September 3, 2025 — Technology is always evolving and WordPress is no exception. If you are stuck with a Classic theme on an old website or just aren’t sure how to deploy a block theme, you will learn how to easily and quickly refresh and update your site. No page builder is needed. We will explore examples of websites that were built in 2018 or earlier that are now fast and fresh with the WordPress 2025 theme. You will leave this session with confidence and skills to bring your technology up to modern standards. There will be time for Q and A. Presented byMary Ann Aschenbrenner

September 3, 2025 — Gutenberg excels at crafting beautiful static content, but what if you could empower anyone to build dynamic, interactive web experiences directly within the block editor? This session dives into Block Composability, a powerful concept that enables the creation of rich, interactive content using blocks, making advanced web development accessible to even less technically inclined users. Join Seth Rubenstein (Head of Engineering, Pew Research Center) and Max Schmelling (Engineering Team Lead, WordPress VIP) as they showcase real-world applications of Block Composability, including: Large census-like databases Quizzes used by universities and schools across the country Pivot tables Discover practical methods to empower your users to create their own interactive web experiences. Explore new APIs like Block Bindings and a sneak peek at Block Bits, along with tools that connect the concepts of Block Composability and remote data using WordPress VIP’s Remote Data Blocks.

September 3, 2025 — The Core Performance team has been incubating enhancements for WordPress through the Performance Lab plugin. These have been available for a few years now; some have been merged into core (e.g. Speculative Loading) while others are more experimental and remain in testing (e.g. Optimization Detective). This talk will look at how these performance plugins impact the speed of a stock WordPress site running the Twenty Twenty-Five default theme, using Core Web Vitals benchmarks and Lighthouse scores. It will also look at how the theme’s performance can be further tuned, including the use of core patches proposed for the next major release (also available in plugin form to leverage today) to further accelerate the loading of pages to improve the user experience of site visitors. Presented byWeston Ruter

September 3, 2025 — What happens when you take the Gutenberg editor out of WordPress? This talk explores how we decoupled the block editor from wp-admin and the loop, embedding it into a standalone React application to power custom editorial workflows—while still saving to a traditional WordPress database. We’ll start with the fundamentals: how Gutenberg’s architecture works inside WordPress, and what changes when you go headless. From there, we’ll dive into advanced techniques like simulating the global wp object, managing custom @wordpress/data stores, replacing core/editor with core/block-editor, and implementing undo/redo history manually. Whether you’re building bespoke publishing tools or curious about what’s possible when Gutenberg breaks free from WordPress, this session will give you practical insights and patterns for integrating the editor into decoupled platforms—without losing the power and flexibility of the WordPress ecosystem. Presented by Josh Bryant

September 3, 2025 — In May 2025, the Jim Joseph Foundation found itself in a quandary. Their outdated, low-performing website needed updates and a redesign to better engage their audience. Using theme switching technology, we found a way to transform their website quickly, align with WordPress’s block-based architecture, enhance the user experience, and support streamlined, flexible content creation, all within the constraints of a limited budget. This agile, iterative approach enabled us to add a WordPress Block Theme, allowing their team to convert the website over time gradually. The result is a website that not only meets their technical needs but also reflects their mission to inspire Jewish youth and young adults in the United States to lead connected, meaningful, purpose-filled lives, contributing to their communities locally and globally. Join us as we share how we utilized conditional logic to serve up multiple themes on one website, enabling the Jim Joseph Foundation team to build and replace legacy templates with new block-based templates iteratively, using their existing website templates and layouts. This approach ensured a seamless transition, giving the Foundation team the confidence that their website was evolving without disrupting their operations.

September 3, 2025 — If you’re an agency owner, your name and reputation are as valuable as your service offerings. In this session, marketing and thought leadership strategist Kelly Schuknecht will show you how to grow your influence and attract higher-caliber clients by building a strategic content platform starting with the website you already have. This isn’t about SEO hacks or redesigning your WordPress site. It’s about using your existing content channels—blogs, case studies, podcast episodes, and client results—to position yourself as a go-to expert in your niche. You’ll learn how to stop hiding behind your agency brand and start leading with your expertise. Because when you build authority, you build opportunity. Presented byKelly Schuknecht

September 3, 2025 — WordPress Multisite is a powerful feature for managing multiple sites within a single installation; however, its complexity often discourages developers and site owners from utilising it to its full potential. This session breaks down what makes Multisite useful and what makes it hard, then explores ways to simplify its features and improve the user experience. We’ll look at practical, real-world enhancements that can make working with Multisite more intuitive for everyone, from developers setting up new networks to administrators managing dozens of sites. Along the way, we’ll cover current limitations, discuss ongoing improvements in core and plugins, and share actionable ideas that you can apply to your projects. Whether you’re building with Multisite today or just curious about what it can do, this talk will help you approach it with more clarity, confidence, and creativity. Presented byDennis Ploetner

September 3, 2025 — In this session, Stephanie Stelzer will share how her team at Disney leverages WordPress and Gutenberg to craft immersive digital experiences across Disney’s platforms. She’ll showcase custom features that bridge design and development, offering a behind-the-scenes technical look at the tools her team has built to elevate storytelling. Attendees will gain insights into how WordPress can be transformed into a powerful creative engine for large-scale digital storytelling.

September 3, 2025 — As misinformation spreads and resources shrink, local and independent news organizations are under more pressure than ever to do impactful work with minimal support. WordPress is playing a vital role in helping these publishers stay online, stay fast, and stay independent. Its flexibility, openness, and community-driven development make it a powerful platform for mission-driven publishing. This session explores how WordPress is being used to support modern newsroom workflows, performance demands, and long-term sustainability. The patterns and tools highlighted benefit not only journalists but anyone building high-impact, content-rich websites. Presented byRamon Corrales

September 3, 2025 — Full Site Editing (FSE) is changing how teams build with WordPress — but what does this look like in practice for large, complex, and multilingual platforms? In this session, we’ll share the story of the Wikimedia Foundation’s user experience refresh. We’ll talk about how Human Made is using FSE to simplify workflows, improve consistency, and make the platform easier to manage over time. We’ll cover how FSE is helping us rethink patterns, templates, and content structure, and how we’re approaching accessibility, localization, and long-term maintainability within an open-source, community-focused organization. This talk is aimed at developers, designers, and product teams working on large-scale WordPress projects who want a clear, grounded look at how FSE is being adopted in a real-world enterprise context. Presented by Joeleen Kennedy