
How I managed to attend a $1K ticket conference for FREE - rodaq
https://medium.com/@rodaq/how-i-managed-to-attend-a-1k-ticket-conference-for-free-95015c2f4aea
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bionoid
The author obtains a legit free ticket from the organizers, which is pretty
cool. I worked with conferences for a decade and as far as I can recall we
never did this.

Back in the days, there was another way to access expensive conferences
without a ticket. It probably still works in some locations. Basically, almost
all hotels were equipped with camera/microphone in the lecture hall. This was
broadcast on the hotel's TV system, so important people could do business from
their room and keep up with the event.

These old systems had security in the TV itself; it was simply restricted from
tuning in to certain channels (such as pay-tv), but the signals were broadcast
everywhere. It's well known that you could get free pay-TV by bringing your
own TV tuner. The same trick let you tune in to feeds from conference(s)
hosted at the hotel - I know some famous talks from closed corporate events
were recorded this way and distributed on the Internet underground... All you
really needed was a room at the hotel.

