Teppy, I think that may be largely true of a lot of the West Coast.

At this point, I'm going with an adapted Napoleon's Battle Plan. First we see what cities show up, then we see what happens.

I've been assuming we want to vote on dates first. That seems reasonable, right?

I think Seattle or San Fran. Both have high Buffista contingents, and are cities that would be funfunfun to see.

Compared to Seattle and SF, San Diego's relatively cheap to fly into. (And because it's such a big convention town, there may be good deals on hotels.)

Though it's probably more reasonable for West Coasters to fly up to Seattle than it is for the rest of the country.

From BWI it's about the same to fly to Seattle as it is to fly to SF. My friend is flying from here to Seattle in Sept. for about $200 roundtrip. It was a special Southwest deal but I don't think it's usually that much more expensive.

Seattle seems to be ridiculously expensive to fly to, based on my past experience of tentatively planning vacations.

This was the case with New Orleans as well.

Speaking as one of the Seattle bunch: I have NO organizational skills. Plei has slightly more than me. Unless we can talk Susan into doing event-planning things (which I know she's very good at), Seattle might not be such a good bet. Plus, yes, expensive to fly to.

When I lived in San Francisco, SouthWest Airlines often had ridiculously cheap airfare to Seattle (like, $40 one way). But this was ten years ago so I have no idea what the market's like now, or if it's more expensive to fly from places other than the West coast.

I'd certainly be up for organizing, as long as I had minions to help out.

(It's a big step for me to admit I need minions. Normally I try to do it all myself, but, let's see, I've got a kid, a novel, a job search that I hope will be a job by then, etc.)

I'm good at minioning.

I'm not bad at minioning.