Yeah; it's not as much about distance as it is about airline ticket prices...JFK-SFO will almost always be cheaper than JFK-RandomMidwesternTownCityWithARegionalAirport because of how there are so many more carriers flying the former, including LCC's. Flight times vary by a couple hours at most, and if you're planning to spend half your day travelling already, another hour isn't really going to change much.
Having it somewhere with just a Regional Airport could be extremely expensive for some people. If you're coming from a town that has only Regional Carrier A, and flying to a place that only has Regional Carrier B, you're most likely going to have to fly on two separate airlines. There are some code sharing things to handle this, but that's not always the case. In this "middle", St. Louis is a pretty decent hub, but there's not many cubers there.
And for those of you unfamiliar with Mall of America:
http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/mall-cops/ The show is kind of lame, but it does give you a sense of what they are able to handle in terms of crowds.
Yeah; that was kind of my point, I guess =P
Though that really means we should be adding using airports as a criteria for ease of travel.
Airport hubs:
Alaska:
- Anchorage (ANC)
Arizona:
- Phoenix (PHX)
California:
- San Francisco Area (SFO, OAK)
- Los Angeles (LAX)
Colorado:
- Denver (DEN)
- Miami (MIA)
- Ft. Lauderdale (FLL)
- Orlando (MCO, SFB)
Georgia
- Atlanta (ATL)
Hawaii
- Honolulu (HNL)
Illinois
- Chicago (ORD, MDW)
Maryland
- Baltimore (BWI)
Massachusetts
- Boston (BOS)
Michigan
- Detroit (DET)
Minnesota
- Minneapolis (MSP)
Missouri
- St. Louis (STL)
Nevada
- Las Vegas (LAS)
New Jersey
- Newark (EWR)
New York
- New York (JFK, LGA)
North Carolina
- Charlotte (CLT)
Ohio
- Cincinatti (CVG)
- Cleveland (CLE)
Pennsylvania
- Philadelphia (PHL)
Tennessee
- Memphis (MEM)
Texas
- Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW, DAL)
- Houston (IAH, HOU)
Utah
- Salt Lake City (SLC)
Virginia/Washington DC
- Washington (IAD, DCA)
Washington
- Seattle (SEA)
Wisconsin
- Milwaukee (MKE)
From this list, I'm going to narrow it down based on where at least one competition has already been held. That narrows it down to
California:
- San Francisco Area (SFO, OAK)
- Los Angeles (LAX)
Colorado:
- Denver (DEN)
Florida
- Miami (MIA)
- Ft. Lauderdale (FLL)
- Orlando (MCO, SFB)
Georgia
- Atlanta (ATL)
Illinois
- Chicago (ORD, MDW)
Maryland
- Baltimore (BWI)
Massachusetts
- Boston (BOS)
Michigan
- Detroit (DET)
Minnesota
- Minneapolis (MSP)
Missouri
- St. Louis (STL)
New Jersey
- Newark (EWR)
New York
- New York (JFK, LGA)
Pennsylvania
- Philadelphia (PHL)
Texas
- Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW, DAL)
Utah
- Salt Lake City (SLC)
Virginia/Washington DC
- Washington (IAD, DCA)
Wisconsin
- Milwaukee (MKE)
Next, going through 11 pages of inanity and finding all the useful points (i.e. ignoring all the "Have it in MyHomeTown, MyHomeState so that I can go!" type posts), and only including those with actual reasoning to back them up, we have the following criteria:
- Tyson: Likes Midwest, Seattle, St. Louis, LA/SD areas. No tOSU. Maybe Denver if transportation can be resolved.
- Dan Cohen: Likes Mall of America
- Andrew Kang: Not Underground Atlanta (supported by many).
- Kian: University at LA/SD, Seattle, St. Louis, Denver
- Bryan: MoA, but wants to test it first. Some issues.
- janelle: Seattle. Try to get UDub in on it.
- shelley: SD. Adam Zamora!
- Dene: CA
- JTW2007: CA (tons of venues; lots of organization). Denver via CU; horrible airport.
- Cubesoftheworld: Detroit (COBO Center)
- Hadley4000: Texas (central, accessible, cubing community established)
- Tyson: Texas ONLY IF A/C IS AVAILABLE (actually, I think everyone would agree with this)
- Me: Not East Coast another consecutive year. Likes CA (lots of organizational people, airports, things to do, etc.)
