Hacker News Reader

Comment by StavrosK | Hacker News Reader

Does anyone know how you can actually attend? The talks look interesting and I'd like to look into going next year, but I spent a few minutes online and on their site, blog and wiki, and couldn't even find where the damn thing is, let alone a ticket website!

It's like they don't want people discovering it, I can't figure out why they don't have a more accessible marketing website.

View on HN

CCC is so heavily oversubscribed that there is an insane race every year when tickets are released, usually involving downtime for the ticketing app. If finding the app itself already presents too much effort for you (hint: https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ccc%20tickets ), it's unlikely you'll succeed in acquiring a ticket.

Your best bet is to source one through some affiliated group, if you know of one, otherwise spend a few hours familiarizing yourself with the ticket app, and have at least 2 browsers with at least 10 tabs each open on the app ready for the second a release happens

Why would I need a billion tabs? Don't you only need the one?

When you're competing against bots (or people, not sure which) making a few hundred HTTP POSTs/sec, having a few extra horses in the race helps immensely, especially when >50% of those requests are going to fail anyway

You're assuming I wouldn't just write my own script ;)

I attended a few years ago (28C3). Had a great time and gave my first (unofficial) talk ever there. Found people to be supportive and chill; maybe it had to do with the fact that I was rather young at the time. I don't know.

That said, it is frustrating that they don't release the schedule weeks ahead. I was seriously thinking about attending but did not go through because conferences these days tend to have far less technical content than they used to.

It's not just about the talks (they are livestreamed afterall, you don't have to go there to see them).

At least on my twitter stream, there were people reselling tickets since they couldn't make it. Maybe another way to get one?

The best resource is the CCC Events Blog. The new location in Leipzig was announced in May and ticket presales were announced there in August.

https://events.ccc.de/

As the demand for tickets is always very high, tickets were first distributed only to local groups, hackerspaces and people who helped out the last years with a viral system. You could only buy a ticket with a voucher, which then granted you another voucher to give to a friend. The presale for everyone was in October/November at some fixed times, but the tickets were sold out within minutes.

Usually you'll have to get a ticket a month in advance. I'm just speculating, but the conference already has a lot of attendees and maybe doesn't feel it gets better with more. And word of mouth seems to work pretty well..

That said: https://tickets.events.ccc.de/34c3/

Yeah, if they're already oversubscribed it makes sense that bringing more people in would have zero benefit for them (unless they wanted to raise the price). Thanks for the link!

The minimum ticket price is does not cover costs, but is available so everyone can come. Tickets are also sold at cost-covering level and on a donation basis.

Almost all work is done by the participants (I think toilet cleaners are paid, but that's it) and there is very little sponsoring, so it works out. Not sure what more money would help with.

https://events.ccc.de/congress/2017/wiki/index.php/Static:Tr...

It IS shitty marketing, I do agree. You might be interested in their Wiki:

https://events.ccc.de/congress/2017/wiki

And they announced CFP on the blog, where they communicate a lot of news:

https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=34c3%20cfp

Given that they manage to attract thousands of hackers anyway, I guess it's just not their priority to make this clear.

I was on that wiki earlier. I only managed to find the location when I clicked on the "travel" link:

> The Congress takes place at the Messe Leipzig / Congress Center Leipzig (CCL) near Wiederitzsch and Eutritsch

> Given that they manage to attract thousands of hackers anyway, I guess it's just not their priority to make this clear.

I guess that's exactly the reason.

> It IS shitty marketing

It grew by word of mouth to, IIRC, 12.000 attendees last year; it outgrew several locations and is now at a size where it is actually hard to find a location that can house the event.

Maybe it is not "shitty marketing" but an attempt at crowd control ;)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com