Quote: "I'm mid-US(Chicago) and would rather do it around Christmas"
lmao, its only cause you don't wanna be knee high in snow and cold weather
we can't do it christmas for a number of reasons,
a) WAAAAY to close
b) I'll be broke as no doubt alot of people will be
c) Christmas is family time, even if you don't believe in the holiday it is still a break that most people spend with thier families
March/April is really the Christmas of the Games Industry anyways, remember this is when E3 is ... seems perfect a time really.
Students have Spring Break, alot of Pro's really have less work due to the E3 leadup and wind-down (not much REAL work gets done, just preperations & meetings about what to do cause our competitor has a better product than us
)
I'll look around at lodging & flight costs from various places, would prefer LA considering i'm just getting to know it & there is no shortage of flights here
you could probably pickup a good cheap deal on a budget airline.
But even if we go for somewhere more central it'll still need to be a big town/city which is easily accessable.
Also I'm not suggesting this as a "no choice" option, but how would you guys feel perhaps having this is a 'Amature Developers Expo' ... extend it to Blitz, PureBasic, GameStudio & Game Mod Developers.
Personally just thinking of numbers, becuase the more people then the less it will cost for everyone - have the place split up into the seperate areas for each product/people so more like 3-4 miniconventions as part of one big one.
(don't flame the idea, it is just a suggestion remember - hense why i'm asking how ya'll would feel about it)
i'll phone around tommorrow, see what i can actually offer. we can go from there.