How to overcome difficulties of social interaction at my first academic conference
I also went alone to my first conference, and did not know any of the other attendees beforehand - but I had read some of the works by some of them.

Besides the usual advice "talking to other that also look like they feel alone", I would also encourage you to

prepare and ask questions after talks.

Do this especially for smaller talks (if there are any). This really has many upsides: You practice formulating questions - a very important skill to get something out of a conference. You may get into a nice chat, which, in my case, turned into a friendship more often than I expected. As a consequence, you do not feel alone anymore. 

If you did not get the chance to ask your question, you may also approach the speaker after the talk (either right after the talk but also in the next coffee break). Generally, scientists love to talk about their (published) work.