Actually, I think I first learned of Nostr by using a search engine to look for decentralized alternatives to Twitter. I came across a blog post that had Damus (I don't think they realized the difference between the protocol and client), Mastodon, and Bluesky.

Mastodon was fucking awful.

Nostr was so cool that I didn't even try Bluesky. Although, it did take about a year for Nostr clients to get to a level I could cope with full time.

My guess is that far more people will take this sort of path than the conference one. I'd assume that MOST people who will care at conferences have already bought in. Basically, a Nostr conference. I see value in that, but not some random Nostr booth at a general conference.