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Would CCC and Recon be better? TBH I never understand why people (not companies) need to go to Vegas. It's expensive, corrupting and hot during the summers. Mon
by ferguess_k 1y ago
Would CCC and Recon be better? TBH I never understand why people (not companies) need to go to Vegas. It's expensive, corrupting and hot during the summers. Montreal is a much affordable place.
- sugarpimpdorsey 1y agoSomething something discreet hookers and a company credit card.
- ferguess_k 1y agoI thought they are more into techs.
- ecshafer 1y agoVegas (and Orlando) are probably the two cheapest places to travel to in North America. Hotels and flights are both plentiful and cheap. Before Covid you could get like $60 a night hotels on the strip and $150 flights.
- ferguess_k 1y agoAh I don't about know about that, thought it is extra expensive. Guess summer is actually the low season due to weather?
- Fomite 1y agoGetting people to Vegas is heavily subsidized under the assumption that while they are there they will spend rather freely.
- chupasaurus 1y agoThe summer is a "dead" season for that specific reason.
- woodruffw 1y agoStrictly speaking, I don't think Vegas has a low season. It's cheap to visit and stay in because they bilk you on everything else.
- Kirby64 1y agoThe time between Thanksgiving and Christmas is historically slow. Not much going on then, and things are quite cheap usually. Weather is also not miserable.
- bluedino 1y agoYou still can, depends on where you go and where you stay. I'm seeing $300 for two nights and round trip flights from the other side of the USA right now if you don't mind staying at the Flamingo, Luxor, or Linq. Add $50 for something like Park MGM or Paris.
- giantg2 1y agoAre you finding those in a package deal? What platform are you using? Just curious as I didn't find many package deals that were much cheaper than finding each individually. I was just using stuff like Expedia and similar.
- vaidhy 1y agoFrom what I am reading, that is not the final price.. that is the room price and they add a ton of fees to that price
- __alexander 1y agoCCC would be better but REcon is kind of niche because it’s focus is reverse engineering and not “hacking”in general.
- aakkaakk 1y agoCCC still have this crazy way of selling tickets, where you cannot know more than month in advance if you will be able to get a ticket, i.e. impossible to book hotel/flight that late.
- tete 1y agoTo be fair CCC is theoretically primarily a German club with an event that is overbooked by so so many people, all of that is done by people NOT being paid for anything (from security to health emergency to infrastructure, ticket checking, audio, recording, etc.). I wouldn't call it crazy that a pure volunteer event that constantly has to switch places because they use up ALL available space of their venues does have a ticketing system that is still better than the one of a lot of big pop stars. It probably also keeps commercialization down to a minimum. Yes, sucks that what you describe isn't possible, but I think in perspective it's not exactly "crazy". It's still always sold out with whole conference areas and more used up.
- immibis 1y agoIf you are even unofficially part of CCC or a loosely-CCC-affiliated group, you stand a decent chance of getting a ticket during the first phase, where tickets are distributed to these groups.
- tptacek 1y agoREcon is as much an exploit developer conference as it is a reversing conference.
- tucnak 1y agoDefcon is a "joke" compared to CCC.
- wkat4242 1y agoHow so? I've been to the European parties but never to defcon. So I'm wondering how they compare.
- tucnak 1y agoYou're not missing anything; it's not really a party in the first place. Like one big expo, obnoxious kids (the wrong kind) and they all clap to some nonsense. Outside of select villages, not much diversity anyway. They worship Doctorow and man-babies like him. The same stupid jokes, think Hitchhiker's references, and they don't even do dress-up right :-) I guess, it's obnoxiously "American," if that makes sense.
- wkat4242 1y agoIt sounds the same as the European non-corporate events tbh. Pretty good. It doesn't sound super American. More just hacker counterculture. And yes I "worship" people like Doctorow. :)
- zevon 1y agoCongress may be considered "better" in the sense that the MIC would not find a forum there (and would be relentlessly made fun of). More importantly and as to your point about the expensiveness: The Club and all the volunteers put an inordinate amount of work in making Congress as accessible as possible on many levels.
- tptacek 1y agoCCC is just Euro-Defcon. It's fine if you prefer Europe over Vegas (understandable!) or winter to summer, but otherwise: it's the same thing.
- wkat4242 1y agoYeah and CCC is in one of the most expensive seasons (between Christmas and New year) in the most expensive country in Europe. I've considered going there once or twice but the hotels were ridiculously expensive. It was around €200-250 a night, for me that's way too much. And the travel on top of that (i don't drive and live in southern Europe so I make less than most Germans). And I'm too old for shared room hostels. Here in Spain I can get a 4* hotel for 70€ most of the time. It's a bit similar to DefCon in that sense. Except that it's held in real cities and not a casino resort.
- ghostpepper 1y ago> €200-250 a night this is still cheap compared to Vegas. even in the middle of august, when the temperature routinely tops 40C, hotels are upwards of $300-400USD/night
- saagarjha 1y agoThat’s only if you’re at the luxury hotels, with upgraded rooms.
- ghostpepper 1y agoIs Flamingo a luxury hotel?
- saagarjha 1y agoNo, it's like $100 a night
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
- lrvick 1y agoI go to CCC and Defcon every year and they are night and day. CCC actively discourages companies from advertising unless they are fully open source community driven orgs. Governments are even less welcome. While even the Privacy Village at Defcon asks you to agree to the terms of service of Discord, Slack, Youtube, and other corpos... CCC self hosts everything including Voip, IRC, Matrix, 3G, 4G, and DECT, all linked together in various ways. While Defcon has strictly controlled talks approved by sponsors and appointees of the Defcon corporation that themselves work for mostly proprietary corporations, CCC is an entirely volunteer driven organization from top to bottom and you can give a talk anywhere you want about anything 24 hours a day as long as someone else has not already reserved that spot. While Defcon has villages reserved and approved by committee and corporate sponsors, at CCC any community can apply for table or an area and almost all are granted as space relative to the size of the community. You can do basically anything you want with your space. You can also access the event and your space 24/7 so the hacking and party never fully stops. I go to Defcon because it is the corporate paid excuse a handful of actually capable hackers I like to hang out with have to hang out. And maybe two or three talks worth seeing. I go to CCC because it is the nearest place I can go experience thousands of actual hackers that believe in making the world better through open source, right to repair, music, art, and maximizing sharing and collaboration. Almost every person I talk to is an instant friend. People who largely agree technical talents are meant for more than raising shareholder value. I love CCC and I keep going in hopes I can bring some of that back with me to silicon valley. If anyone goes to CCC be sure to visit the Church of Cryptography which I am usually around.
- dashdashu 1y agoah, the almost rhytmic background sound of club mate bottles falling down