[dale_glass]

> My first too; I enjoyed it but if I wasn't meeting up with old friends, I wouldn't have bothered.

It gets better on repeat visits. The first one is daunting, it's a very busy conference with lots of running around and often not making it into a full room.

Once you figure out what's where and the general flow of the place it's a much smoother experience.

My current strategy is to mostly ignore the big keynotes. You can always watch the video afterwards. To me the most important things are the talks where I expect to have questions to ask, and the stands. If you can't ask a question after the talk you can often still talk to the speaker in the hallway.

With a bit of practice and a plan you can have very cool conversations with some very interesting people, and sometimes people organize an after-FOSDEM dinner or similar type event.