For those who came in late, earlier this week Derbycon announced that its board has decided that 2019 will be the last year for Derbycon. This of course has been met with dismay, anger, and talk. The statement from Derbycon was it had to do with multiple things over multiple years taking a toll on them, professionally and personally, so they decided it was not worth running anymore after this year.
The first rule I learned years ago about doing something is when you stop enjoying it, do not do it, and move to something new. This is basically what the whole Derbycon decision actually boils down to. Yes, their have been publicly known instances where Social Justice Warriors (SJW) have gone too far. Yes there have been instances, like the whole Code of Conduct situation, that could have been handled better and way more quickly. Issues, similar or not, come up with every conference out there. I know plenty who are worried that Derbycon shutting down will embolden the SJW people and cause more conferences to shut down.
We have heard of the issues with HOPE. I have heard rumors of Shmoocon having complaints and issues. We all have heard complaints about Defcon, and Spacerogue even mentioned Thotcon have had issues that were handled behind the scene. So why have these other conferecnces not capitulate, where Derbycon did?
I am willing to speculate on the actual reason. The following is my own thoughts and opinions, I have no inside knowledge, nor have any direct affiliation with Derbycon. Logically it boils down to one of two ideas, and very well could be a combination of both.
First let us look at the organizers, in particular Dave Kennedy. I met Dave at the last Derbycon, seems like a nice, stand up guy who really wants to help the field as a whole. He owns Binary Defense and Trusted Sec, gets brought onto national news outlets as an expert, and is rather high profile. Recently he took to twitter to announce he was cutting back on twitter due to the way things were going for him on it. Speculation is that he was catching flack from people and wanted to make his twitter more professional. Still this shows that something was getting to him. I have to imagine that other board members were getting flack about things also, I mean look at how much gets tossed onto twitter as it is, so this is completely logical. It also takes its toll on a person. So the first idea is that it basically wore them out to where it is not fun anymore.
The second thought I had was that it was taking a toll on them in a professional sense. Perhaps less clients (I am not sure how many on the board work for Dave or own their own companies) or clients dropping them due to affiliation. Again, just speculation.
The truth is probably a little of column A a little of column B. The difference being that it became too much work, not enough fun, especially with how Derbycon has grown.
What hurts more is they way a good portion of the people who attend Derbycon look at it. It is a mid-size conference, easy enough to get to know people and meet people at. There is an overall cool vibe to it, plus the lobbycon is really good (although I understand it was better at the Hyatt due to the different layout). With so many supporters, the shutdown takes a life of its own.
Obviously with conferences having been around as long or longer than Derbycon, there are ways to get past the pain points. The odds that SJW will be able to shut down a conference on its own is very slim, and in this case it was just one of many things, but the most public situation that occurred. Does it suck? Yes it does. Will we go on? Yes we will. There are other conferences that are small to mid size that are available. Circle City Con, GrrrCon, Thotcon, Cyphercon, Wild West Hackin Fest, Shmoocon are just a few to be named. There are also tons of BSides out there to go to. None of them will actually be Derbycon, but we can make them as fun to be at. Thank you Derbycon for the great times.