I've now been to two very different conferences: WWDC and SXSW.  Here are just a few observations of them.

My memories of WWDC may be a little fuzzy since I went over a year ago, but overall it was a well planned out conference that was designed to keep attendees in Moscone.  Every session room had a ton of power strips for powering your gadgets and the rooms where fairly large.  In between sessions there were Odwalla drinks and snacks.  Most of the sessions started off with a hard sell on why you should do something the Apple way - we spent a lot of money to attend an Apple conference there's no need to convince us - and got seriously technical after that.  Moscone felt like it was on the edge of the city even though it wasn't.

Contrast that with SXSW which is an music, film and interactive conference.  Charging your devices was damn near impossible and if you wanted free snacks you better go to a company booth and grab some junk.  The rooms varied in size and some where way too small.  Many hotels around the Austin Convention Center hosted sessions since ACC couldn't hold everything.  But the sessions usually weren't super technical, rather they were speakers/panels sharing their experiences or doing friendly debating.  They were generally insightful and easily digestible.  The ACC was smack dab in the middle of the city with plenty of restaurants and things to do within walking distance.

As I said earlier very different, but both where good.  I would love to see SXSW steal some ideas from WWDC, mainly more charging stations and better room planning.  Oh and the SXSW iOS app sucked.