[BrianLy]

Do people really go to programming conferences for keynotes? My experience has been that the hallway conversations are alone worth more than keynotes.

Many keynotes sessions tend to be disappointing because there is not enough time to dive into technical details, or the presenter is not sure if they should be focusing on the movement as opposed to their technical contributions.

[cperciva]

I go to conferences I've attended before because of the hallway track. But that won't get me to attend a new conference, because I don't know if the hallway track will be any good yet.

[binarycrusader]

David Beazley proved to me at PyCon 2012 that keynotes are occasionally worth attending.