I think they're missing out; groups like FOSSF brought a whole quasi-working garage chip fab (they're working on an 8086 working chip, slowly but surely), the creator of ADSBee was there, Meshtastic had a great booth and folks talking about wireless routing and antenna design, etc; it's like a science fair for adults, though there's a bit of the weird Vidcon vibes. You can ignore that part completely, and have a great weekend.

There's also a whole robotics, rocket building, and gaming area, and booths ranged from artsy to extremely technical (CuriousMarc was live debugging some old HP oscilloscopes, nearby some Apollo hardware sitting out on a table).