My favorite conference events: dinners
I go to a lot of conferences and my absolute least favorite thing is staffing a booth. The security (and now crypto) industry have come a long way since 2000; back then, people hired professional “booth babes” to stand in the booth and try to attract passers-by; now, it’s mostly staff, and ideally companies rotate through so the same people aren’t stuck standing there for 10 hours a day for the whole week, but it’s tough in smaller companies which don’t have that many people overall. I’m blessed to have never actually had an assigned shift manning a booth, although I’ve often stopped by and spent time in the booth when I worked at a company, or as an advisor, or just friends with people with booths.
I’m not particularly big on drinking, or loud bars, or clubs, so I try to avoid those in the evenings. I’ll go to a few if they’re really special, but that’s not my scene.
One thing I learned (after failing to learn it 2-3 times): NEVER go on a company-sponsored marketing event like a boat trip or other thing where you can’t bail in the middle. It’s structured to trap you for a defined period of time, and it will always be bad.
I like speaking at conferences, and love talking with other speakers in the speakers ready area/lounge about their topics — it’s one of the biggest benefits of being a speaker, and something conferences should actively facilitate. Sometimes they do a “speaker’s dinner” with some sponsors/etc. invited as well, and that tends to be pretty good.
Sitting in the audience at talks is not my favorite activity, but it depends on the conference. At something like Real World Crypto, Stanford Blockchain Week Defi Security Summit, HCPP, or REcon, a lot of the talks really are interesting, and some are “off the record” to the point where you have to be in the audience to see them — totally worth it. Generally not a fan of the “statement rather than a question” from audience, etc.; tend to duck out at that point.
Casually meeting up with people during the conference is great too — either running into them spontaneously, or through coordinating in a Signal/etc. group to plan ahead.
My absolute favorite activity during conferences is meeting up for dinner. I’m now at the point where I can expense meals during conference without much concern (or pay for them out of pocket), so it’s not about free food (which it definitely was back when I was poor…) — sometimes it’s a company-sponsored dinner, but sometimes it’s just people getting together and either splitting or having one company cover it. Lots of work and industry discussion at events, but if it’s not an Official Company Sponsored Marketing Dinner, far more likely to be a free-form flow of ideas and genuine conversation, although even at most of the official dinners, the presentation is just part of it, and you get to have meaningful conversations not just with the sponsor company but among the audience.
Generally the best way to do this is either spontaneously get a group together and make a booking last-minute (or show up) at a restaurant, or book ahead and get a private dining room and set menu package. Either can work; the latter is more suitable if you have an actual presentation, but the former can be great just because it’s so dynamic. Depending on the city, last minute tables for 6-20 people can be easy or hard to find. Generally this can be done for $30-40/person (spontaneous) or $60-150/person (private dining room), at least in non-SF/NY cities, which is pretty cheap for a marketing budget if you’re at all selective about attendees. Actually arranging invites, attendance, etc. is a pain — at any scale beyond spontaneous, using something like https://lu.ma/ is probably worth it, but it’s overall good return on investment.