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 roc

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.