WordCamp New York City 2009

Like it said in previous announcements, regular registration ended on November 4th, due to deadlines from our vendors. Never fear, though, you can still buy tickets to WordCamp NYC! Late registration is only $5 more, and will get you the same full pass as regular registration. The only difference is in the swag. Or more accurately, when you’ll get it.

We’re having awesome long-sleeved conference t-shirts printed with our snazzy logo, plus some bags to put things in, but it takes time to get them printed and shipped. We hope to have everyone’s shirts on site on November 14, but if you register late, yours may not arrive in time. When you arrive at WordCamp as a late registrant, one of two things will happen. 1. When you get to the registration table and tell us your name, we will hand you a cute little WordCamp NYC bag that contains your shirt, name badge, program, etc.; or 2. You will get a name badge and program, and a priority mail envelope. This will mean your shirt didn’t arrive due to your late sign-up, but if you write your name and address on the priority mail packaging and return it to one of the registration table volunteers, we will mail you your shirt and bag a couple of days after the conference ends and the final shipment arrives.

How awesome is that!

Now, look: San Francisco is traditionally the largest WordCamp in the U.S., looked at as the flagship of all WordCamps. We can be the east coast flagship. Our city has ten times more people than San Francisco; we should at least be able to equal the SF WordCamp in attendance numbers! So tell your friends, your colleagues, even the neighbor who always stops to tell you about the latest celebrity gossip when all you want to do is get your mail  — tell them that they should really come to WordCamp NYC. Work at an agency? Everyone you work with should come. Are you a freelancer? Your clients should come. Have a girlfriend who’s thinking of getting off Blogger or TypePad? She NEEDS to come. Seriously, with 8 tracks of content, there will be plenty of content to suit just about every point of view.

If we can get 800 people registered by November 12, I will personally bake cookies for everyone. Yes, everyone. In my little east village oven in my fifth-floor walkup.* That’s how much I want us to have the biggest most badass WordCamp ever. You can ask anyone, even Matt will tell you I’m a good cook. So please, spread the word.

*Unless someone wants to offer me the use of their industrial kitchen, which would be awesome.

Today in the mail I got the printed proofs of the WordCamp NYC shirts. They are, in a word, awesome.

WordCamp NYC shirt (women's M)

Sorry for the slightly-blurry image; iPhone self-portraits are *really* awkward with that button placement. Anyway, the shirts! They are black, long-sleeved cotton shirts printed with the logo in white, yellow, orange, blue and black. There is nothing on the back. There’s nothing worse than getting a cool conference t-shirt and then realizing the back is plastered with sponsor logos, right? This is a shirt you can wear happily until you wear it out. Men will be getting American Apparel, while women will be getting Bella brand shirts (not USA-made, but sweatshop-free according to their web site).

The men’s shirts are actually unisex, and are USA-made and sweatshop-free. Sizes available are S, M, L, XL, and XXL. A word on sizing: these do not seem to run small. I had my brother try on the men’s Large. He 6′, 210 lbs., and usually wears an XL in t-shirts, with a 16.5″ neck and a 32″ sleeve in regular shirts (and more than a little extra around the middle, truth be told). I just wanted to see where the printing would fall height-wise on the chest, but I was pretty shocked to see that the Large fit him really well.  You can see in the image below that it’s not tight around the shoulder at all. So, if you tend to get XL or XXL just to be safe, you might want to think twice or you could be swimming in cotton.

WordCamp NYC shirt, Men's L

The women’s shirts have a little more cling to them and are of a slightly smaller-knit jersey. I’m wearing the sample right now and it’s great (pictured at top of post). Nice and soft, with a loose neck and sleeves that come down just a bit past the wrists: the perfect long-sleeved t-shirt. The women’s shirts are available in S, M, L and XL, and the women’s shirt also surprised me. I was thinking it was roomy for a Large, which I usually wear, but this shirt is a Medium! So unusual… American Apparel women’s L shirts are always a little small on me, so this was an awesome change of pace. The women’s shirts are not available in XXL: if you are a woman and normally require an XXL, you should order either a women’s XL or one of the American Apparel unisex sizes, but probably NOT a men’s XXL. The men’s Large  or XLarge would likely do it.

So! Awesome shirts! A lot of effort when into these, so I want to thank the people whose efforts led to this outcome. Jason Alvich, Krista Gonzalez, Andrew dela Serna, and Dan Simmonds submitted subway-themed entries to our logo contest a while back. Volunteer designer Christine Labate took on the job of synthesizing the elements of the four logo entries into one cohesive graphic that we could use to brand the event. Volunteer designer Matt Thomas did additional graphic cleanup and pre-press preparation. And last but not least, our fantastic printer, Lo-fi Mike, helped us with decisions around shirt stock, logo size and other shwag-related things, and whipped up the samples in record time to make sure we were happy with them before beginning the first print run. This is my second time working with Mike on shirts, and he’s been amazing both times.

The kicker: our last shirt order is being placed on November fourth to ensure we receive it by the event. If you do not register before November 4th, we CANNOT guarantee having a shirt for you. So, please, go register right now! This will also help us with ordering the right amount of food. Late registrations will not receive shirts unless we have extras, so let’s consider November 3rd to be the registration deadline if you want to be an awesome attendee and get this awesome shirt. Thanks!