Midcamp 2016 Recap - Where the Drupal community comes together!

MidCamp 2016, the Midwest Drupal Camp was a roaring success.  We had 36 Sessions and 1 keynote were spread across the University of Illinois at Chicago's Student Center West.  All of the sessions were successfully recorded by our amazing AV team and shared within hours on the Midcamp YouTube channel.  Our sponsor tables were busy; our Birds of a Feather discussions were many; and our socials were social!

This was my second time attending, and my first time being a volunteer organizer.  If you attended, I hope that I got to greet you on the way in.  Attending my first year, I was so awestruck by the amount of knowledge and talent at MidCamp, I couldn't help but get involved.  After volunteering to help, I am still in awe of the dedication of the volunteers, and the effort it takes to put on a camp like this.  Thanks to all of the volunteers for the countless hours put in throughout the year to make this event happen.

Please indulge me a moment while I call out a few individuals specifically for their incredible effort and dedication put forth to MidCamp 2016.

Cathy Theys

You may know her by her handle, YesCT.  She is a Contributor at Blackmesh, a Queue cleaner, a Sprint Mentor, the winner of the first Aaron Winborn Award.  Without her tireless dedication to putting on this event, dedication to Accessibility in all it's forms, and curation of the sprints and the sprinting community, MidCamp would not be the highly regarded event that it is.  Thank you Cathy for all that you do for MidCamp, and for Drupal.

Alina Mackenzie

For yet another year, Alina Mackenzie was the rock on which the MidCamp was built.  Providing a majority of the communication and logistics with our host, UIC; hosting our IRL Meetings, working on Sprints, Accessibility, Speakers, you name it.  Alina was there at every step of the way.  Thank you Alina for all that you have done over the years for MidCamp!

Kevin Thull

If there was ever a person you wanted on your team for a live event, it is Kevin Thull.  Kevin handled most of the logistics for MidCamp 2016.  If you stepped indoors, ate food, drank coffee, used power, read the program, saw a sign, wore a shirt, Kevin was the person responsible.  If you didn't get to attend, but watched one of the videos of our sessions, Kevin was the person responsible.  Kevin also records other camps, and is often available to record your upcoming camp if needed!  Thank you Kevin for all you do for MidCamp!

The Greater Drupal Community

What I noticed even more so this year than last, was the Drupal community effort put for this year at MidCamp.  Drupal 8 had been released, yet no one was resting on their laurels.  We had a huge contingent of Drupal front end core, and contrib developers working and sprinting throughout MidCamp 2016. 

Checkout these great posts about work done at MidCamp 2016 from Lullabot's Marc Drummond on Drupal’s front-end future, and Personas for the Drupal theme system; and this post from FFW's David Hernandez on decoupling Drupal’s frontend.  There were half a dozen developers sprinting on Drupal Commerce every day as they work towards a release candidate of Commerce for Drupal 8.

Drupal Camp Firsts

This year brought a couple of firsts to Drupal conferences.  MidCamp's keynote and one of the sessions rooms was Live Captioned.  That means that there was someone in the session room creating real-time text from what the presenters were speaking aloud.  This text was displayed on an additional display to assist those who could use the assistance.  We are very proud to be on the cutting edge of tech conference accessibility, and hope to inspire others to follow suit.

We also had our first musical presentation!  Palantir.net's Alison Manley and Joe Allen Black's Project Management: The Musical! was a very unique, and extremely well received fun and education presentation.  Not only did we capture the slides and audio, but a couple of volunteers who were in attendance took video of the presentation also.  I hope you all get to watch this one in real life one of these days.

Here are some more great posts on MidCamp 2016:

Thank You!

Thanks to all our sponsors, our volunteers, our attendees both from the Midwest, and those that travel far and wide to attend MidCamp.  We really love having you, and reading and hearing what you have to say about our event.  We hope to see you at MidCamp 2017!