About 20mins away drive from the hotel, the weather was so cold and it was almost minus 2 degrees. We loved it but of course, not for long cos after a while we were shivering. The exterior view of the conference hall was quite plain but once inside, we were surprised by the interior design. Greeted by receptionists (pretty Romanians ladies!), we register our names and got ourselves a landyard pass and a bag of goodies. Although there were no Tshirts (something i was expecting), this event had a new thing...a Black Hat!!! Pretty cool! There were also many free stickers to choose from.
There were about 600 attendees, majority locals and of course international speakers as near as the US to as far as Singapore. We had a great time there. However, despite a 5th year in a row for DefCamp, i feel for such a huge event, they can do with some minor improvements that can help future events to benefit both speakers and audience.
Some improvements they can tackle:
1) Unlike most big conferences, DefCamp did not have a speakers corner or a room for speakers to prep, network and speech test.
2) Most conferences will have a tea break/lunch area for speakers. This was not seen in DefCamp. The reason to have this is because as speakers, we need to rush our coffee/lunch to prepare for our talk and queuing up with the hundreds of audience will definitely have an impact to the speaker especially when the next speaking slot are them after the break/lunch.
3) Having international speakers equates to diversity of cultures. Some were vegetarian and some couldn't eat meat and some were hoping to settle for seafood. However, the choices for these handful were limited so we had to settle with bread and salads. Imagine queuing for 25mins and you only have these to select from.
4) Most speakers commented that they have to cut down their presentations from the usual 1 hr down to 30mins. And some were seen to rush towards the end of the 5mins notice. I can understand the time limit to accommodate all slots in a two days conference and perhaps this is something the organizers can look into.
On the positive side,
1) The goodies were great. Like i said, the black hat was unique and the stickers were cute and many to take from.
2) One of the things that attracted me to this conference was their trailer. If you haven't seen it, check it out here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pu6YTyQvdQ8. The background music that accompanies the video was just awesome.
3) Many conferences do not have alternative way of speaking other than just using a standalone, immovable mic. For DefCamp, they allowed speakers to pick either a wireless mic to hold to or a mouth piece attached by the ear. This selection definitely help presenters to select which one is more comfortable for them.
4) The presenter screens! Usually, a typical conference will have a one single screen but for Defcamp they have 3 huge screens! This was indeed a plus effort by the organizers as everyone can see them clearly and audience seated at the far right or far left were able to appreciate the visual presentation.
5) The landyard. I have been to many conferences, some as expensive as US$1000 to attend but could not provide a professional landyard. DefCamp's landyard was impressive. I would say they were so much better, so much professional than conferences like HITB and Hacker Halted. Organizers need to realize that the landyards are something memorable where the audience could keep but to have a piece of rubber wrapping around your wrist or a plain 50cents landyard with no sponsor and a cheap print out of name for a thousand over dollars conference really show how far they would go to profit from the attendees. Shout out to DefCamp and BSides conferences for being creative and not cheap in this part.
The LandYard and the Price of the con.
Overall, i enjoyed my time here. I got to meet many speakers and networking with local security enthusiasts, exchanging name cards and linkedin profiles. Also, it was also my first time seeing Russians, and they (The Balalaika Cr3w) were the winners in the D-CTF challenge followed by the Romanians. I am confident that DefCamp in time, can be improved to be one of the most focused and huge conference events in Europe.
Link: www.Defcamp.ro
Facebook Pictures: https://www.facebook.com/DefCampRO
Some pictures:
