Newbie question(s) about parking and entering

**number6** · March 30, 2026, 13:39

Originally posted by Bart

Sorry for the ignorance. Some newbie questions that I'm not seeing outright.

Ignorance can often be solved by asking questions. I see you are asking questions; this is a good path.

First year attending DEFCON. Bringing my 16yo w/ me because I think it'll be great.

Historically, there has been a "DEF CON Kids" which went through name changes settling on "dcnextgen." https://dcnextgen.org/
They have historically had content which is targeted for minors, while the larger conference can have adult situations. You know the level of maturity of this 16 year old, so you and your 16 year old can decide how to proceed. Check for details on that site for how to participate in that if your 16 year old has an interest in it.

I know a few people that attended DEF CON as a minor, who could handle the adult situations that might happen, and they attended before DEF CON kids even existed. Some minors can handle regular DEF CON, but DEF CON has historically advised that minors should only attend when accompanied by a parent or guardian.

Not staying at a hotel nearby, but instead about 10 minutes away. Hotel prices are considerably cheaper. How bad is parking at the convention center? Will it be an issue finding a place to park? If I need to park way out in the boondocks, I'll live. I just have no idea on LVCC parking conditions.

Check out the venue link for DC33 at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) to give you ideas on what DC 34 might be like::
https://www.defcon.org/html/defcon-33/dc-33-venue.html

Scroll down that page, or "find on page" the text "I'm local/staying far away. What's the parking situation?" for advice on parking.
Once there is a DC34 venue page, you can check it out to see if parking advice has changed.

I'm buying my tickets ahead of time online. Will I need to worry about badge availability? Will I need to worry about linecon if I already have my ticket/badge?

The history of DEF CON for badge sales is simple:

DEF CON has never run out of badges (which grant you access to DEF CON.)

(The motive behind this is that restricting count of badge sales invites elitism, and perceived shortages mean 3rd parties may try to buy all tickets until there is a shortage then sell them at a huge mark-up. Not limiting sales often means lines.)

However, there are novelty badges such as electronic badges when those are provided, or non-electric badges when electric badges are not provided. Those can run-out. When they run-out, DEF CON sales of badges often switches to paper badges. Historically, electronic badges are the novelty badges every other year, but there have been exceptions. Official DEF CON badges are not electronic badges every year.

Both paper badges and novelty badges "work" the same to grant access to DEF CON, but attendees tend to prefer to novelty badges (whether it is a year for electronic badges or not) as they become toys to play with after DEF CON, or a keepsake as a reminder of their visit. Additionally, the non-paper badges become part of contests or puzzles, leaving those with paper badges unable to participate with their paper badge.

Usually, online purchases of badge code to be redeemed in person for badges are given priority for the novelty badges, but they cost more than cash at the door because of processing fees. Past is no guarantee for future plans, and I do not make those decisions.

As for "Linecon" : you should consider linecon is an opportunity to socialize with other people in line. Lines can exist in many parts of DEF CON.
These comments are not official statements of how things will work for DEF CON 34:
Historically, linecon for badges starts 24 hours before DEF CON badges are available for cash purchase or QR code redemption.
Historically, linecon starts as one combined line for cash vs QR code redemption then later splits.

Official comment: at DEF CON, pay attention to signs and "DEF CON Goons" (Goons are staff/volunteers that have official name-tags, and badges and shirts that indicate their work as a goon at DEF CON 34.)

Goons offer direction and can answer questions. Many "red shirt" goons in standing hallways work to keep traffic moving instead of answering questions.

There are goons that specialize in answer questions about DEF CON at "DEF CON Information Booths" which are often a better choice than asking a random hallway goon, who may be busy with other tasks.

If a hallway goon can answer your questions, that is great, but if they are busy, please recognize they have other work, and might not have time; it isn't personal. Information booth goons often have the latest information, and specialize in getting answers to questions about DEF CON.

