I mean, it’s more than just free coffee, like the idea that they want to have the conference have more of a festival atmosphere (the schedule stacks the talks in a way that guarantees you’ll skip some sessions and just hang out in the hallways), which is where I believe they got the idea for the wristbands.
I’m not saying it wasn’t an awkward misstep, but it’s a small conference run by a minuscule team, and they’ve been pretty open about the fact that they were going to figure out how to adjust from pretty much the instant someone objected.
