[rlivsey]

Exactly, it's not a programmer thing, it's a culture thing.

Non-development oriented conferences I've been to end up in the bar too.

It's not just conferences, plenty of non developer activities I've been to end up with most people congregating in a pub/bar afterwards, all of them with a mix of age ranges and healthy ratio of women/men. Mountain biking trips, rock climbing weekends, skiing trips, beer festivals - actually scratch that last one.

It might be more pronounced in tech companies and conferences than in some other areas because the age range is probably skewed a bit more to the lower end (baseless assumption) than in other fields?