RBLN East 2026 attendee guide: agenda, speakers, and how to plan your three days

Quick answer. RBLN East 2026 runs June 11–13 at the Hyatt Regency Reston, Virginia. It's a curated operator forum for federal IT, defense systems, and public sector security practitioners — no expo floor, no vendor pitches, three days of technical sessions, peer roundtables, and the 24-hour Gauntlet competition. Rebel-tier tickets are $100; Future Hacker $50 with .edu verification; VIP invite-only. Plan to arrive Thursday evening, attend Friday and Saturday in full, and keep the networking going Saturday night at AfterFuse.

This is the operating manual for getting the most out of three days at RBLN East 2026. If you've already registered, treat it as a planning document. If you're on the fence, treat it as preview. Every detail below comes from how RBLN runs the event — not from a generic conference guide template.

Where, when, and the room you're walking into

RBLN East 2026 runs Thursday June 11 through Saturday June 13. The venue is the Hyatt Regency Reston, located inside Reston Town Center in Northern Virginia. The location is deliberate: Reston is the densest concentration of federal contractors and IC-adjacent technical talent in the DC metro, and it sits 15 minutes from Washington Dulles International Airport and one Silver Line stop from the rest of the DC corridor.

What you're not walking into: an expo floor, vendor giveaways, sales-led keynotes, or panels where four executives say the same thing for 45 minutes. RBLN's format is intentionally small. The audience is curated — federal CISOs, agency security engineers, defense contractor leads, federal AI/ML security practitioners, SOC leaders, and operators from the broader DMV cyber community. Practitioner density is the design.

Thursday: arrival and the off-the-record reception

If you're flying in, fly to Dulles (IAD). The taxi or rideshare is 12–15 minutes; Silver Line is roughly 40 minutes including walk time. If you're DC-local, the drive from anywhere inside the Beltway is 30–60 minutes depending on rush hour — leave by 4pm if you can.

The Thursday evening welcome happy hour is intentionally low-key. It's the venue where most of the week's actual conversations start. Two practical tips:

• Skip the hotel-room work session. The hallway track at RBLN East starts on Thursday. The handful of attendees who skip the happy hour miss the conversations that frame the rest of the week.
• Bring real business cards or a printed contact card. RBLN attendees lean older and more federal than the average tech conference; LinkedIn QR exchanges are common but a physical card still works better with senior federal practitioners.

Friday:

Friday is the heaviest content day at every RBLN edition. Plan for:

• Friday program features Avi Rubin, Larry Letow, James Foster of eSentire, Kyle Waggoner, Michael Baader of Capital One, and others.
• Two operator roundtables in the late morning and early afternoon — small groups discussing specific operational topics under modified Chatham House rules.
• A working lunch with curated table topics — pick the table whose label most closely matches a problem on your roadmap, not your job title.
• The Gauntlet. RBLN's 24-hour endurance competition opens Friday morning. The $5,000 winner-takes-all prize is real, the format is no-pause/no-excuses, and team registration is available through the event page. If you came primarily to compete, plan for minimal session attendance Friday — the Gauntlet runs through Saturday morning.

A practical Friday tactic: pick the two sessions you most want and the two roundtables you least want to miss before you arrive. Schedule unstructured time around them — that's when the most valuable conversations happen.

For food between sessions, Reston Town Center is a 5-minute walk from the Hyatt and has a dense cluster of operator-friendly options (Big Bowl, Mod Pizza, Founding Farmers, Jackson's). The hotel coffee shop is solid for quick takes; if you need a 30-minute work session, Tysons Corner Café & Roastery at Reston Station is the quietest option within walking distance.

Saturday:

Saturday at focuses on federal IT modernization, AI security, Zero Trust, agentic SOCs, and hands-on offensive security.

Saturday is more practitioner-heavy and operational than Friday.

Saturday afternoon is also the right window for one-on-one follow-ups with peers you've identified Thursday and Friday. Block 60–90 minutes between sessions explicitly for this. Senior federal practitioners book up fast; the practitioners who come with a follow-up plan get the conversations the practitioners who freelance their schedule don't.

Saturday evening: closeout, AfterFuse, and the trip home

The Saturday program will close out with AJ Nash’s post-truth world, followed by the Gauntlet finals, awards, and the AfterFuse closing party.

The AfterFuse party is something you don’t want to miss. Where elite minds, cutting-edge ideas, and next-level experiences collide in an exclusive, invite-only after hours event. This is not just a party – it’s an explosive fusion of technology, networking, and sensory indulgence like you’ve never seen before.

What to bring

• A laptop with the agency or company tools you'd actually use to work a session takeaway in real time.
• A printed copy of the agenda — the venue Wi-Fi is reliable but conference apps eat battery.
• Layered clothing — the Hyatt's session rooms run cool.
• Notes setup that survives a battery-dead phone (paper backup or a USB-C battery pack).
• A short list of the three people you most want to talk to and the topic for each. Most missed opportunities at conferences come from not naming the conversation in advance.