There may be several lines at DEF CON:
Badge linecon to buy or redeem a code bought online for a DEF CON Badge.
A Thursday "DEF CON Swag Booth" with DEF CON Swag often has a linecon.
The next day (often Friday) there is a swag/vendor room where many different sellers of other swag, tools, and more open up to sell their content, and that often has a linecon the first day it is open.
Then for various popular speaker tracks, lines may form one or more hour(s) before they start. Ask a goon near the front of any speaker track line about the talk for that line.
All villages have limited space, and some are more popular than others. All have risk of running out of space. Each room has a maximum capacity, and we do not want to anger the fire marshal. Capacity limits mean risk for lines.

Use any line as a chance to socialize with people in line with you.

Before you travel, review what will be available at DEF CON. Build a schedule and plan so that every hour of every day has one or more things that interest you. As of this posting, speakers have not yet been selected, but should be announced over the next few months.
The point of having a schedule is NOT to obey it, but always have a list of things you are interested in doing, in case you might find yourself asking, "what should I do next?"
Be ready to abandon your schedule when something better comes along.
Don't let a schedule limit your fun.

To help with your planning, there are options depending on your level of paranoia:

if you are not paranoid at all, and fine with running code from an app on your device, the most feature-filled and functional way to plan DEF CON is with an app (iOS and Android) called, "Hacker Tracker" : it is often loaded with a collection of official and unofficial events, contests, villages, speakers, and more, with tools to help you plan your DEF CON.

if you are a little paranoid, but can accept running JavaScript in a browser for a site, check out https://info.defcon.org/ which is HTML, CSS, XML, and JavaScript. It may have content for EF CON Singapore or other DEF CON, but as we get closer to DEF CON in Las Vegas, the content should be changed for DEF CON in Las Vegas.

If you are very paranoid, an unofficial collection of content has been made available, check out an example from DEF CON 33 https://defcon.outel.org/dcwp/dc33/ as it has historically had official and unofficial details about what is happening at DEF CON in different formats, including CSV or TXT, which have no code, just data. With these, you will have to make/use your own tools to parse the data and present it as human-readable format. Wait for a DEF CON 34 version.

Avoid planting your face in an electronic device during DEF CON except to plan your DEF CON, or when competing in a content; the point of attending DEF CON is to experience DEF CON, and you can't easily do that if hanging out on social media, telling people you are at DEF CON for fake internet points.

Several months after DEF CON ends, the main speaker track talks often appear online on the media server:
https://media.defcon.org/
This causes many people to make main speaker tracks less of a priority. There are exceptions:
(1) Though main speaker tracks are usually recorded, mistakes can happen, so seeing a talk in-person avoid risk of a talk not being recorded.
(2) Outside of main speaker tracks, some talks are recorded, but other talks are not. Find out if a non-main-track talk will be recorded and put online for download. If not, then your only chance to see it may be in-person. Some non-main-track talks have policies to disallow recording.
(3) Is the topic of a talk urgent? It is something you can't wait months to see? Seeing such talks in-person becomes an option. If you can wait a little bit after DEF CON, there is a 3rd party that has recorded DEF CON talk which can be purchased separately from them. It has historically been "sok-media.com"
(4) Do you have a question for the person presenting the talk? Seeing them in-person can make this possible.
(5) Do you want to meet the speaker in-person? Seeing them in-person that make this possible.

Beyond that, things break into different kinds of advice, depending on your interests. Some people propose trying a little bit of everything. Some propose trying an event like the "Scavenger Hunt" spending all your time competing with a team of attendees, or spend all your time in a contest like "Darknet-ng" which has historically had a team-supported gaming which encourage cooperation, and broad selections of applied knowledge in various hacking specializations allowing people to sample a little bit from many things.

It is probably not a good idea to volunteer to help with things at DEF CON your first year -- volunteering means not being able to do other things.
Usually, volunteers become volunteers after they have experienced a few DEF CON and want to give back to a community so others can experience the fun they have enjoyed.

