OK, i've read this whole thread and have some thoughts, some of which are responses to other comments in this thread. ;-)
I have been attending since DEF CON 8. I have fond memories of the Alexis Park (and i also take OFF my rose-colored glasses and remember the problems there, too), I lived through the Riv, I loved the Rio, and remembered all of us doing out best at the Bally's and Paris. I motherfucking LOVE this venue now. I really, really, REALLY hope we stay at the Caesar's for years to come.
As i said on Twitter... i participated in a number of jokes in the run-up to this year's DEF CON. "Whoa, we're just totally Black Hat now, eh?" many folk said. "After all, we're at the Caesar's. Birthplace of Black Hat. No shenanigans anymore, there go the 70s, blah blah blah."
I was goddamn dead wrong. This was the best venue since the Alexis Park. It had space for chilling, it had walkable fun times between events, no one was utterly crushed in crowds, etc. Was it perfect? No. But it was also our very first year there. I can't wait to return. (Full disclosure... between DEF CON, Black Hat, SANS, ALOA, and many other security events, I'm in Vegas a number of times per year and after staying ALL OVER, the Caesar's is my favorite, so i'm biased)
[= Venue and Geography =]
Let's talk more about the venue and the floorplan layout.
I thought it was GREAT to have the "open" floorplan of various rooms. This was something to which many of us objected during planning. Poor Zant and Nikita and Grifter heard a lot of grief from Lockpick, Tamper, and Car Hacking when we learned that lots of walls would be missing from the plan. "What?" we all shouted, wrongly. "That will be awful, and there will be no security, and it will be too loud!" we bellowed like idiots.
NO NO NO, the open plan was UNREAL for energy and feeling "part" of things. Actually being in the Lockpicking area but witnessing the Rascal Scooters being broken down and hacked in the Car Hacking area was a bonus. Seeing and hearing Tamper from our tables was a bonus. I loved not being walled off. Security just was achieved by all closing down at the same hour and posting a guard. (A guard who i understand was fired for being 100% asleep and only thanks to the Mobile Party Brigade did DEF CON get notified of this fact, since they wandered in there looking for parties to rickroll. They found an unlocked door, but no party... they only found a uniformed dude asleep in a chair)
So yeah, the layout was awesome. And i will personally masturbate to completion anyone who was responsible for the FOUR info booths this year, spread across all three levels of the con space. Great work!
Crowds and crowd management is always hard the first time we are in a new spot. I loved the rope-and-stanchion solution but agree it needs to be up from the start of Day One. Also helpful were a few areas where someone had rigged up markings saying "this part of the floor is lava" so no one would stop there. That sort of signage (or, more accurately, floor markings) would be great in the top/bottom of escalators and where large junctions meet. Like "Don't Block The Box" signs in big city intersections.
i loved opening up more exits and back stair exits. but, yeah, the rope-and-stanchion solutions worked the best. Having lots more of them in reserve in QM for others to use (like outside SkyTalks) would be a plus.
the elevators were never too crowded to be useful. great work. and it was awesome that the Palace Tower was for only DEF CON folk. if you didn't know that, thank those who planned it this way. that really helped.
Folk have already talked about the escalators. As an elevator- and escalator-trained guy, let me simply say that this was wholly a function of too many people at once. You can't overload an up-travel escalator like that. in future, i'm sure this can and will be managed. (the Caesar's had a staff member there at some point, telling people to not overload the up travel side.) NOTE - you can't use a standing escalator as a staircase. very bad things happen. don't suggest that.
Some spots simply did need more room, badly. A few I spotted...
Rootz
Biohacking Village
SE Village
...does this mean that other spots get LESS room if these are allowed to grow? Maybe. And that's a very hard call every year and Nikita gets so much stress over it so you should all rub her feet or something.
Honestly, I'll ask... do we ever consider going back to 3 main stage tracks instead of 4? It's been years and years since we were three-tracks. Don't know if that would fly.
