Typically the (non brewing) industry conferences I’ve been to all sell sponsorship packages that come with a certain number of passes. Most of the time sponsors are vendors (law firms, accountants, etc).
I wouldn’t expect anything different here. My guess is the conference doesn’t pay for itself simply through ticket sales but maybe it does.
I sat at a sponsor table last year since they had an extra spot; it certainly beat the mad dash for a table. But I also noted a lot of of other sponsor tables that weren’t full - the one next to us had only 2 people - so it is reasonable that some sponsors had extra banquet tix to give away.
finally, I note that the FastRack link in question mentions the 35th NHC; perhaps this is from last year when there was no lottery?