I've attended two styles of conferences: large conferences organized by the single company featured in all discussions (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon -

I've attended two styles of conferences: large conferences organized by the single company featured in all discussions (e.g. Microsoft, Google, Apple, Amazon - all hosted in a large city), and smaller polyglot conferences in the Midwest. CodeMash in Sandusky, OH is a relatively small, relatively inexpensive conference. It mostly attracts people from Columbus, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland metros, but further into the midwest (St Louis, Omaha, KC). During a talk, there is large variation in participation, but there's generally 4-5 things per time slot a person would like to attend and it is acceptable/encouraged to leave a talk if it turned out it isn't right for you. There are (optional) social activities baked in. There are soft-skills and unrelated activities (lazer pong, sessions on things like creative writing, mindfulness). One of the last contributing factors is that there are ALWAYS places to sit in group fashion and meals are generally at a shared table (round tables of 8 or something). The result is conversations with strangers who come from varying backgrounds. The result of the non-pretentiousness is conversations during a talk (it's much less intimidating to ask questions of the lead engineers from Kroger in a room of 150 than the lead engineers of Microsoft in a room of 1000 - Kroger has a very impressive technical presence, mind). DevOpsDays actually has a period after the keynote where people come up and suggest topics for breakout groups, resulting in wildly contrasting sizes and specificities of discussions. Seems clear that there are plenty of ways to have a fantastic conference as long as you're not attending to get the coolest big ticket swag gift via attendance.