Temperatures were well-managed and the hotel has fine amenities and quality in most of its areas. (Yes, it's a touch expensive... more on that below)
People love to bitch about LineCon/HallCon... it wasn't all that bad for me. Chilling in halls is part of the con itself. Or it has historically been for me. ;-) Other folk complained about the lack of "hangout" areas. There were two Chillout areas officially, plus lots of space in the Contest room, plus even space in the CTF room, that I saw. Other unofficial chillout areas functioned like them... Villages were places that folk met and chatted, the InfoSecUnlocked room served as an AMAZING quiet and safer space for noobs who didn't feel like they fit in just yet, etc.
Also, basically every attendee has their own chillout area, it's called your hotel room. Now, of course, this gets to the heart of another topic area that folk spoke about a great deal...
[= Audio/Video Matters =]
I'm betting that a lot of the LineCon/Chillout/crowd stress would be relieved if the streaming and/or DEF CON TV functionality was improved. I personally didn't watch the streams this year, but I recall them being a REALLY important part of my old DEF CON experiences, particularly at the Alexis Park when it was getting too crowded. I would like to hear from more attendees, from VideoMan, and others about what can be done here. Hell, we have the budget and the technology, don't we?
Separate from the "audience not in the room wishing for better A/V solutions" it seems there were problems with seeing and hearing talks from actually within the rooms? That is interesting to me. Any talks I saw ran smoothly and were good there. However, other simple solutions would alleviate much of that...
1. have A/V staff right the fuck there at the stage as each new speaker sets up.
2. use HDMI for everything. no VGA. no 1/8" audio. Video over HDMI, audio over same HDMI cable. no fuckery.
3. SO CRITICAL, DO WE DO THIS???>>> have the exact same HDMI hardware in every talk room and have a duplicate of it in the speaker ready room. We already require speakers to be present in the green room like an hour before their actual talk, right? Can we have Speaker Ops demand that they connect their laptop to the projector and HDMI hardware right there in the speaker ready room so that we all know it works, the screen resolutions and refresh rates are fine, etc?
I don't have a dog in the fight when it comes to microphones... handheld or lavaliere, meh whatever... just as long as there is a dedicated A/V technician right at the stage right at the start of the talk.
Good A/V tech can be the ultimate key to relieving SO MUCH of the stress that folk are feeling about the crowds, etc. If people know that there's for sure a reliable means of viewing the talks from their hotel rooms or other chillout areas (hell, i could imagine folk with a large laptop at the circle bar across from Payard) then that will cut down a lot on folk complaining about LineCon.
UPDATE: after more talks with some of the people affected as well as the people who work this issue in the background, it appears that something like 90% of this problem is Union-related.
The fact is that Encore is a union shop and (unless I'm wrong) mandated by the Caesars to be used. No other shops have the contract or are permitted in.
So it sounds like that has made them lazy and ineffectual and generally suck a lot of ass. Shocker.
Iam not DEFCON's lawyer, nor on the core team who negotiates with a hotel, but I could definitely support putting much stronger language into our contract with Encore saying that they are responsible for making the shit actually fucking run right.
[= ZOMG Expensive Blah Blah My Wallet =]
Yes, DEF CON 25 costs more than DEF CON 20 did, which costs more than DEF CON 10 did. News Flash: Life continues to get more expensive over time. That's life. If you think that this year's price wasn't INSANE value for what you paid, I can't help you.
I will admit, however, that many of the amenities at the Caesar's were expensive. It's a top-tier Vegas strip hotel. My wife and i had breakfast in our room one morning. It cost (i am literally not joking) $147 total. For all of you who were bemoaning the cost of dining at the Caesar's (and I wholly agree, their con floor food sucked while at the same time being too expensive) i can suggest the following...
