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In lugnet.events.brickswest, Frank Filz wrote:
> Who cares what the weather is? Well, at least so long as it isn't
> weather that makes travel hard. Portland in February is really not so
> bad.
Speaking as someone who lives in the Snow Belt, I'd be much happier heading
off to a place where I could wear shorts in February. It may not be bad, but
it's not like getting a nice dose of Summer in the middle of the Winteriest
month of all. If it's held more into Spring, I'd say that weather would cease
to be a factor at all.
> Roving conventions actually do quite well. True, their attendance varies
> very much depending on who is putting them on and where they are held.
> They actually can help spark more interest in cons since people try them
> out when they are local, and then get so psyched that they travel to
> subsequent ones. It is a way to bring a convention to an area that
> doesn't have the energy to put on a convention every year. Some
> extremely successefull roving conventions I'm personally aware of (and
> some of the reasons attendance fluctuates):
>
> Worldcon
> National Speleological Society Convention
> Unitarian Universalist Association General Assembly
> Opus
There are three basic types of Cons. Some, like Synod and Presbetery
meetings, have restricted attendance. You need to fit a certain criteria to be
invited, and you're there more to conduct business than to have fun. Others,
like the NSSC meeting you mentioned, are there more for the enjoyment of the
participants than for the general public. You're basically just there to have
fun with other like-minded people. The third type is the group where you hope
to interact with both like-minded people and the general public. From what I've
heard, the various Brick cons fall into this category. What fun would it be to
have a General Public day if only a few dozen people showed up? San Diego and
Anaheim get a lot of winter tourism, between the weather and the theme parks, so
not only will you get the local crowd, but you'll probably get a lot of
convenience traffic (hey, since I'm in the area...) as well.
To give you an example of what I'm saying, look at the Olympics. Every
four years it's held in a different location around the world. Every event sees
a huge number of participants (athletes and coaches) traveling from all over the
world to attend. Outside of the athletes' families, it's safe to say that the
vast majority of the attending spectators are from the immediate vicinity, with
a much smaller portion of attendance coming from outlying areas (neighboring
states/provinces/countries), and with very few people making a world-wide jaunt
just to go watch people they don't actually know compete in person. And this is
with a "convention" that just about every self-aware person on this planet has
heard of, and some level of patriotic interest in. It's a highly famous event,
however, which means that no matter where it occurs (well, probably not
Antarctica), there will be people who want to take advantage of the "chance of a
lifetime" and attend it in their own backyard. Everybody's so geeked about the
fact that BF actually made the news that I get the feeling these Brick cons
aren't very widely known outside of the general LUG-type communities. Yeah, if
you don't care about public attendance, a roving con makes perfect sense as it
would allow those who can't afford the time/money to make a long-distance trip a
chance to participate every few years, but doing that will most likely inhibit
the number of walk-in visitors who just want to check things out.
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