In 2012, Andy Staple and I organized the first WordCamp in Buffalo. We’d been holding monthly “meetups” for a few years for local WordPress folks. At some point meetup.com was a thing and we put it on that. From the beggining though, holding a

WP was new territory. Sure, as a technology, it was nearly a decade old (centuries in digital years,) but in the public eye, something enough of the random population had a cognizant connection to, it was in its infancy.

There was an aura to WP. It held an immense capacity to empower. And time after time, at countless meetups and events, watching random people “level up” their web powers with the help of WP was thrilling and fulfilling.

But something changed. WordCamp Buffalo lost steam. I couldn’t find the energy I’d had in those early days.

Maybe it was COVID’s damper on social gathering. Or Andy’s shifting focus to non-WP dependent development. Or just getting older, having less energy. Whatever it was, #WCBUF became more and more like #WCUGH.

So when Tim Bouchard from Luminus stepped up as both an organizer and sponsor