Their rationale/justification was that because WiFi at scale (40k attendees, couple hundred exhibitors) the MiFis and other hotspots are using the bandwidth tha

Their rationale/justification was that because WiFi at scale (40k attendees, couple hundred exhibitors) the MiFis and other hotspots are using the bandwidth that the exhibitors have paid (a lot of money) for and caused issues with their demos (which the attendees paid entry fees to see). These high-end WiFi systems are expensive to install and administer. But that those prices they were charging, they've paid for the system in, like, the first day. Maybe by lunch time. Conference stuff in general is crazy.