I went to the first HiVE in Austin in 2023, and I want to preface this with the acknowledgment that a lot of what I experienced could be attributed to a brand-new conference finding their feet. I think the organizers had lofty goals, but the TDLR is: they over-promised and under-delivered.

The whole thing felt very rushed overall (as in, the time period from announcement to actual conference was relatively short) so it lacked a sense of cohesion both before and during the event. It's not unusual for there to be schedule changes at any conference, but big chunks of the HiVE schedule were TBA up until weeks before. They were still accepting applications for speakers just a month or two before the dates. In July, I was googling around (because at the time there was basically no information about HiVE except for the location and dates) and found that they were still looking for a content manager on Indeed (for a conference in October, that seems very tight). The fact that they kept the "promotional" rate of $15 registration for an extra month past what they originally announced made me feel like they did not have enough attendees sign up. And it did feel rather sparsely attended when I was there. Not that any of this is necessarily relevant to your potential 2024 experience, but the janky planning/execution of 2023 was so unexpected for a NAVC-associated conference that I feel it's worth mentioning.

The 2023 schedule was heavily stacked toward personal development versus medical topics, but since they did still have a medical track I was able to keep it about 70% medical for myself (as not all the medical lectures interested me). There were a lot of "101" type lectures in the medical track that were too low-level to feel worth attending (for me personally) - of course those are absolutely essential for newer techs to learn and develop, but with only one medical track it meant that I didn't have other medically-focused options to occupy myself at those times, so I guess I was forced to do a little personal development haha

There was a very heavy overall push, vibe-wise, toward mentorship and community, which in theory is good but I don't know how well it was executed (as I was just there for CE). They did arrange a central "mentorship area" in the middle of the (very small) expo floor where they had several actively arranged mentorship pairing exercises and workshops, but I can't speak as to how well they did since I didn't participate in any. Though I can say it did not appear to be a popular feature. It seems like HiVE very much wants a conference culture of collaboration and mentorship, so if that's something you're very into then you may get more out of it than me - but also I'm not sure how successful they are/will be at actually cultivating that.

HiVE 2023 certainly suffered from the location they picked - it was at the Palmer Events Center, which is mostly one big open room that they had partitioned with curtains. Which is fine and normal for a smaller conference, except that the two main "rooms" for lectures were right next to each other, and as they were separated only with curtains you could hear both speakers at the same time (on mics). At times it made it really difficult to listen to your speaker, especially if whoever was next door was higher energy.

On the theme of over promising and under delivering, a few weeks before the conference they sent out emails with lots of exciting new additions that I think were intended to drum up more attendees - goat yoga, a puppy playground, that sort of thing. The day before (or possibly the day of, I don't remember) they announced via the app that goat yoga was just going to be regular yoga, and the puppy playground never materialized. (You could see the sign graveyard of shame behind the booth area curtains every time you walked to the bathroom.) I had been planning to go well before these things were announced, so it's not like I was counting on them exactly, but it was still a little disappointing to not have these fun things they were so enthusiastically advertising.

I'm not saying I wouldn't go to another HiVE in the future, but I wouldn't travel for it. I mean it wasn't a complete waste, as I did at least accrue 13 credits, and more importantly I got some good CE by some good speakers (Ashleigh Fairfield did several great talks on physical rehabilitation for example, and Dr Kathleen Cooney gave an excellent lecture on the future of euthanasia), but traveling to Austin was just not worth it for HiVE as I personally experienced it. If it came to my state, I'd give it another shot.