Conferences really do wear down quite quickly. After a while it becomes a grind of one talk after another. That's not going to happen here - we decided to split the day into the things that we enjoy. Some planned keynote talks. Followed by scheduled talks, followed by ad-hoc talks. But if you don't want to do the talks and just do sprints, they run concurrently. Do both.
No, you get something way cooler. We'll post a picture of one when we get it made.
No, not at all.
None at all. This does have some semblance of being a serious conference and expensing for skiing might be pushing it - fun to try though. We are working on a group discount for lift tickets.