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WordCamp US 2026 Preview: Phoenix, Four Tracks, and WordPress 7.1 Shipping Live
WordCamp US runs August 16-19 in Phoenix with a new beginner track and 18 AI sessions. Ticket sales are lagging badly. Here's the state of play.
WordCamp US runs August 16-19 in Phoenix with a new beginner track and 18 AI sessions. Ticket sales are lagging badly. Here's the state of play.
WordCamp US 2026 runs August 16 to 19 at the Phoenix Convention Center, and it arrives carrying more questions than a flagship WordPress event usually does.
The programme is genuinely interesting: eighteen sessions on AI, a brand new beginner track built out from a single workshop last year, and WordPress 7.1 scheduled to release on the closing day. The context around it is less comfortable. Ticket sales are well behind previous years, the schedule was published roughly a month before the event, and the choice of Phoenix in August raised eyebrows when it was announced.
Here's what's actually happening, what's confirmed, and what isn't.
TL;DR
- August 16-19, 2026, Phoenix Convention Center. Sunday is Contributor Day, Monday is Showcase Day, Tuesday and Wednesday are the conference days.
- Four tracks: AI, Technical WordPress, Honing Your Skills, and WP101 — the new beginner track, which steps up to "WordPress 202" on Wednesday.
- WordPress 7.1 releases on August 19, the final day. The release party itself runs in Slack, not on stage; attending isn't required to participate.
- Ticket sales are lagging significantly. Around 440 sold as of mid-July against a target of 1,200 to 2,000, after 2025 already fell 38% year on year.
- Tickets are still available: $25 student, $100 general admission, $750 micro-sponsor.
- Contributor Day is open to everyone, including people without a conference ticket, with remote participation via Slack.
Four days, each with a distinct purpose:
| Day | Date | What happens |
|---|---|---|
| Sunday | August 16 | Contributor Day, 9am-5pm |
| Monday | August 17 | Showcase Day, 9am-5pm |
| Tuesday | August 18 | Conference Day 1, 9am-5pm |
| Wednesday | August 19 | Conference Day 2, 9am-5pm, plus an evening social 7-10pm |
Registration opens at 8am on the first two days.
The hotel block is at the Sheraton Phoenix Downtown at $159 plus taxes per night. Phoenix Sky Harbor airport is five miles out with light rail access to downtown.
The official track names are shorter than most coverage suggests:
AI — around eighteen sessions, the largest concentration of AI programming a WordCamp US has carried. Topics span agentic development, AI-powered plugin pipelines, guardrails for AI-assisted coding, machine translation, and what one session frames as WordPress's readiness for an agentic web. There's also legal ground covered: the EU AI Act, handling client pushback on AI use, and privacy law.
Named speakers include Miriam Schwab of Elementor, Chris Reynolds of Pantheon, and Hans Skillrud of Termageddon. The track's closing session is Automattic's Jamie Marsland on "vibe coding" WordPress for non-technical users.
Technical WordPress — the developer track.
Honing Your Skills — professional and business skill-building, covering things like modern workflows, automated testing, and pricing strategy.
WP101 — the new beginner track, which on Wednesday becomes "WordPress 202" as a step-up continuation.
WP101 is new for 2026, expanded from a single one-off workshop at WordCamp US 2025 in Portland into a full standalone track. It's co-led by Raquel Manriquez and Megan Marcel, and part of the stated intent is drawing in Arizona State University students.
The flagship piece is a full-day beginner workshop on Contributor Day led by Jamie Marsland, head of WordPress.com's YouTube channel, walking through building a complete site from scratch: posts, pages, themes, menus, accessibility, and SEO.
His framing of the goal is worth quoting: "The goal isn't just to teach people where to click. It's to give beginners the confidence to build and manage a WordPress site."
