10 years of WordCamp Athens. 10 years of people, ideas, conversations, collaborations, and moments that brought the Greek WordPress community closer together.
To mark this year’s anniversary edition, we look back at how the WordCamp Athens story began, how it has evolved over the years, and what the community built around WordPress in Athens means today.
To help us tell this story, we spoke with Takis Bougiouris, one of the people whose name has become closely associated with the journey of WordCamp Athens and, of course, a member of this year’s event organizing team.
How did it all begin?
Taki, do you remember when the idea of WordCamp Athens first came up? How did it all start?
T: You never forget the big, defining moments. It was 2014. We had started organizing a few WordPress meetups in Athens back in 2013, and that year WordCamp Europe, the second edition, was taking place in Sofia, Bulgaria. It was nearby, so we had to go. It was the first WordCamp I ever attended, and I immediately fell in love with the atmosphere, the people, and the culture of knowledge sharing I experienced there.
When I returned to Greece, I was determined that we should organize something similar here soon. But could we actually pull it off? It took another two years. We needed to gain more experience and gather the courage to take the leap. Finally, in 2016, it became a reality at Technopolis City of Athens in Gazi, thanks to an incredible team of people I will never forget. And the rest, as they say, is history!
From the first event to today
Looking back at the first WordCamps, what has changed the most, both in the organization of the events and in the community?
T: It has been 10 years since 2016, and the entire world has changed during that time. The COVID-19 pandemic was clearly a turning point, as was Greece’s transition out of the bailout-program era. The first WordCamps took place during a period when people were eager to attend in-person events, both as participants and as organizers. WordPress was experiencing an incredible surge in popularity, and technology in general seemed much more straightforward and settled. Today, with AI, we are discovering many things all over again.
At the same time, the WordPress community in Greece grew significantly over the years, expanding into other cities, including Thessaloniki and Larissa. WordCamps were held almost every year in Athens and in other cities as well. The organizing teams collaborated and stayed in touch. It was an exciting period that brought together many wonderful people, and these are the people who make up what we now call the Greek WordPress Community. The culmination of this journey was WordCamp Europe 2023, hosted in Athens—a truly unforgettable moment.
WordCamp Athens in numbers — a look back
| Year | Venue | Attendees | Speakers | Sponsors |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Technopolis | 426 sold out | 20 | 31 |
| 2017 | Athens Concert Hall | 584 | 17 | 24 |
| 2019 | Athens Concert Hall | 490 | 20* | 22 |
| 2020 | Athinais — cancelled | — | — | — |
| 2022 | Athens Concert Hall | 448 | 16 | 24 |
| 2025 | OTE Academy | 410 sold out | 18 | 18 |
| 2026 | War Museum of Athens | upcoming |
Is there a particular edition or moment that stands out to you more than all the others? Why?
Τ: We sometimes look back at the past with nostalgia, and time has a way of making it seem more beautiful. But the first two WordCamp Athens editions had a sense of risk and discovery that has stayed with me. The team was incredibly alert, working hard to deliver a polished event that reflected the values and culture of an open-source community. It was a nationwide team, not just an Athens-based one, because we wanted this experience to spread. I look back on the anticipation and emotional intensity of those days with very fond memories. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, I can never forget that we brought WordCamp Europe to Athens in 2023. To make it happen, we had to convince WordCamp Central that we had the organizational capacity to support such a large event and that the Greek WordPress Community had the size and stability to deliver it. Two moments stand out in particular. The first was at the end of WordCamp Europe 2022, when the 2023 host city was announced and a lovely video we had created played on the main stage in Porto, Portugal. The second was when all the Greek organizers took to the stage at the end of the conference, relieved and excited.
T: WordCamp Europe 2023 in Athens was one of the biggest, most successful, and most wonderful editions ever held. And we experienced every moment of it to the fullest! The lockdown years were behind us, and the uncertainty about whether in-person events could return had finally faded. Nearly 3,000 people from across Europe and around the world came to Athens. It was a moment when you felt that everything was coming together to create something good.
The organizing team included many Greeks, the result of our years of effort to spread the message to more and more people across more and more regions of Greece. It was a message that inspired many people to become actively involved in open source, and I consider that very important. Above all, over these 10 years, we succeeded in building a broad community of people.
The people behind WordCamp
A WordCamp is about more than talks, workshops, and numbers. It is about the people who organize it, the volunteers, the speakers, the sponsors, and, above all, the people who come every year and help the community grow…
T: The most important thing about a WordCamp, and about an open-source community, is people. They are at the center of everything, and they are what make it worthwhile. And they are all volunteers. Have we mentioned that? Let’s say it again: a WordCamp is organized by volunteers who willingly give their time and effort to contribute to others. That is why the atmosphere at these events is always friendly and inclusive. People do not simply spend their time there; they have a good time and meet others with similar interests, needs, and concerns.
Is there a particular moment or person from these 10 years that you feel captures the spirit of the WordCamp Athens community?
Τ: I think of the human stories and memories that come to mind. People who played the piano just before packing their suitcases to return to their home countries; others who danced syrtaki after a successful event before boarding their flights; people who traveled together and shared rooms in unfamiliar cities. There was even a marriage proposal at one of these events. And laughter—so much genuine laughter—and friendships. Funny how, instead of talking about technology and work, we have ended up talking about people again.
What do you think makes the Greek WordPress community stand out?
And now?
WordCamp Athens is celebrating its 10th anniversary and already looking toward the next decade. What would you like to see happen in the Greek WordPress community over the next 10 years?Τ: I would like to see it continue to renew itself, grow, and develop. We are entering a new era in which the technology we have known is being disrupted by tremendous changes. We are all rediscovering ourselves, and the Greek WordPress Community needs to do the same: find its place in this new landscape. But it must also remember its fundamental values: contributing open and extensible knowledge in the spirit of open-source software.
10 years, thousands of stories
Perhaps, in the end, the story of WordCamp Athens is not the story of an event. It is the story of the people who found one another through it. People who came for a talk and left with a new idea. People who met a collaborator, a friend, or a mentor. People who stepped onto a stage for the first time, became volunteers, shared their knowledge, or simply found a community where they felt they belonged.
10 years later, the story continues.
And WordCamp Athens 2026 is the next chapter. Will you be missing out? <3