When I was a younger man, I used to attend my industry-sector conferences fairly religiously; they were a combination of genuine advances in practice and raucous drinking sessions. For a while, they were great.
Then one morning, halfway through one, I woke up with intense homesickness and realised that I didn't actually want to be there (and also, that I was in the wrong industry sector). So I drove home.
Nobody missed me, and all the information was in the journal of proceedings anyway. My bosses were none the wiser, and in a short space of time, I'd left the sector.
Conferences are useful for networking, CPD points, avoiding work and pretending to be at Uni again. All of the information can be digested in a quarter of the time through the printed material. Can you quietly drive home?