PDC is not directly relevant to most Quant work, but there are some great speakers.
True Story: some years ago MS invited me as a writer to a PDC. Two days later in the midst of a bitter coffee time argument over vtables, i hear "found him !" and several MS PR surrounded me. They apparently were concerned about my health since my disappearance from the press room; no other writer could recall seeing me. I'd been going to the lectures since that was why I was there, my only visits to the press room had been to grab t shirts and a USB device that I've never managed to work out what it does.
Apparently my behaviour was seen as worrying and they were concerned that I'd taken too much advantage of the quite impressive amounts of free alcohol at my disposal and got hurt and/or lost. It didn't help that I'd switched mode from someone who wears a suit, Thomas Pink shirts and a tie to unshaven with a baseball cap, tshirt and jeans of questionable integrity, cos I'm a geek really, and the last place they expected to find a writer was with the geeks paying for his own drinks.