Welcome to Queercon 2026

Hello, hi, and welcome! Queercon 2026 is about to kick off – at time of writing, only 6 weeks remain until we see your smiling faces!

This year, Queercon will return to DEF CON 34 at the Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC) as the Queercon Community Lounge. Look forward to daytime events, in addition to our traditional Mixers. We’re also working closely with partner conferences BSides LV and DC Furs to bring you a throughout-the-week festivus. Room blocks, badges, swag, crafts, mixers? You got it!

Open Calls and Action Items

• Join the room block! (details below)
• Call for Volunteers is open through July 10: queercon.org/volunteer-form
• Call for meet-ups is also open, get your ideas in by July 10: queercon.org/meetup-form
• Join us on Discord for the most up-to-date information: queercon.org/discord
• Details on badges and swag coming up on July 3, 2026!
• Don’t have time to commit to volunteering? Donations can help bring our ideas to reality too – and it only takes a moment: queercon.org/donate
• Questions and everything else: info@queercon.org

Room Block

This year, we’re partnering with BSides LV and the DC Furs (run by Hack Your Lives) to bring attendees together at the Tuscany Resort and Casino, where BSides LV will take place. Joining up with us can be done in two easy steps:

1. Book a room directly with the Tuscany using the BSides LV room code: https://res.windsurfercrs.com/ibe/details.aspx?propertyid=16539&nights=1&checkin=7/31/2026&group=2607BSIDES&lang=en-us
2. Complete this Google Form with your name, dates of stay, and confirmation code: https://forms.gle/osDRKnwubfnAQb666

Data control and safety

For data control and safety, in part to try and limit deductive disclosure of names, the DC Furs and Queercon are attempting to group our rooms together. Only a limited number of Board members from the respective groups have access to the data, which will be shared with the BSides LV room coordinator for placement. Data sharing and retention is only as necessary for this effort, and then we’ll delete the data.

We’ll do our best to group Queercon and DC Furs rooms together, so we can spend the weekend closer to friends, family, and allies! Note you do not need to attend BSides LV to reserve in the room block; but we highly encourage you to make summer camp a positive experience and support our conference family with your participation

Badges and Swag

Yes, badges are returning this year! We want to welcome and thank our new badge maker, SourCat, for stepping in and helping design a new badge for us. As always, details on the badge are secret, secret, secret until their release – but as a teaser, yes, there is a battery!

We want to acknowledge a pretty noticeable elephant in the room, and that’s cost: cost of attendance, cost of food and incidentals, cost of travel, and the millions of other financial pressures that affect our community. While the Queercon Community Lounge will require a DEF CON 34 badge for entry to the LVCC events, the Queercon badge is not required for entry to any Queercon events. Further, we worked hard to make sure the Queercon badge is fiscally responsible for today’s economic pressures.

As in past years, a badge reservation system will be live in the coming days where, for a nominal donation, you can reserve a limited number of badges for pick-up on-site at DEF CON 34’s Queercon Community Lounge. These donations guarantee that we will hold your reserved badges for pickup through Friday and Saturday, until the Saturday Mixer at 1600 PDT. Once the Saturday Mixer kicks off, any unclaimed badges will be released for general distribution. You cannot reserve a badge on-site.

But wait, you might ask – what do you mean my donation is only reserving a badge?

Queercon badges will continue our longstanding tradition that our badges should be financially accessible and honor the spirit of community. Your donation guarantees you an opportunity to honor that spirit by enabling us to pay it forward through badge giveaways.

What if I can’t afford (or otherwise reserve) a badge?

This is where our beloved donors help bring the spirit of community to life. Everyone has an opportunity to earn a badge through participation and contribution to our community’s culture, energy, and vibrancy.

What does it mean to “contribute to the Spirit of Queercon?”

Queercon has, and will continue to, be an inclusive, communal space for LGBTQIA+ and allied people. We believe that “inclusion” is an action, not a noun: learning through the oldest and noblest hacker art of open-minded, honest curiosity, in ways that deepen our knowledge and protection of sexuality, gender, and gender expression, particularly where those bounds meet technology and its own advancement. Inclusion comes in all flavors and forms of interpretation, but might start as innocuous as a simple hello to a new person.

Swag

We’re changing the pace a little on swag and including swag reservations in this year’s We’re changing the pace a little on swag and including swag reservations in this year’s fundraiser, alongside badge reservations, with two small distinctions:

1. You will have until noon on Sunday to pick up any reserved Swag on-site.
2. Certain swag will be available for donation on-site (in very limited quantities).

Swag this year will be one of two kinds: first, a mystery gift! and second, a lightweight hoodie (we’re angling for another zip-up, for those of you familiar with previous years). Both will be Queercon branded, so you can sport pride and hold on to this year’s memories!

While the hoodie will be available (in limited quantities) as gratitude for on-site donations, the mystery gift will only be available through our online fundraiser and as certain, to-be-revealed rewards.

Fundraiser

This year’s fundraiser will take place through Givebutter, with details coming soon. Overall, you can expect three tiers of rewards (although we welcome and appreciate any donation you can support):

1. Badge-tier rewards
2. Silver-tier rewards (includes everything from Badge-tier, plus special mystery gift!)
3. Gold-tier rewards (includes everything from Silver-tier, plus hoodie!)

The fundraiser opens on July 3 at 0900 PDT and will close on July 15 at 23:59 PDT (or until we run out of held badges).

On Deck

Our schedule is forthcoming, based on what ideas you submit for this year’s meetups (queercon.org/meetup-form)! You can expect the schedule to consist of the Queercon Community Lounge at DEF CON 34, our traditional mixers, and a set of meet-ups throughout Summer Camp 2026! Keep an eye out for updates to this page in the next few weeks, leading up to camp.

As always, find us on queercon.org/discord, or email us for general inquiries at info@queercon.org, and happy hacking!

As always, find us on queercon.org/discord, or email us for general inquiries at info@queercon.org, and happy hacking!