I had a workshop spotlight. Those sessions were generally a lot calmer. A big problem was cramming hundreds of posters in one large space, with a relatively po

I had a workshop spotlight. Those sessions were generally a lot calmer. A big problem was cramming hundreds of posters in one large space, with a relatively poor search experience (posters were kind of arbitrarily organised with some categories only having three or four entries). If they'd split them over both exhibition centres (or multiple rooms/floors), it might have calmed the crowds. Also since it was hard to know exactly where to look, there was a lot of wandering around. There's also the heavy corporate side where people spent the evenings going to not-so-secret invite-only parties (lots of FOMO going on). Lots of jobs going, but ridiculous amount of competition now. Despite that it was pretty friendly, and I had good results emailing people I wanted to chat to, and going to the socials. Really the field needs to start publishing in journals again, and not obsessing over one or two mega-conferences each year. In other domains, there are huge congress events, but they're much more informal (eg EGU, 17k people).