1. the Grand Bazzar Shops, the CVS, the Bally's/Paris, and the Flamingo are each a 10 minute walk FROM THE CON FLOOR. We timed it. Multiple times. This 10 minute walk involves 5 minutes of being outside, but no street crossings (well, no waiting at lights or being near cars... there are sky bridges) and you get considerably cheaper options.
2. if you have a car or a friend with a car, by all means, get ALL your food off-site (have one person do a run for 20 people in a mass food pick-up which takes maybe 30 minutes) and eat like kings for mere dollars per day. Yes, i know you're not supposed to bring in outside food. But you all do realize that NO ONE checks for this, right? DEF CON can't actively encourage this behavior, but you really don't have the right to bitch about not being able to afford food.
3. Imma just leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFV73wpEAw
]= Dumb Ideas =[
These ideas are dumb. Stop suggesting them.
Presentations using conference laptops - LOLNOPE. way way way more hassle than you'd imagine. Just standardize around HDMI for absolutely all projectors and audio systems and have the exact same HDMI setup in the speaker green room and make testing it mandatory before someone takes the stage. "conference laptops" are a source of WAY more inconsistencies and problems (font failures, live demo code, VMs, etc)
Pre-registration or capping attendees to a max limit - then DEF CON wouldn't be DEF CON. you are literally talking about a change in the way they do things that would be on the order of moving DEF CON to a city that isn't Las Vegas. Which should also never happen...
Trying DEF CON elsewhere - hah, this is mostly me just poking fun at Jeff, and I'm honestly more on the fence here. The idea of "DEF CON in Bejing" is very bold. I would be interested to see what happens. Personally, i really would have thought that Taiwan or Hong Kong is a better option, because so so so many of us just aren't permitted to enter mainland China. But the idea of bringing our dissident knowledge to that audience would be feasible in Hong Kong since the Chinese don't need a visa to enter Hong Kong, just like Americans don't.
Overall, I love the DEF CON continues to thrive and this year was the best in a while for me. I look forward to seeing where things go from here.
Here's to a marvelous quarter-century of hacking, everyone!
I have been attending since DEF CON 8. I have fond memories of the Alexis Park (and i also take OFF my rose-colored glasses and remember the problems there, too), I lived through the Riv, I loved the Rio, and remembered all of us doing out best at the Bally's and Paris. I motherfucking LOVE this venue now. I really, really, REALLY hope we stay at the Caesar's for years to come.
As i said on Twitter... i participated in a number of jokes in the run-up to this year's DEF CON. "Whoa, we're just totally Black Hat now, eh?" many folk said. "After all, we're at the Caesar's. Birthplace of Black Hat. No shenanigans anymore, there go the 70s, blah blah blah."
I was goddamn dead wrong. This was the best venue since the Alexis Park. It had space for chilling, it had walkable fun times between events, no one was utterly crushed in crowds, etc. Was it perfect? No. But it was also our very first year there. I can't wait to return. (Full disclosure... between DEF CON, Black Hat, SANS, ALOA, and many other security events, I'm in Vegas a number of times per year and after staying ALL OVER, the Caesar's is my favorite, so i'm biased)
[= Venue and Geography =]
Let's talk more about the venue and the floorplan layout.
I thought it was GREAT to have the "open" floorplan of various rooms. This was something to which many of us objected during planning. Poor Zant and Nikita and Grifter heard a lot of grief from Lockpick, Tamper, and Car Hacking when we learned that lots of walls would be missing from the plan. "What?" we all shouted, wrongly. "That will be awful, and there will be no security, and it will be too loud!" we bellowed like idiots.
NO NO NO, the open plan was UNREAL for energy and feeling "part" of things. Actually being in the Lockpicking area but witnessing the Rascal Scooters being broken down and hacked in the Car Hacking area was a bonus. Seeing and hearing Tamper from our tables was a bonus. I loved not being walled off. Security just was achieved by all closing down at the same hour and posting a guard. (A guard who i understand was fired for being 100% asleep and only thanks to the Mobile Party Brigade did DEF CON get notified of this fact, since they wandered in there looking for parties to rickroll. They found an unlocked door, but no party... they only found a uniformed dude asleep in a chair)
So yeah, the layout was awesome. And i will personally masturbate to completion anyone who was responsible for the FOUR info booths this year, spread across all three levels of the con space. Great work!
