> In my understanding, the dinner is about (verbal) communication, at > least during the time we are seated around a table and have our meals. > However, several hundred people in a single room already create some > noise just by chatting. Adding music, artificial or live, makes things > worse. In such a situation, I have difficulties talking even to the > people sitting next to me, and a conversation around the table is plain > impossible. I strongly doubt it's just me. While this is going to be my first DebConf, my experience of dinners in similar events is the same. Thankfully I don’t get physical pain from the noise (I can even enjoy loud music in other contexts), but the inability to communicate easily make such gatherings very frustrating experiences for me. The expectations about the noise situation and the high cost of the dinner (I’m unemployed) were my two main reasons to skip the dinner party this year. Maybe there are enough of us not attending this dinner party to have some small informal (and quieter) shared dinner together? Between people who can not stand such big crowds, people wanting to avoid the noise and people who could not afford the main dinner party, I expect we can gather a small but nice team to ensure this would still be a shared time.
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