My experience at conferences is kind of sad. At the academic ones, it's mostly cliques of grad students from the same lab, and they maybe socialize with grad s

My experience at conferences is kind of sad. At the academic ones, it's mostly cliques of grad students from the same lab, and they maybe socialize with grad students from labs where their advisors used to be. I've never seen much serendipity happening. The tendency is even stronger at tech meetups and conferences. People use them to meet up with friends they rarely see, or they just come with friends from work. As few connections as I've made on technical Discords, I've made fewer at conferences. Go if you have people to go with, just watch the videos otherwise.