great ideas for networking at industry conferences or meetings?

groovygrl

curious for ideas.. anyone been to a meeting that had effective, non-awkward, non-forced methods of encouraging networking? I don't mean icebreaker or formal activities where everyone has to participate as I know a lot of ppl hate that, but things they did so those who wanted to find ppl who might be good connections could do so more easily?   (e.g networking boards, or networking areas, or ways of marking nametags, etc.)
thanks!

Beevol

Assigned seating so that you can't just sit with people you know has been helpful in my experience.

jenn43

Cocktail hours with detailed name tags. The alcohol helped loosen things up, and you could tell who might be good to talk to by the name tags.

CarrieB.

At the last sales conference I went to, we took a quiz to find our communication style and then we split into the groups according to style and answered some questions as groups. That was a nice ice breaker.

MommyAtty

Our industry has a conference where the entire name tag is color-coded. For example, my tag is green because I'm a lawyer. This works better than the name tags with the little colored circle that's harder to see.