I just see a lot of frustration at not having a date to do the recon with

But Deb's doing the recon -- shouldn't she be free to gather what sorts of information she needs? It's not like contracts are being signed yet. If those are the boundaries she needs for a SWAG, it seems best to let her do it her way, or have someone else do it their way.

people will get enamoured of a picture of the F2F that will turn out to be not feasible, and that will take some of the shiny off what we do end up getting

I figure coordinators are going to offer up their visions in all their shiny glory in any case - before or after we have a date shouldn't affect that.

I think of picking a date and picking a city as two parallel tracks, and I'm good with having them run concurrently. (I'm big with the love for people who are willing to do the footwork; how and when they do it - totally up to them.)

I think the Prom does not have to be on-site or using their catering. We've done that in the past for ease and because the hotels required that we use their catering. Only things that are requirements for prom are cost and wheelchair accessibility.

Well, one of the reasons I set the actual Miyako meeting up for a week away is to see if we rule out - or, going the other way, confirm for numbers of people - specific dates.

Also, offering up three shiny possibilities doesn't mean one rules out the others. It's simply a question of what can be done to hand everyone who wants to come play the best possible time for the least possible expenditure, with the best possible nosh, with the least possible interference from the coordinators?

My job, as I see it, is to pull those choices together. Am I reading that wrong, or otherwise missing something?

Well, I sucked several hundred messages then lost them, so jumping to the end here since I am on dial-up.

I like picking date first because people are more important than place and some dates will be more possible than others. Of course, there are many of us that do not know our schedules this far in advance. I'll have a hint of my May schedule next May.

Are we just discussing the options at this point? I enjoy the pimping of possible locations process. I'll have to skim previous discussion in a week or so when I get home.

Are we just discussing the options at this point? I enjoy the pimping of possible locations process.

Yeah, at this point, we're just pimping out ideas for various cities. Deb's taken a big lead on San Francisco possibilites, and Susan has chimed in with some Seattle ideas.

There's been some San Diego and Las Vegas talk, but there's no point person for those cites, so until/unless somebody takes initiative on those cites, they're more inklings than full ideas.

I honestly think that unless we've got someone willing to take point for a city, we ought to leave the city out of the running. So, say I had a burning desire to do this in Vegas, rather than Seattle or San Francisco--then I'd have to put up, or shut up.

It's still early, someone might step up on one of those cities, but yes - right now, Seattle and SF are the two nominees.

Looking at this discussion and people's comments, and in the hopes of keeping the process as clear as possible, I have a couple thoughts:

1) There is no perfect time for date picking. It's going to be too soon or too late for someone, at any point, just by the nature of our various job/school situations. That said, do we want to bump voting up a couple days, to Thursday-Saturday?

2) I think it would be helpful, especially for the people who can't read in detail all the posts there will be about each city, and for the rest of us, too, for local coordinators, before the vote, to put together a "this is what we can reasonably expect from this city, and here are approximate prices, based on talking to these places (and I really think specific citations on hotels and venues is key)" worksheet, just so the info is all in one place.

3) The thing that's making me itch, just a little, is that SF is the only city talking right now. Nothing to be done about it, and there's loads of time, so I'm not saying change anything (actually, that's not true. If you have questions that need answered by the group, could you bold them or put them in their own paragraph, so we know what needs decided?), but, well, in the interest of my own self-knowledge.

4) At this point, the goal is under $100 per room per night. If this proves impossible, we can re-evaluate, but, for the time being, we need to stick to that (And I swear that this isn't a "the lurkers support me in email" thing.).

I think a rock and roll prom would, well, rock. And the limos.

From what I understand the spaces Deb's talking about would be more affordable than renting a room at a hotel, especially if there's no in house hotel catering.