Apply to
Speak

As has been the case for a number of years now we are on the look out for speakers who want to get out there and share their passion with the community.

If you want the chance to be added to the list all you have to do is fill in the form linked below.

A couple of notes

If your talk is aimed at pure promotion of you, or your company/product it stands 0 chance of getting any serious consideration. WDC is not a chance for you to spend 30 minutes going on about how great you/your company is — by all means mention who you are and what you do.

You don't need to be the most experienced speaker. We showcase both completely new speakers and seasoned professionals. What we're looking for is passion.

Try and make your talk has some level of uniqueness to it. If you're just waxing lyrical about how great Tailwind is, or five steps to make Agile work, we're probably not going to be interested.

You should be free in early autumn to travel to Bristol for the conference.

Speakers will be chosen based on how talks fit in with the entire event. We do our best to respond to everyone who submits a talk.

Anyone who submits a talk and doesn’t get chosen to speak will be given a discount code for a ticket to the event should they wish to attend.

Topics we're interested in

We don't do themes for WDC, but there are a bunch of topics that we're more likely to be interested in. These include:

• Designing and building things that make the world a nicer place
• The latest and greatest things you can do with CSS
• Cool things you can do with funky APIs (eg. Web Audio, Animation, Data Viz etc.)
• Physical ways of interacting with the web
• Accessibility and inclusivity
• Stories that inspire folks to go out and create
• If you're going to talk about AI: we're a bit bored of seeing the same AI talks over and over again. You can vibe code an app now, cool. If you're going to talk about AI, please for the love of god, make it interesting and thoughtful of the impact that AI is having on the world.

Full talks

Our full talks run for 30-40 minutes, and tend to be a more indepth dive on a topic. We're looking for both practical and inspiring talks, so if you've got something where you know you want to go deep on a topic, this is the slot to aim for.

Full talks tend to be where we put the more seasoned speakers, but that shouldn't stop you from submitting something if you've never done a talk before! Last year, Duncan's talk on web animation was one of our favourites, and also the first time he's ever been on stage.

Lightning talks

Do you have a hobby? Something that (maybe) takes you away from the internet in the evenings or weekends.

We’re on the look out for 3 lightning talks for this year, they need to be around 15 minutes in length.

Lightning talks are a great way to dip your toes into the world of speaking, or to explore a topic that you're just scratching the surface on.

What to expect

Fees

We aren't a big corporation funding this event, it's completely grassroots. However, we believe that speakers should still be paid for the time and effort they put into creating and giving their talks. We offer a £150 honorarium to every full talk that's given, and £75 to the lightning talks. I know it's not much, but it's what we can afford to make the conference affordable and accessible to everyone!

Expenses

We will cover your hotel and travel expenses to and from Bristol for WDC. We'll organise your hotel booking for the evening of the 7th and 8th, but we require you to sort your own travel and then submit it to us for reimbursement after the event.

We do require receipts or an invoice for travel costs, the accountant gets angry otherwise!

Your location

While we cover travel for speakers, we still have limited budget! Most of the speakers we book tend to be UK based. However, for talks that we really love the idea of, we've been known to fly people in from Europe.

Meals

We don't provide lunch at the event, but we do host a speaker's dinner the night before and book breakfast at the hotel you'll be staying at. Both are covered by the conference.

Timing

Please consider when travelling to Bristol the following:

• The conference is on the full day of 8th October
• Hotel check-in is normally after 3PM
• The speakers dinner is normally booked for about 7:30PM the night before
• The main event runs from 9am–5pm. If you’re speaking later on in the day please let us know if you’re not going to be there from the start so we don’t panic.
• There is an after-party after the event at a nearby venue that usually runs till about 9 or 10pm.