[mreiland]

But do you have that fear running around in a public area with 800+ random people?

The fear itself is reasonable, perhaps not fair, but reasonable. But if the fear is so strong for you that you can't even feel safe in the above description it's an issue with you and not them.

[Jem]

No, but I've been one of just a small handful of women at a dev conference and it can be incredibly intimidating.

On the plus side, the queues for the loos are always short. ;)

[mreiland]

Sure, but intimidated isn't fearful of one's life. We all get intimidated in social situations regardless of gender. I'm sure it's worse at dev conferences for women with respect to intimidation, but I don't think it's outside the norm for it to happen to people.