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My opinion is that this is a bad choice of locations. Flying out west is very expensive and on Memorial Day weekend? Centrally located would surely bring in more fans and make it more affordable for everyone.

How exactly is the loction determined anyhow?

barricade2218 wrote:My opinion is that this is a bad choice of locations. Flying out west is very expensive and on Memorial Day weekend? Centrally located would surely bring in more fans and make it more affordable for everyone.

How exactly is the loction determined anyhow?

It is NOT Memorial Day weekend.

Funpublications need to just choose one city on a permanent basis and the same weekend in the summer when kids and college students are not in school. They could advertise the con a whole lot better and not have to re-invent the wheel each time. Only NEWB cons move around.

Energon wrote:

barricade2218 wrote:My opinion is that this is a bad choice of locations. Flying out west is very expensive and on Memorial Day weekend? Centrally located would surely bring in more fans and make it more affordable for everyone.

How exactly is the loction determined anyhow?

It is NOT Memorial Day weekend.

Funpublications need to just choose one city on a permanent basis and the same weekend in the summer when kids and college students are not in school. They could advertise the con a whole lot better and not have to re-invent the wheel each time. Only NEWB cons move around.

They move around so much to different fans in different locations the chances to go each year. If they stayed in the same place each year, they'd be getting the same people every year with little-to-no new faces. Course it doesn't help much if you live somewhere that BotCon never comes near to.

Savage wrote:... The first one or two will likely sell out quickly, a month or two before the convention. If you're looking to stay at a nearby economy hotel, you shouldn't have any problem, aside from having to drive to the con and pay for parking every day. Plus hanging out with all the other con-goers afterhours, that makes it worth it to stay in one of the convention hotels.

So making botcon.com my homepage and checking every 6-12 hours is a little overboard? =P

I was going to try and make my reservation ASAP, like the first second I see where it's at. May can't come soon enough.

I emailed them a while ago and tried to suggest the SF bay area, I still think that'd be a decent spot to try out. There are TF fans/sellers everwhere. I thought I was for sure going to Florida for this one. Where did that rumor start? Im still hoping for a Vegas convention. Maybe one year they'll do a dual con with GI Joe and Botcon at the same time in Vegas =D

I was totally preparing to fly across the country for Botcon this year. Seems like it is usually in the mid-east to east side of the US and very rarely EVER on the west coast at all. Yeah, there are a suprisingly high amount of people whining this year. Sure I'm happy it's just 6 hours away from where I live in the CA Bay Area, but next year and the years after that and most of the years before that it wasn't. Also, looks like there are some people on the west side here who haven't gone before that are going for the first time this year. I was going to go for my first time this year when we had that Indianapolis rumor, and I didn't whine about it at all.

Booooooo! What happened to the south???

Great news for west coast folks, sucks for us in the South. And I had hoped it would be within a day from the house in not a few hours. Oh well, no Botcon for me.

I doubt it will ever be in the South for one reason alone. The heat. Having a convention that caters to an abundant amount of..... Jolly people in a place where it'll likely be in the mid to high 90's is not a solid game plan. The midwest/east is normally a more moderate area with temps in the 70's and low 80's.

The heat?! Really?
What about us poor Southerners who froze our butts off in Rhode Island in 07? Sure, the evening temp was mid 60s, but that's jacket weather for me, or at least long sleeves!

In all seriousness, I doubt that temperature is relevant to location choice in either direction. I did truly want a jacket in Providence though! Geez, it was late June, you'd think it'd be warm outside!

Savage wrote:The heat?! Really?
What about us poor Southerners who froze our butts off in Rhode Island in 07? Sure, the evening temp was mid 60s, but that's jacket weather for me, or at least long sleeves!

In all seriousness, I doubt that temperature is relevant to location choice in either direction. I did truly want a jacket in Providence though! Geez, it was late June, you'd think it'd be warm outside!

Right next to the Ocean in a more northern climate you get a lot of cold breezes.
You'd probably DIE where I live.

Ok, some of you have twisted my arm, off line of this forum. There are a lot of you folks that I would love to see again. Problem is that I used to live in California (Sunnyvale) and my brother just moved from San Fran (used to drive across that bridge every day that collapsed), I swore I would never go back to the brown hills. But if I get enough arm twisting, I might just go to see friends.

TheMuffin wrote:I doubt it will ever be in the South for one reason alone. The heat. Having a convention that caters to an abundant amount of..... Jolly people in a place where it'll likely be in the mid to high 90's is not a solid game plan. The midwest/east is normally a more moderate area with temps in the 70's and low 80's.

Are you kidding? It's cold enough done here. Heat is what we need here! Summer is the only season that stays warm, and that weather doesn't start until mid-June. The rest of the year the weather is practically fighting a temperature war just to stay warm. The mornings are very brisk even without a cold front. It's rare for me in the spring and fall to step outside in the morning to find it warm. Sure it warms up by the afternoon, but just once I'd like to have warm spring/fall mornings for more than two or three days. And don't get me started on winter. Not to mention that rain only makes it worse. When it rains, it cools.

And don't think that I don't know what "cold" is. I've been to Tahoe in California and the Sierra Mountains in Nevada. That's not "cold", that's "unbearably freezing".

Besides, if it was held here, the convention center downtown get pretty good air conditioning flowing in every room. So, no worries about burning up indoors.

Sabrblade wrote:Are you kidding? It's cold enough done here. Heat is what we need here! Summer is the only season that stays warm, and that weather doesn't start until mid-June. The rest of the year the weather is practically fighting a temperature war just to stay warm. The mornings are very brisk even without a cold front. It's rare for me in the spring and fall to step outside in the morning to find it warm. Sure it warms up by the afternoon, but just once I'd like to have warm spring/fall mornings for more than two or three days. And don't get me started on winter. Not to mention that rain only makes it worse. When it rains, it cools.