Being under 21 will mean not being able to get into many private parties, but there have been official DEF CON parties and music events which do not require people be 21 years or older.
DEF CON badges don't grant you access to private events/parties as those have their own, separate process defined by the hosts for each private party.

Please watch for "Pre DEF CON Contests" and participate. Some have prizes like a DEF CON badge, or others. The advantage in these is you are not spending your time *at* DEF CON on these contests. They are ways to participate in DEF CON before DEF CON officially starts.

Some contests, events, villages, etc. require early sign-up for some other thing they are doing. Find out if what you want to do requires early sign-up or other prerequisites.

Taking pictures of stuff is usually fine, but before you take a picture of a person at DEF CON, please ask for and then get their permission.

Please watch for "Workshops" : workshops are like special training with limited class size, and as a result, seats in workshops often get snatched-up quickly, often within seconds or minutes of going live. The recent history of these has been that people using old-fashioned desktop browsers have reported never even seeing seats in workshops available, while users of the official app were able to see spots and get them quickly. The usual advice for workshops is, build your account on the service that has workshops available long before workshops are made available, select which workshop you want first (prioritize) and use auto-fill when possible. This is the advice from the past. It is not known if this advice will be the best advice for the future.

**Bart** · March 31, 2026, 07:50

That's a BEAUTIFUL response!

Yeah, I know there will be limitations based on his age, and I expect that. I'm not concerned about what he sees or experiences. I appreciate the warnings about what he may or may not experience. Fortunately, I'm also not into the partying scene since I'm the kind of guy that has to groan when he stands up from sitting on the floor. Parties are a little behind me!

I did not know about DEF CON Next Gen, so having the link to that is awesome.

I also didn't realize that I'm so far ahead of schedule finalizations. I'm not complaining, certainly. I was worried about missing the good stuff, thinking I was buying in too late.

Number6, I truly appreciate the time you put in your response back to me. I'm cool with drinking from the firehose and I most definitely got that!

Cheers.

**number6** · March 31, 2026, 19:29

Originally posted by Bart

That's a BEAUTIFUL response!

Yeah, I know there will be limitations based on his age, and I expect that. I'm not concerned about what he sees or experiences. I appreciate the warnings about what he may or may not experience. Fortunately, I'm also not into the partying scene since I'm the kind of guy that has to groan when he stands up from sitting on the floor. Parties are a little behind me!

I did not know about DEF CON Next Gen, so having the link to that is awesome.

I also didn't realize that I'm so far ahead of schedule finalizations. I'm not complaining, certainly. I was worried about missing the good stuff, thinking I was buying in too late.

Number6, I truly appreciate the time you put in your response back to me. I'm cool with drinking from the firehose and I most definitely got that!

Cheers.

Consider that there are other places to discuss DEF CON and planning which have more active users, and different PoV and advice.

There is a reddit space for discussion on DEF CON:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Defcon/
Several goons, and organizers of various things at DEF CON read and participate on reddit.

There is also a discord server:
https://defcon.org/html/defcon-safem...e-discord.html
That was established during COVID-19 lockdown to provide an online experience related to DEF CON. Now, very few contests, events, villages, etc have any kind of presence on the DEF CON Discord Server, but it is used to socialize between DEF CON. The primary channel for socializing there is #linecon. There are other channels, but most are hidden while DEF CON is not happening. You can grant your account access to see more channels by visiting the roles- channel to assign yourself various roles which allow you to see more channels. Some details for a "movie-night" channel (which takes place Saturday nights, 8PM PDT/PST (UTC-7/UTC-8) when DEF CON is not happening in Las Vegas.) Some details here: https://forum.defcon.org/node/252870 official announcements are in that channel and https://forum.defcon.org/node/235218

We also have a mastodon instance running at https://defcon.social/ with official announcements from https://defcon.social/@defcon

Good luck!

Newbie question(s) about parking and entering

Newbie question(s) about parking and entering

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