'Additionally, enjoy a bag lunch with a refreshing cold meal provided every midday.' So #DrupalCon Barcelona food won't be anywhere as good as Lille was last year.
I am sure there were many other factors but apparently a prominent Drupal company owned by an anti-vaxxer (while he haven't posted much on his views, his wife had been an anti vaxxer many years before covid) put financial pressure on the Drupal Association to drop mask requirements by withdrawing his company from Pittsburgh because of mask mandates. Read this lunacy: https://ryanszrama.com/blog/05-16-2023/how-learn-more-about-drupal-commerce-drupalcon-pittsburgh
Mind you, Drupal is not alone in not doing the right thing: Fosdem didn't have a mask mandate despite being famously crowded. !!Con doesn't have either despite having one of the best Code Of Conducts I've ever seen. But is that an excuse? #drupalcon
Interesting tidbit from the #DrupalCon Portland 2024 module development workshop that I taught: of the 21 students who were there at the beginning of class, almost half of them used remote IDEs almost exclusively!
We have a word for drupalflu. We had it for at least fifteen years, possibly more, can't quite remember. So we know germs spread at our conferences and know it well.