The blog post is great, but something that is often lost, or simply taken for granted, may not be so obvious to everyone. In my experience the single most important aspect of these meetings is the human interaction and trust-building connections that are started in these events. It is pretty clear that Ethereum is steered by a body of people representing very disparate corporate and personal interests. After a few nights hacking until 3am you get a clear feeling on people's values. We may disagree on some technical aspects, very strongly at times, but I know my allies and whom to trust mostly from these meetings. And often times are the ones that disagree with me the most.