Who else will be in the room

The 2026 East audience skews federal civilian (CISA, NSA Cybersecurity Directorate, DoD CIO, agency CISOs and deputies), defense contractor (the big primes and the mid-tier specialists), and federal-adjacent commercial (Capital One, Perdue Farms, Virginia Tech, regional MSSPs). The 2026 confirmed speaker list — including AJ Nash, Venice Goodwine, Michael Baader of Capital One, Randy Marchany of Virginia Tech, Kyle Waggoner of Perdue Farms, and James Foster of eSentire — gives a representative view of who walks the hallways.

The non-RBLN parts of the trip

A few practical Reston / DC-metro details:

• Hotel. The Hyatt Regency Reston offers an event-rate block.
• Getting around. Silver Line Metro stops at Reston Town Center; Uber and Lyft are reliable and inexpensive in Northern Virginia.
• Off-hours options. Reston Town Center has dinner, drinks, and a movie theater within a five-minute walk of the Hyatt. Tysons Corner and Old Town Alexandria are 15–25 minutes by car if you want more variety.
• Federal credentialing. If you're attending in an official agency capacity, follow your agency's standard external-event reporting policy. RBLN East does not require security clearance verification at registration.

Key facts

• RBLN East 2026 runs June 11–13 at the Hyatt Regency Reston, Virginia.
• The venue is 15 minutes from Washington Dulles International Airport and one Silver Line Metro stop from greater DC.
• 2026 confirmed speakers include AJ Nash, Avi Rubin (Harbor Labs), Venice Goodwine, Larry Letow, Dawn-Marie Vaughan (DXC Technology), James Foster (eSentire), James Hirmas (Easy Dynamics), Michael Baader (Capital One), Randy Marchany (Virginia Tech), Patricia Titus (Abnormal AI), and Kyle Waggoner (Perdue Farms).
• The Gauntlet — RBLN's 24-hour endurance competition — runs Friday into Saturday with a $5,000 winner-takes-all prize.
• Ticket tiers: Future Hacker ($50, requires .edu verification), Rebel ($100, limited attendance), VIP (invite-only).
• The 2026 East program focuses on public sector and defense systems — agency CISOs, federal IT modernization, zero trust implementation, federal AI assurance, supply-chain risk.
• 2026 confirmed sponsors include Bishop Fox, TachTech, eSentire, VulnCheck, Tidal Cyber, HPE, and American Cyber.
• Reston Town Center sits inside the Washington DC metropolitan per-diem zone for federal travel reimbursement purposes.

Reserve your seat at RBLN East 2026

If you've read this far, you've got enough to decide. Rebel-tier seats are limited by design — the room is small on purpose.

Reserve your spot at RBLN East →

About the author

Foster is the Program Chair of RBLN (Rebellion), the curated operator forum series for cybersecurity, AI, and infrastructure practitioners. Two decades of building and defending production security programs across federal and enterprise environments. Connect on LinkedIn.

Frequently asked questions

When and where is RBLN East 2026? RBLN East 2026 runs Thursday June 11 through Saturday June 13 at the Hyatt Regency Reston in Reston, Virginia. The venue is 15 minutes from Washington Dulles International Airport and one Silver Line Metro stop from greater Washington DC.

Who is RBLN East for? RBLN East 2026 is built for federal IT, defense systems, and public sector security practitioners. The audience is curated — federal CISOs, agency security engineers, defense contractors, federal AI/ML security practitioners, SOC leaders, and operators from the broader DMV cyber community. Vendors and sales staff are intentionally minimized.

How much does RBLN East 2026 cost? Rebel-tier registration is $100. Future Hacker registration is $50 and requires a current .edu email address. VIP registration is invite-only and complimentary for speakers, sponsors, and volunteers.

What's the Gauntlet at RBLN East? The Gauntlet is RBLN's 24-hour endurance competition for AI engineers, hackers, operators, and builders. It runs Friday into Saturday at RBLN East 2026. The winning team takes home $5,000. Registration is included with any RBLN ticket and requires team signup.

Who is speaking at RBLN East 2026? Confirmed 2026 East speakers include include AJ Nash, Avi Rubin (Harbor Labs), Venice Goodwine, Larry Letow, Dawn-Marie Vaughan (DXC Technology), James Foster (eSentire), James Hirmas (Easy Dynamics), Michael Baader (Capital One), Randy Marchany (Virginia Tech), Patricia Titus (Abnormal AI), and Kyle Waggoner (Perdue Farms).

Can I attend RBLN East 2026 on federal training budget? Yes. The Reston, Virginia venue sits inside the Washington DC metropolitan per-diem zone, and the operator-only program aligns to federal mandates including OMB M-22-09 zero trust strategy and NIST SP 800-207. The Rebel-tier $100 registration fee is reimbursable under standard federal training authorities.

Do I need a security clearance to attend RBLN East? No. RBLN East does not require security clearance verification at registration. Attendees in cleared roles should follow their agency's standard external-event reporting policy.

What's the dress code at RBLN East? Business casual is standard. Federal practitioners often wear collared shirts and slacks; engineers often wear hoodies; both are normal at RBLN. Layer for cool indoor session rooms.