How to have the most fun at DEF CON

DEF CON can be a lot. Thirty-thousand-ish people, a hundred things happening at once, a map that may as well be written in another language, and a reputation for being full of people too cool to talk to you. The first time can feel less like a party and more like getting dropped into someone else's inside joke.

I've been going for years now, and there's been good times - and some times that things didn't go exactly as I had hoped. I feel like in the last few years I'd been hyper focused on being part of the con instead of enjoying it, and I was thinking at the end of DEF CON 31, maybe I wouldn't be back. However, my huband convinced me that I should just go and have fun... so I did that, focusing on exploring new things and not getting wrapped up in projects, and I had a great time. So here's my tips for making the most of DEFCON.

Go make something

If you do one thing, go to the Maker Village or the Hardware Hacking Village (or any village that hands you tools) and build a badge add-on. An SAO, or Simple Add-On, is a little PCB that plugs into a conference badge, and half of them are gloriously stupid, which is exactly what makes them fun.

At DEF CON 32 I sat down and soldered one badge after another, and had a genuinely great time doing it. There is no better icebreaker in the world than two people fumbling with a soldering iron next to each other. Nobody at that table cares how good you are. They care that you showed up and grabbed the iron.

I put together a couple of badges myself. The dinosaur-vs-cowboys badge a teammate handed me while we were waiting in line ("linecon") was especially fun.

Talk to the person next to you

DEF CON runs on the fact that everyone there built something weird and secretly wants you to ask about it. That intimidating-looking person in line? They'll light up if you ask what their badge does. Somebody had Doom running on their hard hat's little display, because of course they did. That's just how this place works.

With that said, the scary version of DEF CON, the one with some egos and gatekeeping, is real, but it's a small and very loud minority. The rest of it is just nerds who are thrilled you're curious. So be curious out loud, make a friend, get involved in whatever pulls you in.

Try a CTF, just not the whole con

I played in a few CTFs, and I genuinely enjoyed working on the Chakra badge, which was basically a piece of art disguised as a puzzle. I was the third person to solve it, which was good enough for third place and an actual trophy that now sits proudly on my shelf. Third place, sure, but it felt like a win, especially since I got there without burning my entire con on it.

Hang with a tribe... or find a new one.

DEF CON has sub-communities living inside the main event, so go find yours. I went to the Queercon meetups and hung out with some genuinely cool people.

The unglamorous survival stuff

• The 3-2-1 rule: at least 3 hours of sleep, 2 meals, and 1 shower a day. Adjust upward. You will want to adjust upward... especially if you're almost in your 40s.. like me.
• Water, constantly. It's a desert, inside a casino, inside a desert.
• Mask up in the crowds. "Con crud" is a tradition I do not endorse. (Ask me how DEF CON 31 ended. Actually, don't.)
• You don't have to do everything. You will miss things. Everyone misses things. Missing things is fine. There's always next year.

Just be open to whatever comes your way...

The most fun I've ever had at DEF CON has almost never been the thing I planned. It's been the side quest, the random village, the stranger who turned into a friend over a soldering table. Show up, be a beginner at something, and talk to people. I promise you'll have fun.

And if the con ever feels like a room you don't belong in: it isn't. Come sit down, grab an iron. I'll save you a seat.

-Marbaṩ