Hello hello! Contemplating going to the annual conference in Chicago next year but not sure if it's worth your time? I went this year, so here's an overview of what it was like for me.
Overall experience / what to expect:
Six of us from the chapter went together and rented a van. The "road trip with friends" aspect was a lot of fun, and this probably turned out cheaper splitting the rental/gas/parking costs for one vehicle between six of us rather than people bringing their own vehicles. I acquired some new songs for my playlist from other people's lists. Also, I highly recommend stopping at Cheddar's on the way for mealtime. The portions of food that you get are huge relative to what you'd normally get for that price elsewhere.
At the conference proper, the logistics were pretty convenient. The conference is at the Hyatt's convention center, which is attached to the Hyatt hotel building itself, so you don't have to go outdoors to go between them, have time to stop by your room in between sessions if you need to drop something off, etc. If you book through the link on the conference website you get a substantial discount on rooms (mine was $114 a night, of which I only actually paid half because two of us shared a room to save money). The food in hotel venues was priced about as high as you'd expect, but there were mini-fridges in the rooms and a microwave in the common area with the ice machine, so it's easy to swing by Walmart on the way and do some weekend grocery shopping instead. There seemed to be a decent amount of all-gender restrooms throughout the conference center, and I never saw a line for any of the bathrooms.
Session-wise, there were a LOT of sessions occurring at the same time (up to fifteen per time slot in some cases). I recommend taking advantage of the Sched app they link to in the schedule emails beforehand, or being ready to mark up your printed program, to help narrow down your favorites and keep straight where you want to go. They run on a schedule of 1.5 hour sessions and 30 minute breaks though, so it's easy to grab a cup of coffee, charge your laptop a little, poke around the bookstore, etc. in between them. Some are also live-streamed / recorded, so if you're stuck deciding between multiple, you can also factor in which ones you can catch later versus which ones you have to catch live.
Finally, you might also consider bringing your laptop. I seemed to be in a small minority that did so, but I found it very useful for taking notes, especially when some DSA members put together a collaborative notes document so people back home or who attended other sessions could get info from the sessions other people attended. Although one hang-up was battery life - I had to work at 10-15% screen brightness to make my battery last between opportunities to charge it. Next year I'm going to bring a portable battery with me as well.
Oh, and, bring a sweater or something. It was weirdly chilly in the hotel halls and some session rooms for late summer, and I ended up wearing my jacket almost the whole weekend.
What I liked about the conference content wise:
I enjoyed the variety of sessions to choose from. One big theme that I noticed was the connectedness of everything: issues weren't presented in a siloed way (at least for the sessions I attended), but as something that relates to at least five other things. Decarceration is central to covid justice because covid is used as an excuse to deny people resources in prison despite guards not masking. Demilitarization is crucial to climate justice because of how big a negative impact our military specifically has on the environment. Trans misogyny is a weapon/tool of colonial imperialism. Freedom for Palestine is related to our own police state because our cops train with Israel, and to reproductive justice because part of that is the freedom to raise your child(ren) in a safe environment, which Palestinian parents don't have. Affordable housing is a vital part of whether a state is a safe state for trans people, because you can't move there if you can't actually afford to live there. Etc. You can't be a "one issue person" in some ways because nothing is an isolated issue.
Social-wise, I got to know people from my chapter better, and meet people from other chapters. I got some ideas to bring back to our electoral working group, some good podcast recommendations, and decided to officially join a caucus I was practically a member of by this point anyway. I also got a signed copy of Nick Estes's Our History is the Future, and a Palestinian flag to add to my handheld flag collection.
What I would like to see next year or do differently:
Conference wise, I wish there was more music. A couple sessions had a minimal amount of singing, but we didn't even sing "Solidarity Together" as a collective to my knowledge. I would love it if there was a session devoted to singing Pete Seeger songs or the like for an hour, similar to how there were evening events for trivia and board games. (I put this on the post-conference survey, so fingers crossed.) I also think it'd be cool if there was a session about the neurodiversity movement, since that ties in with queer rights (statistical overlap between the autistic and ace & trans communities).
Personally, I think I need to be more prepared to spend money on food/drinks next year. I was a little disappointed halfway through about the extent to which I'd been able to hang out with new people because it seemed like everything was "bar this, brewery that, up to 3 am," whereas I was more interested in chatting with people over coffee at the breakfast bar before the first session of the day. Enough hang-out type events had been planned by the end of the conference though, I think this has more to do with me always wanting to do more in a day in these situations than I have the social capacity for, or not having planned to spend much money eating out. Next year I'm just going to plan more lunches-out into my financial expectations.
Conclusion
Overall, it was a very positive experience, and I would recommend it to others. I'll definitely be going again in 2025, which is happening July 3rd to 6th.