Would CCC and Recon be better? TBH I never understand why people (not companies) need to go to Vegas. It's expensive, corrupting and hot during the summers. Montreal is a much affordable place.
Just curious as I didn't find many package deals that were much cheaper than finding each individually. I was just using stuff like Expedia and similar.
I wouldn't call it crazy that a pure volunteer event that constantly has to switch places because they use up ALL available space of their venues does have a ticketing system that is still better than the one of a lot of big pop stars.
It probably also keeps commercialization down to a minimum.
Yes, sucks that what you describe isn't possible, but I think in perspective it's not exactly "crazy".
It's still always sold out with whole conference areas and more used up.
I've considered going there once or twice but the hotels were ridiculously expensive. It was around €200-250 a night, for me that's way too much. And the travel on top of that (i don't drive and live in southern Europe so I make less than most Germans). And I'm too old for shared room hostels. Here in Spain I can get a 4* hotel for 70€ most of the time.
It's a bit similar to DefCon in that sense. Except that it's held in real cities and not a casino resort.
this is still cheap compared to Vegas. even in the middle of august, when the temperature routinely tops 40C, hotels are upwards of $300-400USD/night
From where did you get the idea that Germany is the most expensive country in Europe? My experience differs.
> It was around €200-250 a night
Get a hotel that is a little away and use public transport to get to the event venue. Using this, rather 100-150 € per night is realistic (if you find a good offer, even below 100 € is very possible).
Germany is _far_ from the most expensive country in Europe, FWIW.
> It was around €200-250 a night
That seems very high; you'd do better booking in advance. And the transport is decent and runs late; you don't need to be right near the venue.
CCC actively discourages companies from advertising unless they are fully open source community driven orgs. Governments are even less welcome.
While even the Privacy Village at Defcon asks you to agree to the terms of service of Discord, Slack, Youtube, and other corpos... CCC self hosts everything including Voip, IRC, Matrix, 3G, 4G, and DECT, all linked together in various ways.
While Defcon has strictly controlled talks approved by sponsors and appointees of the Defcon corporation that themselves work for mostly proprietary corporations, CCC is an entirely volunteer driven organization from top to bottom and you can give a talk anywhere you want about anything 24 hours a day as long as someone else has not already reserved that spot.
While Defcon has villages reserved and approved by committee and corporate sponsors, at CCC any community can apply for table or an area and almost all are granted as space relative to the size of the community. You can do basically anything you want with your space. You can also access the event and your space 24/7 so the hacking and party never fully stops.
I go to Defcon because it is the corporate paid excuse a handful of actually capable hackers I like to hang out with have to hang out. And maybe two or three talks worth seeing.
I go to CCC because it is the nearest place I can go experience thousands of actual hackers that believe in making the world better through open source, right to repair, music, art, and maximizing sharing and collaboration. Almost every person I talk to is an instant friend. People who largely agree technical talents are meant for more than raising shareholder value.
I love CCC and I keep going in hopes I can bring some of that back with me to silicon valley.
If anyone goes to CCC be sure to visit the Church of Cryptography which I am usually around.
I guess, it's obnoxiously "American," if that makes sense.
And yes I "worship" people like Doctorow. :)