[dmix]

Indeed, nowhere in a tech conference have I ever been forced to drink beer or converse with anyone I didn't want to.

These communities are large enough where you don't have to directly engage with all people or even attend every single talk. Find your own subgroups within the larger community who you want to spend time with, avoid the rest. Pretty easy. I do this with at tech meetups all the time by avoiding business/PR people. And I probably disagree with the politics of at least 90% of people at any of these conferences to varying degrees.

What matters is there are people there you want to learn from (about the topic at hand) and spend time with.