Gronk. I think I definitely caught the F2F flu. I have to go to work today, unfortunately, but maybe I can give the flu to all of the people who are making me be there.

DH really likes Toronto- t bob likes carrots - he has been there for work and knows a good music ( read guitar ) store. lots of musicians busking. Funky , comfortable place. No idea aaaabout the public transportation

We have friends in the Madison area. I can't see them at the prom, but we could spend a day with them

Wait... you mean it is not all about Me?

I remember "Toronto next year" talk. And I still think a Canadian destination would be good. And we have someone offering to plan it...

If we're going to go with a "place where someone is offering to plan" approach maybe we should make a list:

Toronto: John Sweden
Minneapolis: Juliana

Any others?

I don't think any city should be knocked out of the running at this point (barring coastal locations, of course). I do think that preference could be given to those cities who have people who are offering to plan or propose (whether or not those people are local to that city).

I also think I am abusing the parentheses today. Apologies.

Good point. Knocking out bad. Having planner good.

I'm one of those who really suffers in heat and humidity, so if we have a F2F at the end of May, I'd prefer a more northerly location. Minneapolis sounds good. 'Course, I can drive to Nashville, so there's that to consider.

I'd love to plan Cleveland.

Also, Toronto is only 4 hours from me, so that would be very easy to get to (and if people wanted to fly into Cleveland and drive up with me, that might be fun. We could rent a van! Have a party on the way to the party!).

I'm one of those who really suffers in heat and humidity, so if we have a F2F at the end of May, I'd prefer a more northerly location

Or at least not built on a swamp. t looks pointedly at DC and N'orleans

Actually, any (northerly) place with Deena sounds good!

What are our top priorities in choosing a location? I'd think it's cost/accessibility (I mean accessibility from all points of the country, though once we have an actual hotel, it needs to be accessible as well).

And those are intertwined, it seems. As Jess said above, the Big Name cities tend to be the best ones because they have airports that are convenient. (For instance, Steamboat Springs, CO, is gorgeous, but I wouldn't want to fly into Denver and then spend an hour or more driving to Steamboat.) That's the accessibility issue.

Cost dovetails in when you look at things like public transportation, etc. Or, like in my Steamboat Springs example, everyone would have to rent cars (or chip in on communal cars), because of the hour-long drive to Steamboat. So you add the cost of a rental car to airfare, hotel, food, etc.

So, location affects cost. But we also don't want to pick a location *solely* on cost. We want fun stuff to do, though maybe we don't need a gazillion choices of fun stuff.

So, location/cost/fun.

Maybe Hil could make an equation for us, so that we can optimize our search....