Crowds and crowd management is always hard the first time we are in a new spot. I loved the rope-and-stanchion solution but agree it needs to be up from the start of Day One. Also helpful were a few areas where someone had rigged up markings saying "this part of the floor is lava" so no one would stop there. That sort of signage (or, more accurately, floor markings) would be great in the top/bottom of escalators and where large junctions meet. Like "Don't Block The Box" signs in big city intersections.
i loved opening up more exits and back stair exits. but, yeah, the rope-and-stanchion solutions worked the best. Having lots more of them in reserve in QM for others to use (like outside SkyTalks) would be a plus.
the elevators were never too crowded to be useful. great work. and it was awesome that the Palace Tower was for only DEF CON folk. if you didn't know that, thank those who planned it this way. that really helped.
Folk have already talked about the escalators. As an elevator- and escalator-trained guy, let me simply say that this was wholly a function of too many people at once. You can't overload an up-travel escalator like that. in future, i'm sure this can and will be managed. (the Caesar's had a staff member there at some point, telling people to not overload the up travel side.) NOTE - you can't use a standing escalator as a staircase. very bad things happen. don't suggest that.
Some spots simply did need more room, badly. A few I spotted...
Rootz
Biohacking Village
SE Village
...does this mean that other spots get LESS room if these are allowed to grow? Maybe. And that's a very hard call every year and Nikita gets so much stress over it so you should all rub her feet or something.
Honestly, I'll ask... do we ever consider going back to 3 main stage tracks instead of 4? It's been years and years since we were three-tracks. Don't know if that would fly.
Temperatures were well-managed and the hotel has fine amenities and quality in most of its areas. (Yes, it's a touch expensive... more on that below)
People love to bitch about LineCon/HallCon... it wasn't all that bad for me. Chilling in halls is part of the con itself. Or it has historically been for me. ;-) Other folk complained about the lack of "hangout" areas. There were two Chillout areas officially, plus lots of space in the Contest room, plus even space in the CTF room, that I saw. Other unofficial chillout areas functioned like them... Villages were places that folk met and chatted, the InfoSecUnlocked room served as an AMAZING quiet and safer space for noobs who didn't feel like they fit in just yet, etc.
Also, basically every attendee has their own chillout area, it's called your hotel room. Now, of course, this gets to the heart of another topic area that folk spoke about a great deal...
[= Audio/Video Matters =]
I'm betting that a lot of the LineCon/Chillout/crowd stress would be relieved if the streaming and/or DEF CON TV functionality was improved. I personally didn't watch the streams this year, but I recall them being a REALLY important part of my old DEF CON experiences, particularly at the Alexis Park when it was getting too crowded. I would like to hear from more attendees, from VideoMan, and others about what can be done here. Hell, we have the budget and the technology, don't we?
Separate from the "audience not in the room wishing for better A/V solutions" it seems there were problems with seeing and hearing talks from actually within the rooms? That is interesting to me. Any talks I saw ran smoothly and were good there. However, other simple solutions would alleviate much of that...
1. have A/V staff right the fuck there at the stage as each new speaker sets up.
2. use HDMI for everything. no VGA. no 1/8" audio. Video over HDMI, audio over same HDMI cable. no fuckery.
3. SO CRITICAL, DO WE DO THIS???>>> have the exact same HDMI hardware in every talk room and have a duplicate of it in the speaker ready room. We already require speakers to be present in the green room like an hour before their actual talk, right? Can we have Speaker Ops demand that they connect their laptop to the projector and HDMI hardware right there in the speaker ready room so that we all know it works, the screen resolutions and refresh rates are fine, etc?
