A friend said "getting out of vegas would mean losing half the point of going to bh/defcon (which is getting your company to pay for you to go to vegas)"

The people that go there for that reason are probably not the ones you want there anyway.

And most corp trips are to black hat, not def con.

I've been offered a trip to black hat before and asked if I could go to def con as well but no. I was thinking of just staying longer on my own dime but we got a travel ban for cost cutting reasons so the whole thing never happened. I wasn't really interested in black hat anyway so I didn't care, I hate corporate PR.

But Vegas to me is a detractor. I hate gambling. I'd love it if it were in NYC or something. Much easier from Europe too.

> And most corp trips are to black hat, not def con.

not true in the vulnerability research space.

Actual engineers are sent to defcon because blackhat talks are advertisements, not educational presentations.

Oh that's good to hear.

I worked in a "blue team" and we would only get travel approvals for black hat. Even though I've never been as I didn't want to and I was hesitant to visit the US. Black Hat doesn't interest me precisely for the reason you mentioned. I don't want sales pitches, I want unrestricted flow of technical information without marketing motives.

You’re not required to gamble. I bet I’ve spent a grand total of $20 on slots over the years of attending Def Con. It’s not my thing.

Oh I know but the whole city is about that. It just puts me off.

I get it. You’ve gotta walk past it to get to anything.

Imagine wanting to go to Las Vegas in the summer. Dumb as bricks.

“Do you want to go to a sweltering hot city filled with casinos situated in the middle of a desert, in the middle of summer?”

Any one of those things sounds unpleasant to me, let alone all 3 at once.

I appreciate the sarcasm because you are right, we have Toor Camp, Chaos Camp, EMF Camp, and others. I think we could use more time outside. Cheers!

It's relatively cheap to get there from most places, and they have the space and facilities for conferences of this size.