The local WordPress community in Seville welcomed a diverse group of attendees to WordCamp Europe 2015 over the weekend. WordPress enthusiasts and professionals from Europe and beyond made strategic connections, contributed, found jobs and employees, and enjoyed presentations from a selection of world class speakers.

Seville has got the imaginative juices flowing and led to some exciting changes of life direction #wceu — Fi Barnes (@Barnes_Fiona) June 28, 2015

Very happy to announce @SergeyBiryukov will be joining @yoast, spending 50% of his time on WP core. #WCEU was productive. — Joost de Valk (@jdevalk) June 28, 2015

At the conclusion of the WordCamp, organizers announced that the 2016 event will be held in Vienna, Austria, June 24 – 26. Applications for the host city were opened in March and closed at the end of April.

The WordCamp Europe organization team received strong applications from the WordPress communities in Vienna, Bratislava, and Berlin. Some of the most important criteria in the selection process included organizer experience, location, venue, contributor day, and budget.

Berlin was ruled out due to lack of experience among the organizers.

“The reason that we ruled out Berlin is that there hasn’t yet been a WordCamp in Berlin and we felt that the team needed more WordCamp organizing experience,” Siobhan McKeown said in the official announcement. “We’d love to see a WordCamp Berlin in the future – such a wonderful city needs a wonderful WordCamp.”

Although Berlin has actually hosted three WordCamps in the past, including WordCamp Germany 2010, WordCamps Berlin 2012 and 2013, other more weighty factors pushed Bratislava and Vienna ahead as potential host cities.

Bratislava brought a strong and diverse local team to the table, but Vienna ultimately surpassed the other applicants when it came down to logistics.

“In the end, the venue, location, and available dates for the WordCamp won out,” McKeown said. “We loved the Bratislava application, but none of the venues were completely suitable for our event.

“The venue in Vienna, however, was perfect. We also have 100% confidence in the Vienna local team: they organized a successful WordCamp Vienna in 2015, and Paolo Belcastro, the lead applicant for WordCamp Europe 2016, has been involved in WordCamp Europe for the past three years. This means that the local team will have a leader with a ton of WCEU experience.”

With a successful WordCamp Europe 2015 in the bag, the organization team will now set its sights on Vienna and continue its year round planning efforts. Speaker selection usually begins five or six months in advance for this event, so those planning to apply have plenty of time to prepare.