I don't have a dog in the fight when it comes to microphones... handheld or lavaliere, meh whatever... just as long as there is a dedicated A/V technician right at the stage right at the start of the talk.
Good A/V tech can be the ultimate key to relieving SO MUCH of the stress that folk are feeling about the crowds, etc. If people know that there's for sure a reliable means of viewing the talks from their hotel rooms or other chillout areas (hell, i could imagine folk with a large laptop at the circle bar across from Payard) then that will cut down a lot on folk complaining about LineCon.
UPDATE: after more talks with some of the people affected as well as the people who work this issue in the background, it appears that something like 90% of this problem is Union-related.
The fact is that Encore is a union shop and (unless I'm wrong) mandated by the Caesars to be used. No other shops have the contract or are permitted in.
So it sounds like that has made them lazy and ineffectual and generally suck a lot of ass. Shocker.
Iam not DEFCON's lawyer, nor on the core team who negotiates with a hotel, but I could definitely support putting much stronger language into our contract with Encore saying that they are responsible for making the shit actually fucking run right.
[= ZOMG Expensive Blah Blah My Wallet =]
Yes, DEF CON 25 costs more than DEF CON 20 did, which costs more than DEF CON 10 did. News Flash: Life continues to get more expensive over time. That's life. If you think that this year's price wasn't INSANE value for what you paid, I can't help you.
I will admit, however, that many of the amenities at the Caesar's were expensive. It's a top-tier Vegas strip hotel. My wife and i had breakfast in our room one morning. It cost (i am literally not joking) $147 total. For all of you who were bemoaning the cost of dining at the Caesar's (and I wholly agree, their con floor food sucked while at the same time being too expensive) i can suggest the following...
1. the Grand Bazzar Shops, the CVS, the Bally's/Paris, and the Flamingo are each a 10 minute walk FROM THE CON FLOOR. We timed it. Multiple times. This 10 minute walk involves 5 minutes of being outside, but no street crossings (well, no waiting at lights or being near cars... there are sky bridges) and you get considerably cheaper options.
2. if you have a car or a friend with a car, by all means, get ALL your food off-site (have one person do a run for 20 people in a mass food pick-up which takes maybe 30 minutes) and eat like kings for mere dollars per day. Yes, i know you're not supposed to bring in outside food. But you all do realize that NO ONE checks for this, right? DEF CON can't actively encourage this behavior, but you really don't have the right to bitch about not being able to afford food.
3. Imma just leave this here... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtFV73wpEAw
]= Dumb Ideas =[
These ideas are dumb. Stop suggesting them.
Presentations using conference laptops - LOLNOPE. way way way more hassle than you'd imagine. Just standardize around HDMI for absolutely all projectors and audio systems and have the exact same HDMI setup in the speaker green room and make testing it mandatory before someone takes the stage. "conference laptops" are a source of WAY more inconsistencies and problems (font failures, live demo code, VMs, etc)
Pre-registration or capping attendees to a max limit - then DEF CON wouldn't be DEF CON. you are literally talking about a change in the way they do things that would be on the order of moving DEF CON to a city that isn't Las Vegas. Which should also never happen...
Trying DEF CON elsewhere - hah, this is mostly me just poking fun at Jeff, and I'm honestly more on the fence here. The idea of "DEF CON in Bejing" is very bold. I would be interested to see what happens. Personally, i really would have thought that Taiwan or Hong Kong is a better option, because so so so many of us just aren't permitted to enter mainland China. But the idea of bringing our dissident knowledge to that audience would be feasible in Hong Kong since the Chinese don't need a visa to enter Hong Kong, just like Americans don't.
Overall, I love the DEF CON continues to thrive and this year was the best in a while for me. I look forward to seeing where things go from here.
Here's to a marvelous quarter-century of hacking, everyone!
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