Having read the experiences of speakers and attendees I am in absolute awe at the level of how things went wrong.
I've been involved in organising multiple events including NIDC in October with 420+ attendees. What I've read about the London Conference is so eyebrow raising.
Whilst the events I've organised have been hyper-local, community ones, at each and every one we are transparent about who the organisers are and how to contact them.
Every year I go into a self-critical cycle as I examine the latest event delivered and wonder where we could do better. I try to implement changes each year from the learnings.
I suspect, being a new conference, the organiser(s) have bitten off more than they can chew.
I can only hope the organiser(s) will take the criticisms on board and scale back their ambition for next year as the feedback to date has been pretty damaging.
The event space as well as AV requirements, etc are locked down months in advance.
Budgets are one of the first things that get looked at, we work hard to make sure that we have a realistic budget and ensure that we can adhere to it.
This is a minimum standard.