I don't know where you are from, but in the summer it is 90 plus where I live in Florida for 9 months out of the year, today it was 81. FX International is the con to go to in Orlando (may this year), Megacon is similar but not as nice. Go there if you want to have fun.

Bad economy.
Non Central location.
Memorial Day weekend.

Attendance is going to be severly down.
A more central location would allow a larger percentage of people to still consider the 'con even in our economic state. More people live between the Mississippi River and Atlantic Ocean than from the Pacific Ocean to the Mississippi River. By picking an Atlanta, Richmond, Charlotte or Orlando it would have been more accessible to drivers and flyers. Now yes those determined West Coast fans would have more airfare however if you want the most amount of people given the economic climate you go central/east coast this year and when the economy is better in 2010 you go West Coast.

I'm out. I'm not getting my quarterly bonuses the company has already told us. I used those to justify my pricy Botcon's. Higher gas prices for most of 2008 has meant money into those areas and saving has been nearly nonexisistent. Ebay has been slow.

It will be the first Botcon I've missed since 1999. A 10 year streak broken.

Attendance will be down at least 20% I predict...minimum.

Sorry. Looks Memorial Day-esque.

I still say attendance down minimum 20%.

captain craig wrote:Sorry. Looks Memorial Day-esque.

I still say attendance down minimum 20%.

Being on a weekend near Memorial Day but not exactly on Memorial weekend may help some people get the time off. Know a co-worker that wants Memorial Day weekend off and needs someone to trade shifts with? This could be a good thing for some people not regularily off on weekends and holidays.

captain craig wrote:Sorry. Looks Memorial Day-esque.

I still say attendance down minimum 20%.

Every year people find a reason to say attendance will be down (location, timing, quality of special guests, con set, etc.) and every year attendance increases.

I remember this one guy last year who lashed out constantly on these forums about how Fun Pub really screwed everyone over by not making enough con sets. He said they had no idea what they were doing and how people weren't going to want to come for 2005 sets.

He also said how he'd gone for years but he was fed up and this was his last con.

Then, right after Botcon he posted about what a great time he had.

Now he's talking about going this year.

As with every year, people will complain, but ultimately I think attendance will be just fine.

Well to be honest, I didn't get a 2005 set. Saved me some money that way.

Delicon wrote:

captain craig wrote:Sorry. Looks Memorial Day-esque.

I still say attendance down minimum 20%.

Every year people find a reason to say attendance will be down (location, timing, quality of special guests, con set, etc.) and every year attendance increases.

True and frankly I didn't buy that attendance would be down when I heard those claims. I just took them as sour puss' whining. Cause no matter where it was I was going because I saved and planned for it like clockwork the last 10 years.

However, despite my usual attempts to save and plan the economy has taken a hit on me and I suspect others like me. I'm not going this year because I'm being responsible. I don't have the money through no fault of my own. The extra funds simply aren't there.

Sure I could be irresponsible and charge it all at 22% interest. Then my Botcon would cost just that much more in the longrun.

This is the year when attendance will drop due to the economy and how it impacts the accessibility of the con by those on tighter budgets.

Just for fun, let's see what people were saying about last year's Con, much more centrally located for most....

And please remember, even though it was not as bad, we were in a recession then, also.

http://www.seibertron.com/energonpub/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=24368&st=0&sk=t&sd=a

^^^
I recall the comments but WE WERE NOT IN A RECESSION in April 2008.
We haven't in the most technical of terms achieved it yet. A recession is 2, count them TWO, consecutive quarters(thats 6 straight months) of negative growth.

The last quarter of this year has seen a solid down turn. People are now really feeling the effects of what will for sure be a recession.

However, in April 2008 and the months leading up to it, the biggest issue was rising gas prices. In April gas had still yet to top $3 in most parts of the country.

Come May 2009 we will be in full blown recession and that is the big difference vs April 2008.

Real economic hardship(May 09) vs perceived economic hardship(April 08).

The recession was recently announced as having started in December of 2007. That's not me talking, look it up. Strangely enough, I remember what gas cost when we were in Cincy. It was around $3.50 a gallon.

Regardless, if you don't feel you can go, don't. It would be unfortunate for you to miss out on the fun but everyone has their own choices to make and money obviously doesn't appear out of thin air.

My coming's based solely on what v/as are scheduled to appear. Will be checking the Botcom regularly to find out.

Pyrostrata wrote:Once again, the BotCon gods are plotting against me! I could have dealt with many places....and California is NOT one of them!!! Just too expensive, coming from Missouri...driving is too long and flying is too expensive. *unleashes a colorful array of vulgarities*

I'm out.

The closest we got is columbus OH last year but somehow the MOFOs had all the hotels booked up a day after they announced it. Why was i gonna go and have no place to stay? Dont think ill ever be able to go.

nemesis-prime wrote:

Pyrostrata wrote:Once again, the BotCon gods are plotting against me! I could have dealt with many places....and California is NOT one of them!!! Just too expensive, coming from Missouri...driving is too long and flying is too expensive. *unleashes a colorful array of vulgarities*

I'm out.

The closest we got is columbus OH last year but somehow the MOFOs had all the hotels booked up a day after they announced it. Why was i gonna go and have no place to stay? Dont think ill ever be able to go.

I feel ya, man...I feel ya! Hopefully we'll get a better, more centralized and less obscenely expensive, location next year.