After a year without a JWC in 2018, the board were eager to bring together the Joomla! Community with a World Conference in 2019. London was chosen as a venue and the dates were announced for November 2019.
Planning for this event was at an advanced stage and tickets were being sold. Then the deadline for Brexit was extended to 31st October 2019 and in the last week the new UK Prime Minister, Boris Johnson has been elected with a mandate to ensure Brexit happens on 31st October, even if that means without any form of deal with the EU.
Sadly, for an international conference planned for the weeks after Brexit, there is considerable doubt and uncertainty around travel requirements to the UK and what (if any) visas may be required. This coupled with the huge workload already on the limited resources of the community with Joomla 4 at an advanced development stage, the Board has very reluctantly taken the decision to postpone JWC2019 to some date yet to be announced.
We will be going through the process of refunding tickets to those who have purchased and will keep you informed as soon as a new event can be scheduled. Whilst this is an unfortunate decision, we feel that the uncertainty over potential travel restrictions could lead to many international attendees either not being able to attend, or not wanting to risk planning travel before there is certainty about Brexit. It is therefore prudent to take this decision now rather than risk significant losses should the event have to be cancelled at the last minute.
Joomla is a global and productive Community creating and developing the award winning CMS software which powers around 3% of all websites. Together we have created both a truly remarkable software package as well as a community of like minded volunteers who strive to contribute and add to making Joomla even more wonderful.