexican ice and cream pops made locally in Chandler from scratch.
• Planet Subs (10% discount)
  Planet Sub, the oven baked original, offers subs made on freshly baked bread daily.
• SanTan Brewery (10% discount)
  Located in a renovated 1954 bank building, this microbrewery not only boasts great hand-crafted beers brewed on the premises, but delicious food as well.
• Serrano’s (10% discount)
  The first restaurant of this well-known local chain and a downtown Chandler icon, Serrano’s is known for it’s tasty, authentic Mexican cuisine.

Print the discount list or save it to your device

WordCamp Phoenix would not exist without these amazing sponsors that believe in supporting the Phoenix WordPress community. Their generous support helps to make this one of the biggest (and dare we say, best?) WordCamp conferences! Thank you to the following sponsors:

CODEPOET
If you use WordPress to build things for other people, Code Poet wants to make your life easier. No matter whether you freelance on a solo basis, lead a small web shop, make plugins in a dark closet, or crack the whip at a large design firm, Code Poet’s aim is to become your go-to source of information and resources to help you expand your WordPress skills and know-how, make you better at what you do and make it easier to make your living and look great doing it.

Website: http://build.codepoet.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wpcodepoet
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/wpcodepoet (@WPCodePoet)

DREAMHOST
DreamHost is a global Web hosting and cloud services provider with over 350,000 customers and 1.2 million blogs, websites and apps hosted. The company offers a wide spectrum of Web hosting and cloud services including Shared Hosting, Virtual Private Servers (VPS), Dedicated Server Hosting, Domain Name Registration, the cloud storage service, DreamObjects, and the cloud computing service DreamCompute.

Website: http://dreamhost.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DreamHost
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DreamHost (@DreamHost)