Other WP101 instructors include university lecturer Katarzyna Krówka, Website Creation Workshop founder Christina Hills, and Steven Ryan, a WordPress engineer at Arizona State University. Marsland has reportedly pitched the format to WordPress Campus Connect as a model other WordCamps could adopt.
This deserves more attention than it's getting. A recurring criticism of flagship WordCamps is that they've become events for people already deep in the ecosystem — contributors, agency owners, product companies — with little for someone who just wants to learn WordPress. A dedicated beginner track with university partnerships is a direct response to that, and pairing it with local student outreach is a sensible way to fill seats in a city that isn't a WordPress hub.
WordPress 7.1's general release is scheduled for August 19, the closing day of the conference. This is by design: the 2026 release schedule deliberately pinned major releases to flagship events.
One correction worth making, because it's widely misreported. The release party is a Slack event, not a stage event. The official release schedule states that the General Release Party happens in the #core channel on Making WordPress Slack, and that "traveling and attending the event is not required to participate."
The conference's closing keynote slot coincides with the release timing, and organisers have reportedly been exploring ideas for an on-site moment around it, but nothing formal has been announced. If you're going to Phoenix expecting to watch WordPress 7.1 ship from a conference room, that may not be what happens.
The release run-up: RC1 on August 5, RC2 on August 12, dry run and 24-hour code freeze on August 18, general release on August 19, all at 15:00 UTC.
This is the part of the story the official materials don't cover, and it's substantial.
Ticket sales across recent years:
| Year | Tickets sold |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 2,149 |
| 2024 | 1,928 |
| 2025 | 1,200 |
| 2026 | 440 (as of mid-July) |
2025 was already down 38% on 2024. The 2026 figure of roughly 440 about a month out, against an official target of 1,200 to 2,000, is a long way behind.
There is a genuine mitigating factor: roughly 40% of 2025's tickets sold in the final month before the event, so late surges are normal for this conference. But 440 is a low base to surge from.
The most cited explanation is that the schedule and speaker lineup weren't published until mid-July, about a month before the event. Elementor's Miriam Schwab put it bluntly in reporting on the delay: "It's really hard to get people to want to attend an event when the schedule doesn't exist yet. Right now it's a conference about nothing."
Lead organiser Megan Marcel has acknowledged a compressed planning timeline, with planning beginning in late March or early April 2026 — a few months for an event that typically takes nine to twelve.
The venue choice drew immediate comment when Mullenweg announced it at WordCamp US 2025.
His stated reasons were twofold. First, avoiding the scheduling conflict that hurt 2025 attendance, when the event landed in US back-to-school season. Second, more personally, he'd missed Burning Man because it clashed with the 2025 dates and wanted to avoid a repeat. He also remarked "We're on a budget!" when announcing the location, suggesting cost was a factor — Phoenix convention space in August is presumably not priced at a premium.
Local reaction was mixed. Longtime Phoenix organiser Carol Stambaugh described herself as "shocked" by the choice and urged closer collaboration with local volunteers. Raquel Manriquez, a past WordCamp Phoenix organiser and now WP101 co-lead, said she was still "processing" the news but expressed enthusiasm despite the heat. Past WCUS organiser Sandy Edwards lamented that cities no longer get to formally pitch to host.
There's also a broader critique circulating about the 2026 flagship calendar generally: three flagship WordCamps in roughly four and a half months, straining organisers who typically need nine to twelve months per event, straining sponsors funding three in quick succession, and landing WordCamp US in the heart of summer holiday season in both the US and Europe.
Whether the August timing helps or hurts attendance relative to the back-to-school conflict it was meant to avoid is something the final numbers will answer.
Ticket tiers, all still available at the time of writing:
The refund deadline of July 24 has passed, so purchases now are final.
Contributor Day on Sunday August 16 is worth flagging separately, because it's more accessible than people assume. It runs 9am to 5pm at the convention center, more than 30 contributor teams are participating — Core, Marketing, Accessibility, Design, Training and others — and it's open to everyone regardless of whether you hold a WCUS ticket. Advance registration is encouraged but walk-ins are accepted, and remote participation via Slack is possible.
