Another question you may want to answer is “How often would you want to hold WordPress meetups (either here or in your communities) over the next year?”

We look forward to your answers…

Photo: The scene at The Bottletree yesterday afternoon. acnatta/Flickr.

We just wanted to take a moment to thank all of you who came out and helped make WordCamp Birmingham a success in its first year.

We also can’t forget to thank our sponsors and supporters who helped make this event possible and our speakers for coming in to the Magic City on what was a gorgeous and event-filled weekend.

We wanted to share a few links in terms of seeing what went on during the weekend.

We will update this list during the next few days, but several of the presentations from this weekend, including one from Barbara Nixon that was supposed to occur, are available via SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/event/wordcamp-birmingham

Sunday’s presentations were shared via uStream, they’re now available for viewing:

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/wordcamp-birmingham-2008

Share your photos - and see everybody else’s from the conference - by uploading them to Flickr if you have an account and tagging them wordcampbham, wordcamp and upcoming:event=507406. If you have a Facebook profile, add them to our group’s photo section.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/wordcampbham/

http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10990549437

FYI - As we announced earlier on Saturday, we’ve alerady set the dates for next year’s camp - September 26 & 27, 2009.

PSST - We also already know who one of our keynote speakers will be… and we’ll post more information as it becomes available.

We’re also looking at doing several meetups in the coming months. We’ll keep you updated on that as well.

A few things for you - first of all, tomorrow’s events are taking place at the Virginia Samford Theatre at Caldwell Park in the city’s Highland Park neighborhood (Here’s some info about Highland Avenue, the winding east-west street that runs through the area).

The address is 1116 26th Street South (directions via Google Maps). Now, if you’re approaching the theater from University Boulevard, you’ll want to turn onto 24th Street North to get to it (yes, it still doesn’t make much sense to us either, but it works).

Parking will be available next to the theatre as well as along the street that runs along the side the building. You may also park up along Highland Avenue.

Here’s the fun part for most folks - our hashtags for Twitter will be #wordcampbham or #wcbhm08; people seem to have been using both of these already. Our Flickr group is alive and well, so join it and then tag your photos wordcampham and wordcamp. If you want the photos associated with the event’s Upcoming description from Flickr, the tag to add is upcoming:event=507406.

Keep an eye on the Twitter profile for updates from WordCamp Birmingham this weekend.

$25 gets you in (those signing up at this point will get their shirts in the mail shortly after the event).

$15 gets you in without getting the shirt.

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We also know that for some of you the current gas crisis that exists in sections of the Southeast will play a major role in whether or not you are able to attend.

We’d like to invite those that are planning to travel tomorrow or Saturday morning to Birmingham for the conference to post where they’re traveling from in the comments section of this post in hopes of seeing if carpooling may be an option. We figured it would be a great clearing house for folks.

Oh yeah, weather’s scheduled to be in the 80s for highs and upper 50s for lows this weekend…

The good news is that she does plan on posting her presentation to the SlideShare event that we’ve created for the weekend and hopes to eventually share a video of her presentation with those that were looking forward to it (we will be sure to provide all of you with the link to the video when it’s up as well as the slide presentation when it’s been loaded).

We also had to make the decision to not do our scavenger hunt, though we think you will like our alternative since it will possibly take you to many of the same places you would have visited. On Saturday morning we’ll have a sign up form for those interested in doing a “photowalk” (more like a photo-drive) of the Magic City. We’ll proceed with that plan depending on the number of folks interested.

BTW - for those that will be in town tomorrow (Friday) evening, we’ll be getting together for an informal meetup at 6 p.m. at the Jim N Nick’s in Five Points South area (1908 11th Avenue South). It is within walking distance of The Hotel Highland and the Doubletree Hotel but if you might need a ride, contact Henry via email and we’ll try our best to make sure you get there.

We look forward to seeing some of you tomorrow and many of you on Saturday morning!

Artisteer

Bright House Networks

Internet Professionals Society of Alabama (IPSA)

The Terminal

Virginia Samford Theatre

Vulcan Park and Museum

We can always accept additional support for this year - just contact one of us and let us know how you want to help. We’re looking forward to seeing everyone this weekend.

P.S. Just a note, if you haven’t registered yet but you plan on attending, we’d ask you to register today (September 22) before 3 p.m. so we can ensure that you get a t-shirt and lunch.

Well, it got us to thinking about how to make WordCamp Birmingham unique and fun for those participating. The result is that we are going to be using two separate venues over the two days of the conference. We’re excited to be able to announce the venue for Saturday’s activities right now:

the Martha Moore Sykes Studio @ the Virginia Samford Theatre on Birmingham’s Southside.

Interior of Martha Moore Sykes Studio @ Virginia Samford Theatre.

We’re also excited to have the prospect of using Caldwell Park for our lightning talks - weather permitting. Don’t worry, there’s an on-site plan B too.

We’re awaiting final confirmation on Sunday’s location (which we hope to be able to share info about tomorrow - but it may be Monday), but with that news and the release of the preliminary schedule and a more detailed speakers list, we hope that you’ll consider registering as quickly as possible (since we’re limiting registration to 125).

We’ll have one more announcement tomorrow about presentations, both formal and lightning talk based.

We’d like to give you an update on planning efforts for South by Deep South (SxDS), currently scheduled for late September. We’ve decided to postpone the conference until early spring (February or March) 2009 while we throw our support behind WordCamp Birmingham, taking place on September 27 & 28, 2008.

Our decision gives us more lead time to secure the best lineup of presenters and panels possible while minimizing conflicts with other conferences.

Our decision also allows us to throw our support behind the first WordCamp in the Southeastern United States, WordCamp Birmingham, taking place as planned on September 27 & 28.

We still plan to offer a track for bloggers at SxDS that will allow us to look at all blogging platforms currently in use in addition to the social media/PR and web development tracks.

To all of you who expressed interest and support, we thank you. We’d never consider tackling such a challenge without a ready and willing audience hungry to have it close to home. To all of you who expressed interest in presenting, keep your powder dry: we’ll be calling on you. We need you to make SxDS something you can’t get anywhere else.

And to those of you who just want to be able to attend, thanks for your patience.

We won’t disappoint!

We’re also looking forward to seeing you here at the end of September!