Tickets are on sale until approximately Tuesday of next week, after which time we’ll be shutting registration down so we can finalize our numbers with the Fairmont, and also start working on badges and what-not. As of Thursday, tickets will be going up to the $50 mark, so if you are still planning on getting tickets, now would be a good time.

We’re also putting together a PDF of all the announced speakers along with the schedule, so look for that in the next few days. I’ve also been told there should be a bit of local press surrounding the event this week, so if you’re up in Whistler, hopefully you’ll see it. We’re also expecting a last minute push of attendees over the weekend once that press hits, and hopefully we’ll finalize at somewhere just shy of 100 people for the final count of attendees.

We’re also still looking for a few more sponsors for the event. Sponsorship is a great opportunity for companies to gain exposure and be an integral part of a social media conference. There will be a ton of photos generated from the event, along with a few live blogs, so sponsoring is a really powerful and exciting way to reach a larger audience. WordCamps have historically had low entry prices so that the conference can be attended by not only companies, but also individuals as well. As a result, corporate sponsorship is an extremely important aspect of WordCamp, and we’re grateful to all of our current sponsors (6S Marketing, Molson, Automattic, and RideBooker.com) as well as any future ones that sign on. If you’re interested in becoming a corporate sponsor, please check out our sponsorship page. We have packages ranging from $100 all the way up to the $2000 mark.

If you’re still interested in booking at the Fairmont, then please make sure you mention “WordCamp Whistler” when you call them. If they have room left, they’ll do their best to accommodate our group rate. We’ll also post a few more links to other places where people can potentially stay if they are on a budget but really want to attend.

As we previously announced, the social on the Saturday night will be at the Longhorn saloon, which is one of the trendiest pubs in the Whistler Village. Molson is sponsoring the event, and has been instrumental in helping up put the social together at their premiere establishment. We also want to thank the manager of the Longhorn, Chris Badyk, for helping us put this together. It should be a really great evening of socializing.

Stay tuned for a few more announcements soon. We’ve basically finalized the audio/visual aspect of the conference, and are in the process of committing to lunch as well (which is included in the price of your ticket). Given that there are social events happening on Friday and Saturday, it’s going to be a really great weekend up in Whistler! We’re also hoping to sneak in a photo walk at some point, so if you’re into photography, make sure you bring a camera or two!

We are officially taking submissions for speakers, which you can do my clicking the appropriate menu up above. We’re also really happy to announce our first two confirmed speakers.

The first is our keynote speaker, Lorelle Van Fossen. Lorelle is practically a legend in the WordPress community, and recently gave a talk at WordCamp Hawaii. She’ll be down in Vegas right before WordCamp Whistler, but has agreed to make the long trek up North to be the keynote speaker and get in a few runs on the hill.

Also confirmed is everybody’s favourite Buddy, Andy Peatling, who is about to launch the first social networking framework build on top of WordPress-MU, BuddyPress. Andy has been speaking about BuddyPress at various WordCamps over the last year, but this should be the first event where he speaks after it has been released. I spoke with Andy a few days ago, and he said he was looking forward to not just speaking about what BuddyPress “will most likely do”, but what it in fact “can do”. So it should be a great talk.

We’re going to be opening up registration for the event shortly, so stay tuned. Right now we’re targeting about 100 – 150 people for the event. We’re also taking sponsorship, so if you’re a business or individual that wants to contribute to the success, please visit our sponsorship page.