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Comment by FreeCrypto | Hacker News Reader

Personally, I would like to thank Salesforce for a strong security presence at the event. There were bomb sniffing dogs, many security staff, and vehicle barriers with armed guards at street entrances.

Despite being a sponsor and speaker at the event, I was denied access (due to different badge type) to the expo hall to help the rest of our company setup our booth. It was frustrating, but at least the security was paying attention.

It is very unfortunate that this group had problems getting in. I would have enjoyed talking to their group, as I did with the Girl Scouts group and other non-profits that sent STEM students to the event.

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You're happy they had security theater in full effect even though it inconvenienced you and others?

Yep. My company paid a lot of money to sponsor a booth and make sure the majority of our interactions were with customers that we could sell to/partner with. Having a free for all would have greatly diminished the value of our time there.

I should note, I don't know which part of the show this group was trying to enter (Developer Zone, Expo Hall, Keynote Talk). As I mentioned, I enjoyed talking with a number of the STEM student groups that came through the expo hall.

I find it quite weird that you're putting "free for all" as an alternative to armed guards at a conference. There's a whole spectrum in between that conferences happily operate in in other places. Like having gates / pass checks, but without involving armed security. I've never seen that before and hope never will.

Sorry for the confusion, there was a spectrum. I don't think we're in disagreement here, you may be envisioning things that were not happening.

To clarify, Security Guards checking badges wore suit jackets and did not appear to be armed. They mostly said things like "please turn your badges forward", "sorry you can't go in there yet, only [X] badges right now". The few people with the bomb sniffing dogs I think were armed. The people that were very clearly armed were outside the conference standing at the vehicle barricades, there were a limited number of them.

I meant a spectrum where there huge events that don't have armed security but aren't "free for all" either. Those two are extreme positions.

I'm curious about the demography for this event ... do you have sense for the attendees? Would be genuinely interested in what you get out of it. I've never been and am really curious what draws such large crowds.

I attended this event because I do some work with Salesforce and my company was willing to pay for it so it was basically a cheap vacation. I feel like it's largely a marketing event to showcase new features of Salesforce and showcase companies that have been successful using it and to that end it's effectively a big party.

There are useful aspect to it, though. It's an opportunity to network with people and other companies that use Salesforce and there are a lot of presentations on topics ranging from technical details of Salesforce to oceanography which can be useful for getting ideas on how to better utilize Salesforce. Salesforce has a large secondary market for applications built on it and Dreamforce is pretty good for companies with products in that market.

The event is massive, something like 180,000 total attendees. They actually shut down Howard St. between 4th and 3rd and roll out astro turf and put up fake rock formations and stages.

There are tons of different badge types depending on your role in the ecosystem (developer, admin, marketing, sales, partner, sponsor, speaker, etc.). For the expo, Monday and Tuesday are for Full Pass people only (min of ~$1,000 per pass). Wednesday and Thursday allows in anyone that registered for the free Expo pass ahead of time.

The demographics skew to middle age people. Racially, mostly white, but many east asian and indian attendees. Certainly all groups were represented. I met many people coming from Australia, Europe and India.

Because of the expense of the passes, most of the attendees are decision makers within the business which I think is why it skewed older. I would understand if the group described in the article felt like they stood out in the crowd because of the racial and age difference. Also, Monday was crazy. Lots of very confused people trying to figure out where they should be going between the 3 different massive buildings the event was held in.

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