Hello from a packed devroom.
You can't attend all 30+ tracks at once anyway, you need to see recordings afterwards anyway if you are remotely interested in consuming the conference. I'd say the experience is just as much about meeting the people behind all the internet handles, getting into a full lecture room one talk in advance and listening in to something you otherwise wouldn't, join something bigger than email lists and matrix rooms, it's a unique wibe you can't find anywhere else.
I wonder if it naturally regulates itself in the way that people who get fed up by the queues don't come back the next year. You can definitely start by adding measures to limit the capacity or whatnot, but in both cases you exclude a certain part of the potential participants. I think I'd rather keep the wibe and ensure people can at least experience it once, than start gatekeeping.
Also, the fries are good.
The most important realization about FOSDEM is really:
There's no way you can fully experience it or do it optimal.
It's really about making sure you get value out of it, listen to some interesting talks and meet some people.
It is been years since from my last time, however already about 10 years ago, it used to be either stick to a room, or stay close to a door and leave 10 minutes earlier, to try to get a spot in another talk, equally staying close to the door.
It's about collecting stickers.
It‘s about getting a selfie with the blue PostgreSQL elephant wandering around campus. :-)
It's about the friends you make when collecting stickers.
Sounds a lot like McMurdo
It's about meeting people who go to FOSDEM.
I was sitting behind you as you wrote this comment.
I just wanted to tell you that.