Piggybacking on this to +1 the sentiment as another "security person": I literally do not go to Black Hat or Defcon because I don't like Vegas.

It's a minor networking hit for me, but a total win otherwise (and I can make up by networking elsewhere - I cannot get time spent in Vegas back).

Whats wrong with Vegas for large conferences? Airport is close by and has daily flights to it from most major cities, hotel rooms are cheap and decent quality. Can you name a better city to have a conference for 20,000 people? Only thing i wish it had was tougher smoking laws. You aren't forced to gamble or drink or partake in whatever debauchery that goes down in vegas.

Is it because of the gambling, drinking, or what? I don't gamble but I usually have a decent time visiting good restaurants and maybe seeing a show when I go to DEFCON.

The gambling doesn't do much for me, but I'm a drinker and a social smoker. It's hard to put my finger on what's so grating about the Vegas strip, but something about it puts my teeth on edge. It's a really fake and touristy place, and it's not fake and touristy in a pleasant way.

For me it's the incessant marketing of extremely generic entertainment experiences, amidst a backdrop of sexual exploitation. And half of the marketing reeks of bait and switch.

Plus the fact that it works on a plurality of tourists coming through makes it sad.

I leave Vegas with less faith in humanity than I had when I came. It's been a few years though.

Hunter S. Thompson had it right: try to cram as many drugs into your body as possible, seek out the ghosts of America's dead dreams and you may come out with some semblance of spirit intact.

I call it "the Times Square" effect. Every major city has one. Hollywood Boulevard in LA. Fisherman's Wharf in SF. The eponymous Times Square in NY. Etc. I don't know if the Vegas Strip deserves the title for "absolute worse", but it is certainly conceivable.

It may or may not be the absolute worst in absolute terms, but in relative terms ... take away the strip and Vegas as anyone knows it ceases to exist.

The drinking, the gambling, the strip clubs, the whole debauchery-to-the-max environment of Sin City.

Plus it's in the middle of a desert, so options are pretty limited.

Indoor smoking, 110F weather, and universally crappy, over-priced food.

Okay, so @arthulia and @hueving, is it "good restaurants" or "crappy, over-priced food"? Never been there, but could somewhat imagine either scenario. Actually I could imagine multiple possibilities for each:

"good restaurants": (1) lots of top-tier cooks go there because money and it's cheap because Vegas, or (2) lots of off-strip places with good chefs trying to make it big.

"crappy, overpriced food": (1) Wolfgang Puck etc, or (2) Even off-strip food is bad and expensive because they can't afford water.

So in reality which is it?

Both. There are a lot of chains and mid-grade restaurants where you will pay an arm and a leg for mediocre food.

However, there are also some of the best buffets in the world there (if you're into that). There are also some awesome high-end restaurants: https://www.tripsavvy.com/michelin-guide-rated-restaurants-l...

Because Vegas is a massive tourist destination where you are guaranteed to have a deep market of people eating out every day of the week, it attracts tons of restaurants so you do need to do a little research. Picking a random one will likely get you overpriced 'meh'.

There are lots of high-end restaurants, because every celebrity chef in America seems to open an outpost there. But if you're familiar with the originals, the Vegas versions tend to be overpriced tourist versions with limited menus. There are some great restaurants to be sure, but it's kind of a dice roll.

We've gone off the strip for sushi, Korean bbq, Thai, and Ethiopian and had good luck; I don't know enough about greater Las Vegas to judge it. But the strip is bad.

I think we should move it to Cuba.