Three years ago, WordCamp Europe was held for the very first time. But besides bringing together thousands of people from all over the world, this international event had another unforeseen result. WCEU gave a few local WordPress communities unexpected momentum as a consequence of the unique environment it created. As a co-organizer of WCEU 2015 and a member of the Italian WordPress community, I will trace the extraordinary journey from stalling local community to thriving ecosystem of meetups and enthusiastic members, using real case studies from the German and Italian WordPress communities.