When we first started talking publicly about Prestige Conference, I was inundated with questions about where Prestige Conference fits into the WordPress live conference ecosystem. I’ve organized a few WordCamps, spoken at a few more than that, and attended a slew more. I love the concept of WordCamps and wouldn’t really want to change much about it. This isn’t to say that I don’t often wish there were other options out there for live conferences.

For me WordCamps served many roles:

• First conference where I spoke about technology
• Started me teaching others about the wonders of WordPress
• Introduced me to some life-long friends
• Gave me my first conference organizing experiences
• Allowed me to travel to places all over the country

Since WordCamps give many people the ability to speak for the first time, there are times when the quality of the sessions is inconsistent. This environment that cultivates new speakers is integral to the community, so again, this isn’t a knock on the system. We both got our real start speaking at WordCamps (and other community events like Code Camps). What we are doing with Prestige Conference is bringing you the best speakers we can find on a single, focused track. We believe this will provide a unique opportunity for collective growth, learning, and collaboration because everyone at the conference will have seen the same talks and people will naturally talk about the things they heard.

Many conferences cover the expenses of the speakers, and that is one of the pillar tenants of what Prestige Conference is doing different. We want to be able to bring the best to you and we feel we are best able to do that by paying to bring these great minds together. The response from speakers has been overwhelmingly supportive. Many of these people have spent thousands of dollars to be able to share their views at other conferences. We want to take that limitation away and put together an all-star lineup every time!

One of the things Josh and I appreciate, after attending hundreds of conferences, is a great after party. No not the kind of party you remember from college. Although it will be a great fun environment, it’s also about meeting in a place that you can share ideas and get to know the people that share the same interests as you. Having an after party in a night club isn’t conducive to the type of conversation and idea-sharing we have enjoyed after our favorite conferences. For our first event, we’ll be having our after party at the WerkPress office in Minneapolis.

Our long term goal is to be able to organize a quarterly conference in different cities, on different topics, with live stream tickets available for each of them. In the short term, we are going to apply all that we’ve learned at other conferences to make the first Prestige Conference the best we can possibly make it while learning along the way. We guarantee awesome speakers, amazing swag, great food/drink, and a safe environment for our attendees.

I hope that adequately explains why we are trying something independent of WordCamps. Let us know what you think in the comments, and feel free to ask any questions you have. We’ll answer every one that we can.