Conference: Way West Wild West Hackin' Fest (WWHF) - 2020

Last month was my second time attending Wild West Hackin’ Fest put on by John Strand’s company, Black Hills Information Security. The first one I attended was last year in Deadwood, SD. There, John announced that due to demand and the capacity limitations of Deadwood, they would run 2 WWHFs a year. One in spring (San Diego) and the other in the fall (Deadwood).
While the world is a much different place right now, at about a week prior to the conference things were still relatively “normal” in the United States. I was notified by my employer that all non-essential business travel was cancelled. A day later, WWHF sent out notification to attendees that they would no longer be having the conference physically in San Diego, but instead hold it 100% virtually.
How was a conference for a few hundred people held virtually? Discord and GoToMeeting. In a weekend, John and his team was able to shift the conference to the internet. Discord was used to maintain the social aspect of the conference and be an instant communication channel between attendees, speakers, vendors and organizers. GoToMeeting was used to stream the training, talks & workshops. This lead to a unique dynamic in which speakers and attendees could interact during a talk by asking questions and provide insights without interrupting the speaker which can be more common in person.
I thoroughly enjoyed the talks and found myself more engaged than usual, mostly thanks to being able to compete in the CTF while listening to talks simultaneously. The CTF itself was great, put on by MetaCTF (I hope to have a brief writeup soon).
Since the conference, John and the BHIS team has ramped up the free training and webinars. I highly recommend joining their Discord to keep updated on upcoming content.