The Great Arqade Meetup - Part 2

Question

Meetup Index

Part 1 - Decide how to do our meetup. Several little ones, or one big one?
Part 2 - Where?
Part 3 - When, and how long?
Part 4 - Activities
Part 5 - Hosting Arrangements
Part 6 - Travel Arrangements

Google map for pinning your location.

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Map Instructions

It's not terribly obvious how to add a pin to the map. If you want to tag yourself:

1. Go to the map.
2. Click the giant red EDIT button. (note: Make sure you are signed into Google, otherwise this will not show up)
3. Right click the location where you want your pin to add it.
4. Make sure you put your username as the name of the pin.
5. Click 'done'.

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Part 2

Part 1 has concluded with the choice to hold several little meetups rather than a single unified location. As such, it's time to choose the locations of our meetups. To a degree, when is going to bleed into location choices, as we may want to have our meetup as part of a larger event (such as PAX or such).

Basic things to keep track of

1. If you suggest a location that's your hometown, chances are quite good that if your location is chosen, you're going to be relied on to volunteer for helping to plan that meetup. Keep that in mind. It will cost you less monetarily, but probably more of your time.
2. If your suggestion has a date component, make note of that, and why.
3. Personally, I'd recommend keeping meetups outside of large cities, to try to lower total living expenses such as food and lodging. That gets thrown out the window for other events, though.
4. Upvote the location you want to go to.
5. If you haven't pinned yourself on the map yet, don't forget to do that! It helps track interest, as well as your location!

With that said, bring on the suggestions!

Answer 1

Philadelphia

I don't have any skin in this game, but looking at the map and trying to maximize the number of people within 250km/150mi of a large urban center¹, Philadelphia looks like a good fit for North America, with 5 people (Toronto and New York come in second with 4 people each). Heck, any urban center in Pennsylvania is relatively close for the majority of people in North America.

Given what it entails to cross international borders (passports and whatnot) and that there's roughly double the number of people in the US as there are in Canada, it's probably better to favor an American city, too.

^{Note 1: you had specified a preference for not being in a large city, but given how spread out the North American community is, it's probably going to have to happen, as cities provide access to transportation (don't need to rent cars, can fly directly there) and other amenities (so one doesn't need to make the meetup the only focus of the trip).}

Answer 2

Toronto

Or a suburb nearby like Mississauga or something if that's cheaper.

There is a huge cluster of dots in the northeast of North America, kind of centered around New York State. There is no one who actually lives in central New York State, however, to figure out accommodations, so Toronto is really the next closest where nearby users can provide their local insight to help with the event.

Plus Toronto is just a cool place. I want to go there again.

Answer 3

London

For British and West-European Arqanauts (and excessively rich Arqanauts from elsewhere!). It's got good transport links, and good beer. I know this goes against the 'stay away from large cities' instruction, but if those of us who live around Europe want to meet somewhere we can actually get to, it's going to have to be somewhere sensible!

If London is possible for you, leave a comment so we can see who would be able to attend vs. any other European locations people suggest.

Answer 4

Boston

PAX East is April 6-8 (yes still a while away though)

I've noticed that a lot of people live along the NE Railway line. I take Amtrak quite often down to DC and I have to highly recommend this mode of travel. Often its cheaper than air and way more convenient (you can get into the station 15 min ahead of time rather than 2 hours) and you won't have to be groped by the TSA to ride the train.

Also, the Boston Metro has connecting service from the Amtrak station to everywhere downtown so there's no need for rental cars, etc.

The drawback is that hotels may be a bit more expensive during this time, and there's always the risk of bad weather (snow in April is pretty rare though).

Answer 5

Seattle

It's probably far too late for this, but Seattle! It's on the west coast, which is the best coast. Also, I live here. Soo, Seattle!