I've always looked at Saturday as waterpark day, the rest of the time is about taking part in the conference, itself. The rooms provide us with enough wristbands to spend Saturday enjoying the slides, so it is just a matter of planning ahead and staying Saturday.
My personal opinion and experience at the last 3 codemashes has been that, during the week, the waterpark is a distraction from (my interpretation of) some of the fundamental goals of the conference: in general, people go to the park with their friends; it is more difficult to have discussions in the park; walking up to a group of people and introducing yourself is less available; etc. I know a lot of people do go to the waterpark during the week, and I will admit that I think it is a bit of a shame; in the end, though, everyone has different agendas and goals for attending codemash, even some that (gasp!) don't coincide with mine.
Now, if someone independently wanted to drum up enough money to keep the park open, I wouldn't have anything to say about it (although I doubt I would go), but, considering how tight the funding is for the conference as it is, I would prefer to see any extra sponsorship go more directly towards the conference and sustaining it.
For me, the 'later and I might think about going(, it's closed)' is just the transition to the second half of the day at codemash; the day is for formal discussions, the night is for further refining the ideas with groups of people both familiar and previously unfamiliar.
Just my 10 cents, though.
-Corey
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