So it seems to me that the more cosmopolitan the setting - not bigger, mind you, but more sophisticated - the more Buffistas have a chance to cut loose in character.

Does that make any sense at all?

It does to me.

Does that make any sense at all?

Totally. We'd have more corset-y freedom in NOLA than in Podunk Backwoods BibleBeltville, Mizippi. (no offense to Mississippi).

For me, hotels are hotels, are hotels. As long as it doesn't get above $150 a night, I'm good.

It's the flights I worry about.

So it seems to me that the more cosmopolitan the setting - not bigger, mind you, but more sophisticated - the more Buffistas have a chance to cut loose in character.

Does that make any sense at all?

Completely.

Also, what Sean said. About it being so far out. Not about people sucking.

Good - I wasn't sure I was being clear.

I mean hell, I live in a city of officially less than a million people. But we're an extremely cosmopolitan one. And I think that the cities being looked at so far share that trait, and should continue to do so.

I didn't think people were saying I suck, I thought they were saying my city did- or that it didn't suck too much. Basically that it was Mama Bear's porridge or Papa Bear's porridge.

I'm just saying that it's Juuuuuust right.

Cost was an issue with the DC discussion last year. We looked also at Baltimore. We ended up in the more expensice city. We also had at least a few folks who probably didn't attend because of it.

We've had a few requests to get the cost of the hotel rooms back under $100 and to get the cheaper rate for a larger block of days.

Right now we are NOT choosing the city. Please allow us to discuss all possibilities. We'll have a vote set up in a couple of weeks. I'm thinking we'll have people choose their top two choices at that time. I'd also like those votes to be anonymous, not big annoucments in thread. Fred Pete has volunteered to count votes and hopefully we can use the b.org voting system to take them. Off of the voting we'll take the top 4 cities, send out RFP's and run the numbers.

I checked with the Visitors and Convention Bureau and discovered that Cleveland is a Continental city. If we have the F2F in Cleveland and we register with Continental, they'll give us a discount if even 10 people fly in from at least three different locations, and an additional discount if people buy their tickets 60 days or more in advance. We'll also, somehow, get some of the money spent on rooms applied to meeting space.

I'm betting all the cities in question could get a deal at least something like that with an airline.

I went through for my benefit. I though other people might also find the Nilly helpful.

Officially proposed cities (Dear God in Heaven, I hope I got them all)

Austin/San Antonio

Cleveland

Kansas City

Minneapolis

Nashville

New Orleans

Toronto

Thanks, Debet.

I just checked, and NOLA's a days drive from Austin.

Mmmmmmm. Road trip.

Cleveland! NOLA! Kansas City! Austin! Minneapolis! Nashville!

In the spirit of peace and hippiness, I just gotta say, I'm totally thrilled with all the options. I would go to any of those cities, have been to half of them, and would love to go with Buffistas. There is, of course, a certain amount of dodge that I would need to do in Cleveland, because, my childhood neighbors do not want to see me in a corset. But still! But they're all great locations. Yay for the Buffista bash.