If you've ever considered contributing to WordPress and wanted a low-friction entry point, that's it, and it costs nothing.
On livestreaming: I could not find confirmation that WordCamp US 2026 will livestream sessions for remote attendees. No livestream ticket tier appears on the official tickets page. If watching remotely matters to you, check the official site rather than assuming.
On Matt Mullenweg speaking: there's no confirmed keynote or State of the Word appearance announced. Worth noting he was scheduled to give closing keynotes at both WordCamp Asia and WordCamp Europe this year and didn't make either. Treat his attendance as unconfirmed.
Depends entirely on what you want from it.
Contributor Day is the strongest value proposition, and it's free. If you've wanted to contribute to core, docs, accessibility, or training and never found the on-ramp, a full day in a room with thirty teams and people who can answer your questions is hard to beat.
The AI track is the most substantive programming, and eighteen sessions on it is enough to constitute a genuine perspective rather than a token nod. The legal and guardrails sessions in particular cover ground most WordPress content skips entirely.
WP101 is the reason to bring someone who isn't already in the ecosystem — a junior team member, a client who administers their own site, a student.
The hallway track at a smaller conference is often better, which is the counterintuitive upside of low attendance. 440 attendees is a very different event from 2,149, and not necessarily a worse one if you're there to talk to people.
Phoenix in August is genuinely hot. The venue and hotels are air-conditioned and the light rail connects them, but plan for it.
When and where is WordCamp US 2026? August 16 to 19, 2026, at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. Sunday is Contributor Day, Monday is Showcase Day, and Tuesday and Wednesday are the conference days.
How much are WordCamp US 2026 tickets? Student tickets are $25, general admission is $100, and micro-sponsor tickets are $750. All tiers were still available at the time of writing. The July 24 refund deadline has passed.
What are the four tracks? AI, Technical WordPress, Honing Your Skills, and WP101 — the new beginner track, which continues as "WordPress 202" on Wednesday.
Is WordPress 7.1 being released at WordCamp US?
The general release is scheduled for August 19, the conference's final day, but the release party runs in the #core channel on Making WordPress Slack rather than on stage. Attending the conference isn't required to take part.
Can I attend Contributor Day without a conference ticket? Yes. Contributor Day is open to everyone regardless of whether you hold a WCUS ticket. Advance registration is encouraged, walk-ins are accepted, and remote participation via Slack is possible.
Will WordCamp US 2026 be livestreamed? Not confirmed. No livestream option appears on the official tickets page. Check the official site if remote viewing matters to you.
Is Matt Mullenweg speaking? No keynote or State of the Word appearance has been announced. He was scheduled to close both WordCamp Asia and WordCamp Europe this year and attended neither, so treat it as unconfirmed.
Why is WordCamp US in Phoenix in August? Mullenweg cited avoiding the back-to-school scheduling conflict that hurt 2025 attendance, a personal scheduling conflict with Burning Man in 2025, and budget, remarking "We're on a budget!" when announcing it. Local organisers had mixed reactions.
WordCamp US 2026 is a more interesting event than its ticket sales suggest. Eighteen AI sessions with real legal and governance content, a genuinely new beginner track with university partnerships behind it, and a major WordPress release landing on the closing day is a solid programme by any measure.
The gap between that programme and 440 tickets sold a month out is mostly a marketing timeline problem rather than a content problem. Publishing a schedule four weeks before a conference people have to book flights for is a hard way to sell tickets, and Schwab's "a conference about nothing" line is harsh but not unfair.
If you're weighing it up: Contributor Day is free, open to anyone, and the best entry point into the project that exists. That alone is worth the trip for a lot of people, and it doesn't require a ticket.
Just don't plan your travel around watching 7.1 ship from the room. That part happens in Slack.
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