Chicago FFR Meet-up

[HammyMcSquirrel]

4/9/11 Update: Time frame for meeting at Gameworks on Friday will be 5pm to 9pm.

4/4/11 Update: We'll be initially meeting at Gameworks on Friday, July 1st. The address is 601 N. Martingale Road, Ste. 115 Schaumburg, IL 60173

3/3/11 Update: The date for this will be on the first weekend of July. (Friday, July 1st and Saturday, July 2nd.)

1/2/11 Update: The location has been finalized. We'll be having a meet-up in Chicago.

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I've been trying to plan another FFR convention/meet-up for a little over a week now. (As seen in this random thought.) The enthusiasm towards the idea has been great and we've narrowed down a bit as far as getting this organized, but we're going to need to see how many people are up for this before we finalize a few things.

Old information within code box. (See updates at the top of this post for finalized information.)

The idea is to have this on a weekend (Friday and Saturday) in late 
June or early July in 2011. That will not change. The locations people 
have been debating on are St. Louis or Chicago. This may revolve around 
whether or not we want to make this a meet-up or an actual convention.

St. Louis has an anime convention that will take place in mid-July called 
NatsuCon. If we wanted to make this more of an FFR convention, there's 
the possibility of reserving a room within the same hotel as NatsuCon similar
to how the FFR adminstration did with the last FFR convention at that 
anime convention in Ohio. If people wanted to do that, there'd be expenses 
with getting in to the convention (it was $25 paying in advance in 2010 so 
expect something similar) and expenses for reserving a room that I haven't 
looked in to but I know I will need help covering. This is the main reason St. 
Louis is an option. Not much has been posted on the 2011 setup at this 
time, but I can dig up some more information if it is clear that the majority 
wants to do this.

I didn't see any big conventions going on in Chicago that FFR could revolve 
around during the time frame I noted before. If people prefer Chicago, this 
would be a meet-up without the convention aspect. There is also the 
option of having a meet-up in St. Louis without NatsuCon. If this is the way 
to go, we can figure out which weekend to do this on.

One advantage to having a meet-up instead of making it like a convention 
is that there will be less hassle (at least for me lmao) and fewer expenses 
to worry about. One disadvantage is that we'd need to figure out a way to 
have one place on at least one day for everybody to be able to meet each 
other without there being confusion. (Some people may travel in for one 
day instead of staying for the weekend and at different times during the 
day.) The convention normally would take care of that problem for us, 
since it's a day long event. Hopefully that wouldn't be a big issue, though. 
We definitely want to give everybody the opportunity to meet each other.

That all being said, I want people to use the poll to select everything that 
is convenient for them between St. Louis (meet-up or convention) and 
Chicago (meet-up). Keep in mind expenses revolved around traveling, 
housing, and any activities within the city. Again, this will be in late June 
or early July in 2011. Right now we aren't too clear on who will have a car 
to drive people around and who may live close enough to offer up their 
home for a place to stay, so hotel rooms are likely at this point for those 
who want to stay the weekend. This is all something that I'd want to be 
discussed within this thread and hopefully figured out pretty easily.

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People who plan on attending (4):
A The Third
All_That_Chaz
flipsta_lombax
HammyMcSquirrel


People who may be able to attend (21):
5.points
Aldentron
botchi246
cedolad
colt.45
eurostud4
Ickalanda
i love you
irionman
jump_the_bullet
justin_ator
krunkykai22
lumphoboextreme
NocturneAunamic
Phynx
psychoangel691
star reaper
Suicidalfatman
Superfreak04
TC_Halogen
The5thMoon