If you haven’t heard of it yet, the first WordCamp for 2009 will be held this coming weekend, January 10-11 at the Palace Station Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. Why am I excited about this event? Only one reason. I’m attending it! Yes folks, I’ll be attending WordCamp: Las Vegas. I’m both surprised and happy that I’ll be accomplishing one of my blog goals for 2009 so soon, which is to attend a WordPress WordCamp.

To those who aren’t familiar with what WordCamp is all about, here’s a little info.

What is WordCamp:Las Vegas?
WordCamp:Las Vegas is a conference style event covering topics related to the WordPress software. We are also planning for Unconference style sessions in the afternoon to let the people attending WordCamp help choose the topics discussed at WordCamp:Las Vegas.

Who Should Attend WordCamp:Las Vegas?
No matter if you are a casual user, full time blogger, plugin developer, theme designer or if you are curious about getting in to blogging for the first time, WordCamp:Las Vegas promises to have a little something for everyone.

It takes about 4 hours drive to get to Las Vegas from our place. Me and my friend Allan will be driving there Sunday morning, so we’ll have to leave at about 3 AM to get there on time for registration and breakfast. If you plan to attend and stay overnight or the whole weekend so you could also do some sightseeing in Vegas, you’ll have to book your hotel as soon as possible because CES 2009 and Affiliate Summit are in town at the same time so most hotels are gonna be booked.

What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas right? NOT! There will be free WiFi so I plan to live blog the event and most definitely post photos while I’m there or when I get back home. I’m also excited coz I’m gonna get more WordPress schwag aside from the WordCamp: Las Vegas tshirt. I’ll be giving them away at the end of the month to my top commentators so if you’re interested, better start commenting now.

Although I’ll only be attending the Sunday session, I’m still looking forward to this event because of the great line up of speakers scheduled to talk on that day. Here’s the complete list of speakers for WordCamp Las Vegas:

• Matt Mullenweg
• Joseph Scott
• Aaron Hockley
• Lorelle VanFossen
• Jim Kukral
• Geoff Kleinman
• Liz Strauss
• Michael Dorausch
• Micah Baldwin
• Dave Taylor
• Micah Baldwin
• Shayne Sanderson
• Ethan Gahng
• Chris Brogan
• Jim Turner
• Niran Amir
• Warren Whitlock

Registration
WordCamp Las Vegas is a two day event and the registration fee is $20. There are limited seats/tickets so if you’re interested you better act right away.

Registration includes:
- Admission to all speakers & breakout sessions for both days
- WordCamp: Las Vegas T-Shirt
- Entry for door prize drawings throughout the weekend

Everyone is invited! For those of you who are in the area and are interested to attend, you still have until noon time of Friday, January 9 to register. Btw, registration is only available online because there will be no on-site registration.

Can’t make it to WordCamp Las Vegas? Don’t worry coz the event will be streamed live via UStream. You’ll have to register to UStream to be able to watch it. You can help spread the word and promote WordCamp: Las Vegas. You can also check the schedule or the list of attendees. I’m at number 80.

If you want to be updated to the progress and latest updates of WordCamp: Las Vegas, you can follow @lvwordcamp on Twitter.

Anyone else attending WordCamp: Las Vegas? I’d love to get to talk and meet you in person or even have a photo taken together.