YES! There are several methods of getting a badge ahead of time.

• Stay at the conference hotel under the Public Room Block. Booking a three night stay (min) at the Tuscany under our code entitles you to 2 Participant badges, and the rooms are pretty sweet, to boot. We have the entire hotel so you will be surrounded by your favorite hacker family! Keep an eye out on the @BSidesLV twitter and the website for next year’s room block code. This information is released as soon as the contract is signed with the hotel, typically right after DEF CON. Please note: The room block WILL sell out, book early and tell your friends.
• Donate. Our donor drive launches every year on April 1. Donation packages range from $50-$1000 and include a badge and other perks depending on the level. Donation packages WILL sell out. Smaller packages usually go within days of being offered. Book early and tell your friends (sound familiar?).
• Sponsor. Corporate level sponsorship (and the donor drive) allow us to do what we do. Sponsor packages come with a number of badges depending on level. Please see the sponsor prospectus for details.
• Volunteer. Volunteering enough hours gets you a badge to the conference, and may provide a room share to help cover lodging, as well as letting you help run an amazing con with a bunch of other amazing people. Volunteer info will show up on the website and be announced on Twitter around late spring time.
• Speak. Speaking gets you a badge as well as an extra participant badge as a perk.

You will receive an email from the conference about a week before the event with further details including registration times and locations.

Part of having secured a badge ahead of time is that you will be able to sign up for Training Grounds workshops. These run both days of the conference and require sign up prior to the conference. This information will be provided by email as well. These workshops are very popular. PLEASE please please do not sign up for a workshop unless you plan on attending. Room is limited and any workshop you sign up for that you do not attend will take a seat from someone else who could greatly benefit.

• We do a short early registration on Monday from 2:00 – 3:30pm in the Tuscany Room (upstairs across from the hotel lobby elevators) for those who have secured badges through one of the above methods. No walk in badges are given out on Monday! This is generally to try to cover folks that need their badges first thing on Tuesday — such as those who have meal tickets through the donor drive. (Breakfast on Tuesday finishes before registration opens. We want you to be able to eat!) Early registration is open to all those who have pre-registered through the registration system and to those hotel guests who registered in the room block. Please note: Early registration involves standing in line, so if you don’t NEED it on Monday, we invite you to wait till the lines die down on Tuesday (after 9AM) and avoid this aspect of summer camp.
• Tuesday and Wednesday, registration takes place at the main registration booths in the entrance of the conference area. We have separate lines for different badge types. Please observe signs to make sure you are not standing in the wrong line. If you do, you will have to requeue, as we likely do not have what you need where you are standing. This includes lines for Hotel Guest, Sponsor, Donor, Speaker, and walk-ins. Note that donors and sponsors have different queues.
• Registration opens at 8:30am. Conference floor opens 8:30-10 for schmoozing and coffee but talks don’t start until 10am. Where are we going with this? There is no reason to line up at 6am just because you see a line. If you have already secured a badge through one of the above methods, please feel free to stay downstairs and grab a nice coffee, catch some morning weather, get a cheap steak and eggs at Marilyn’s (amazing breakfasts, btw) and come back once the line dies down.

• A donor is an individual donation made through our eventbrite donor drive, these range from getting a badge to shirts and other goodies.
• A sponsor is a corporate paid package that includes logos in the schedule or booths in Chillout, for example. These packages cost a bit more than most of the individual donor packages and are designed to bring in organizations that want to support BSLV while also benefitting from an opportunity to recruit the best and brightest of the InfoSec community.

BsidesLV has always been a free conference, but as we have grown, our methods have had to evolve. Over the years we have focused more on Room Block and Donor Drive for badges as people begged for a way to ensure they could get in and not risk flying to Vegas early then having nothing to do. In facilitating this, our walk-in badge availability has shrunk. The last few years, due to booking the entire conference hotel and getting fantastic support through our donor drive, our walk-in badges have dropped to ~400. That’s right. 400. In past years the line has started quite early and all walk in badges were spoken for long before reg time with a large amount of people getting turned away. We are sorry about this and hate turning people away. We really hope you will take advantage of the many ways to secure a badge next year!

It is Vegas, have a ball! Unfortunately there is not much we can do as we have a capacity limit that the venue and the fire marshal cannot budge on. Hit up your friends to see if anyone has a spare. In the past people have suggested people hang out around the reg area in case someone turns in a badge on their way out. Please do not do this. We cannot have the area full of people waiting around, as the hotel and fire marshal would be very upset.  In previous years, we have only seen a handful of badges turned in with several hundred wanting them. We will not redistribute badges on Tuesday if any are turned in to avoid encouraging an all day line. If you can arrange to pick one up from someone via Twitter or some other means that doesn’t involve lingering in the lobby, more power to you!