I think I can address your point, as I organize a similar event with similar goals and a similar audience. It's obvious that in an audience of 1000+, there are

I think I can address your point, as I organize a similar event with similar goals and a similar audience. It's obvious that in an audience of 1000+, there are differing people at different stages of their startup. Some people need to hear the motivational speeches to dare take their first step toward starting their startup. Other people are further along and really are just looking for very practical or tactical advice that would solve their current issue (it could be related to growth, finding customers, dealing with press, dealing with co-founder fights, the list is long). And other people are looking to network, find their co-founder or that business person who'll help them close their first sale, or get an intro to a famous VC. When you put an event together, you try to address all those differing needs into one coherent package. Therefore, any geek can figure out that some content will not be directly applicable to why they attended. But overall, if the organizers do a good job, the event will turn out to be valuable. The last important factor is that a significant part of the audience doesn't know what they really should know, so they sometimes attend for one reason, but are enlightened by something completely different.