(I recommend Scratch for breakfast, Toast for lunch, and Dos Perros for dinner…)
(currently waiting for my visa to come through so I can join my wife there, so forgive me for waxing lyrical about the place :))
I live there. Excepting a mile and a half wide strip that follows I-40 and a couple pockets near Chapel Hill, Durham is filthy, overrun with crime, totally lacking in services and someone important on the city planning commission thinks a Spirograph set makes a handy addition to one's drafting tools.
But from what I know about Rich Hickey, and the language specs he designed for Clojure, and the HDD and other talks he has given, I would be extremely happy to be able to attend Clojure Conj.
I may be a bit of a homer -- most of my family members are still in VA/NC and it is rare that a conference for a respectable new language would ever happen in Durham.
Obviously Rich has a reason for it, I don't know if he lives near there...but I would expect that Clojure Conj would be 1000X less self-absorbed, and anyone who would lower themselves to travel to Durham might be more interested in the language and the author's views than the hype on HN.