I attended an earlier DEF CON (5 or 6?) where the attendees:
1) Hacked the in-circuit TV system and broadcast their own pirate show
2) Gained roof access and removed the satellite dish
3) Spilled hookah coals onto the bed starting a fire
4) drove the janitor's golf cart into the pool
and that is only what I witnessed firsthand. I can only imagine what else went on. Maybe the attendees low spend was only part of the equation?
I attended Def Con 7 and witnessed people pick the lock of a utility room on my hotel floor and change the phone wiring.
Also, I was a 17 year old girl at the time, and I felt sexually threatened several times during the event. That is the only place I have visited where I would make a statement of that nature.
That sounds like DefCon 7 at the Alexis Park. I think I remember seeing a photo of a golf cart in the pool.
I quit going after 7. It seemed like they partying had vastly I overtaken any actual technical content. I don't drink and I'm not super social, so it just seemed like it wasn't "for me" anymore.
Edit: It has probably changed in the intervening years but every time I looked into it it seemed like more spectacle than tech. DerbyCon filled the niche for me for a few years but then it got impossible to get tickets for and imploded. (I know there's a lot of backstory about DerbyCon that I don't know, too. For me it was just a fun way to feel a little of the DefCon 3 vibes again.)
I've seen bottles of alcohol passed around doing talks and heard more than a few really off color jokes about criminal sex acts and such. Vegas waitresses have seen it all also but there was over the top behavior.
We're in a victim dominant culture now, "it's not you or what you've done, you're just a victim of evil or something" but at more than a few Def Cons and more than a few times, it was really uncomfortable to be there and see some of the stuff that was happening.
And they are perfectly fine with the crowd. I've chatted with many hotel staff and almost all of them are happy with the DC crowd. Generally tips well and are polite even when drunk, some assholes, but thats normal with any crowd.
Worst case scenario is usually they tell people to disperse, but otherwise, they always seemed to laugh when they saw shenanigans (except for people fucking with Casino machines, thats a fast way to make them mad)
Probably, because of what mrandish said at the start of the thread. Management thinks they can earn more money from others. If hotel staff is treated well and/or gets good tips doesn't factor in the decision process which event is hosted. As long as someone spends enough for managers to get their bonuses management is happy.
It doesn't appear there are any similar sized conferences scheduled for the original time slot though? Or that there will be one in the near future, unless you know of some information.
I was at DEF CON 26 & 27 and people had punched/torn holes in the drywall in several places, and at one stairwell where you could reach up and slap the ceiling, chunks of ceiling were falling off from where people were gouging it.
DEF CON is a hell of a party, and I hope to go this year, but the attendees are a force to be reckoned with. Even I ended up fucking up a homemade badge, and tossing a failing lithium battery into the trash in the middle of a casino, only to learn later I created a trash fire, so I know firsthand that we're a problematic bunch.
