One of the most valuable benefits of W3C Membership is the opportunity for participants to develop working relationships with colleagues in many organizations, in many parts of the world. To bring people together and foster these relationships, W3C organizes Working Group meetings as well as two types of Membership-wide meetings each year:

TPAC ("Technical Plenary / Advisory Committee"), the W3C annual conference, is an important rendez-vous for the Web community. During that week, a number of W3C Working and Interest Groups gather, network, and work to resolve challenging technical or social issues. Since 2001, this well-attended and popular week of meetings has been an important means for W3C to coordinate solutions to technical issues that transcend group borders. Breakout sessions are public, as are most meeting records. See past TPAC meetings.

Press at TPAC: TPAC is a working meeting of W3C Members and groups. While most meeting records will be made publicly available online after the meeting, many participants prefer that their work-in-progress not be reported on verbatim; further, some organizations prohibit their employees from speaking to the press about in-progress work, and we don't want to inhibit their participation. If members of the press are registered participants in groups meeting at TPAC, we ask them to follow the same participation rules.

Advisory Committee Meetings are Members-only meetings that focus on strategic issues facing the Consortium and future directions envisioned by the Membership and Staff. See past AC meetings (Member-only).