A lot of conferences are poorly run and are a waste of time. The conferences I find that I enjoy the most (and I go to a lot by way of my job) are the ones wher

A lot of conferences are poorly run and are a waste of time. The conferences I find that I enjoy the most (and I go to a lot by way of my job) are the ones where the topic attracts the kind of people I find interesting. The people are always more valuable than the content. I have yet to attend a conference I've enjoyed where this wasn't the case. It also depends a lot on where you are with your career. If you're new to things, meeting new people and learning new things will have more appeal to you. If you've got an established network and aren't in a hardcore learning mode, you'll probably be disappointed by most of them.