I have not researched it too much, what about Calgary/Edmonton area? Calgary has direct flights in/out of Europe/Asia/USA. Hotels aren’t too expensive.
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I think that Cincinnati Ohio would be a great place to host because it’s affordable and there is an international airport!
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DC, NY, or somewhere around there is pretty doable for me. Southern California is easiest for me since if it’s LA, that’s just a couple hours. Hopefully something can be figured out which is easiest for everyone.
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Yeah, this seems sound. Also this year was TU, and in Toronto, is UT, so itd make sense to reverse things on the other side of the ocean.
Its quite safe to visit, has a reasonble legal environ (weed is legal there), and a vibrant art scene. Maybe it is a question of optimizing for visitors from everywhere? Has anyone made a survey yet to gauge interest and help decipher what locations people may be traveling from?
Another one recommended Ohio, which could possibly work. But im not familiar with the local environment in that state.
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I think this is very important. Before we can decide where to locate the conference it would be best to know where the interested parties would be coming from.
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Survey is definitely needed to figure out where that 30%ish percent is mainly around. Let’s aim to make one next week.
I heard a couple of 2023 participants mention that they would not want to travel to the states as a matter of personal principle, so if it isn’t already planned for the survey to be anonymous that might be worth considering.
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I’m based in DC and I would love to contribute if we have it somewhere between Boston and here.
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So the survey should have questions that can help understand the situation correctly… Having only “I am okay with traveling to the USA” being answered with yes by all USA residents / frequent travelers isn’t helpful.
Something like this may be enough?
Which of these situations apply to you?
- I live in the USA [or frequently travel to the USA?] / I am okay with traveling to another country
- I live in the USA [or frequently travel to the USA?] / I am not okay with traveling to another country
- I do not live in the USA / I am okay with traveling to the USA
- I do not live in the USA / I am not okay with traveling to the USA
Though there is still a distinct lack of “I prefer” vs. “I cannot”… Which also is a different topic. So it might be that the question needs to be asked with ability to travel to the USA, vs. preference to have it happen in the USA.
It’s a 3D matrix of residence × preference × ability, really…
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We should also consider that the choice of State may affect some folk’s preference to attend.
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Prefer vs Can should also apply to Americans traveling abroad. Not everybody in the US has a passport and can travel internationally. I think we can gauge most preference vs ability in a single question (#2 below).
Question 1: Where are you located?
- United States
- Canada
- Another country in North/Central/South America
- Outside the Americas
Question 2 (multiple choice): Which of the following locations are you willing and able to travel to:
- United States East Coast
- US West Coast
- Canada East Coast
- Canada West Coast
- Mexico
I understand the concerns of people who are uncomfortable traveling to the US. But we also need to keep in mind that there is already a NixCon in another Western liberal country, and there are almost 9x more people in the US than Canada. Mexico is much larger than Canada as well. At a certain point we may need to make hard decisions just based on the numbers alone, even if I’d like our international community to feel comfortable attending.
Regarding US states, I’m going to make an assumption that if you stay on the coasts, which most people will likely prefer anyway, there should be little push-back on specific states.
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I think that’s a good selection of questions. Just a few comments:
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“Another country in North/Central/South America” should all be different options, given how far apart they can be.
-
I think we should have some additional questions for gauging preference. maybe a ranked choice vote between Canada west, canada east, us north west, us north east, us cental, us south west, us south east, and mexico. That would probably give us a good idea of where most people live without requiring too much personal information.
Once we narrow down the general area it’ll hopefully be easier to pick a city from there in a second round of voting or through conversation/consensus.
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It’s also important to determine what to do with the data (I’m not making that decision here)
- Aim to improve diverse provenance
- Aim to reduce friction
- Aim to please the most people
- Other goals?
Using the same data, I think the different goals can be achieved, but without proper care, one might accidentally achieve the wrong goal!
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Whichever one of those supports NixCon NA being close to me.
But in all seriousness I think that depends on our capacity and the amount of interest. If we can barely gather enough people, we should look to maximize participants. If there’s too much interest for us to accommodate, we may want to pick a different goal that would reduce the number of attendees, or somewhere where you could buy a larger venue with the same money. Either way I think reducing friction and pleasing people should be taken into account: The event won’t be fun if everybody had a terrible time getting there.
I imagine capacity would depend on budget, number of volunteers, and location. Which makes for a bit of an interconnected mess. I haven’t done much event planning though, so I’ll defer to the event experts and Nixcon veterans in the room.
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Yes Please!
Getting a Passport Renewal in the US is now a highly long-winded hassle.
It prevents some of us from traveling until we wait 10-13 weeks …
Nix should get traction in NA too.
Great potential here.
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We have an official public and open matrix room! You’re invited to talk on Matrix
Feel free to share, join and discuss.
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It would be interesting to explore the idea to host it in Mexico City, it’s cheap, easy to get a visa and well connected.
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I am also interested in helping out with this.
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I’d be very interested in such a convention, but while everyone here is considering ease of travel, ease of venue space may also be worth considering. While New York, Los Angeles, Mexico City, Toronto, etc. may all be very convenient to travel to, they may have significantly higher costs for things like accommodations, food, and venue. A cheaper, maybe smaller city, near one of these hubs may be worth considering.
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Alright, since we have a few decisions that are all related let’s just start getting some information from people so we can make informed decisions. I’m going to throw together a dummy/example survey form at some point today so we can work on something concrete.
I propose this order of events:
- Gauge general interest with a survey form
- As part of the survey form gauge interested attendees location and interest/ability to travel to different regions
- Once the survey is closed collect a short list of the top regions of interest
- Gauge venue availability/price in a various cities in the short listed regions
- Either just pick a viable city from that list or send out another survey for a vote.
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