- Bob: No Atlanta, Texas WITH AIRCONDITIONING, no NYC (expensive)
- Tyson: Seattle? (Pacific Science Center)
One thing I'm going to add:
- No Canada. Why in the world would you hold the UNITED STATES championships in CANADA? Just because you want CANADIAN cubers? Do they not have their own championship? They're welcome to come to ours, but we should not be deciding where our championship is based on how to attract them.
- Regarding Detroit: There's only been one competition there, and it was run by CanadianCUBING. I don't see any sort of strong base we can utilize to plan a competition there. Someone please correct me if I'm wrong.
Working from the list and also deleting anything that hasn't been mentioned in 11 pages of discussion, this narrows it down to (italics = added):
California:
- San Francisco Area (SFO, OAK)
- Los Angeles (LAX)
- San Diego
Colorado:
- Denver (DEN)
Illinois
- Chicago (ORD, MDW)
Minnesota
- Minneapolis (MSP)
Missouri
- St. Louis (STL)
Texas
- Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW, DAL)
Washington
- Seattle
What I believe the winning city will need (wow, it's like we're bidding to host the World Cup...)
- Nice venue (Duh). Just in case, a good venue should have (bare minimum) very good lighting, an area for spectators/media (let's set a lower bound of 400 people for now), and a large enough stage for at least 8 timers (number arbitrarily chosen) but preferably 12-20 timers.
- Hub airport, with accompanied convenient way to access venue from the airport.
- Lodging nearby (preferably better accommodations than highway-motels)
- Extra room(s) for side events such as multi-BLD
- Nice entertainment/dining options
- Large cubing base with experience running tournaments (i.e. hasn't just run one-and-done tournament)
- 1-3 dedicated organizational heads with experience running multiple tournaments
The cities by pros/cons:
Los Angeles (LAX)
- Pros: HUGE organizational and cubing base, huge metropolitan area with accompanied perks, large airport
- Cons: Airport proximity/transportation (depending on venue).
- Questions: Venue
- Possible Venues: UCLA? Caltech?
San Francisco (SFO, OAK, SJC)
- Pros: HUGE organizational and cubing base, huge metropolitan area with accompanied perks, large airports, organization team/head (Berkeley/Stanford Cube clubs)
- Cons: 2009
- Possible Venues: UC Berkeley, Exploratorium, etc. Too many to list.
San Diego (SAN)
- Pros: Weather, metropolitan area, attractions, HUGE organizational and cubing base
- Cons: small airport, airport transportation
- Questions: Venue
- Possible Venues: ? UCSD? Whatever Adam Zamora can dig up?
Denver (DEN)
- Pros: Huge airport, central location, metropolitan area
- Cons: Airport proximity, organization team?
- Questions: Venue, organization team?
- Possible Venues: ?
Chicago (ORD, MDW)
- Pros: Airport, (north)-central location, large metropolitan area, KOII
- Cons: Cost?, 2007
- Questions: Airport proximity to venue
- Possible Venues: ?
Minneapolis (MSP)
- Pros: Venue (?), Airport, (north)-central location, metropolitan area, one organizational head
- Cons: Venue (?), no organizational team
- Questions: Airport>>>Venue?
- Possible Venue: Mall of America
St. Louis (STL)
- Pros: Airport with public transportation to city, central location, metropolitan area (well, kind of...)
- Cons: Cubing base not well established
- Questions: Venue
- Possible venues: Washington University in St. Louis?
Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW, DAL)
- Pros: Relatively well established cubing base, (south)-central location, large hub airport, metropolitan area with associated perks (e.g. lodging, dining, etc.)
- Cons: NEEDS AIR CONDITIONING
- Questions: Venue, airport proximity
- Possible venues: - Hyatt Regency (8/27-8/29 only)
Seattle
- Pros: Mild summer weather, metropolitan area with associated perks (e.g. lodging, dining, etc.)
- Cons: Cubing base not well established
- Questions: Venue, airport size/proximity to venue
- Possible venues: - Pacific Science Center?
Unless someone can make an absolutely compelling case for another place (e.g. venue in mind, can demonstrate availability, has a competition team willing to go all out, etc.), I don't think anything else should be discussed.
