Just a suggestion (and hopefully this doesn't get me banned from the board): please make sure there will be sufficient parking for locals who are planning to drive to the convention. I was so excited that CrimeCon was in Indy--usually big events like this are held on the coasts, but finally, someplace I could drive to. I could scrape up enough money for a ticket, but not the additional $ for the costly convention hotel, so I made plans to drive in every day. Friday was great, but on Saturday I could not find parking ANYWHERE in downtown Indy due to the giant Pride Rally that was scheduled on the same weekend. Seriously, no parking in ANY hotel, no parking at the City Center mall, no parking anywhere. I could manage the $30 it cost me to park in the hotel garage on Friday, but I couldn't afford the $60 to $80 parking at the overflow dirt lot bandit parking lots set up to handle the Pride Rally overflow--and most of those were already completely full by 8:45am Saturday, anyway. (I'm from a neighboring state, not Indy, so I don't know Indy bus schedules off the top of my head to try and park in a suburb and take a bus into downtown.) I drove around for over an hour looking for parking, fretting about the Golden State Killer panel I was missing, and finally gave up and drove home in tears of frustration. I didn't even attempt to drive in and try to find parking on Sunday. So essentially, I paid nearly $300 to attend three sessions on Friday. I'm sure the rest of CrimeCon was great, but there are few things in life that are worth $100 for a 45-minute session.
It's great that you are scheduling CrimeCons in smaller midwestern cities that are accessible to more people...but you advertised that CrimeCon was in Indy because it was driving-accessible to most of the country. (I don't remember the quote off the top of my head--and I can't find it now that the CrimeCon site is updated for 2018--but I vividly remember it was something like, "We chose Indy because it's within a half-day's drive for 70% of the country's population," or something similar.) It's great to consider holding the convention someplace convenient for much of the country to conceivably drive to--but not if there's no place for those people to park. Now, maybe the parking issue is totally my fault--I live in rural farmville, so maybe I underestimated the likely parking availability issue. (And yes, I'm a nervous big city driver as it is.) And to be honest, I didn't do a check on "competing events that will take up parking on that weekend" myself before buying tickets. But I don't think I'm naive to think that there would be downtown parking available on a weekend when government offices are closed, and I don't think I'm naive to think that surely the convention planners would have made sure there weren't competing events that would heavily impact parking on the same weekend, without assuring sufficient parking for their own convention goers. Maybe I'm just whining, and should have stuck with it and it's my own fault for turning around and going home--but I'm sorry...over an hour of driving around in the summer Indy heat looking in vain for parking, and I'm done.
I would have happily paid for a guaranteed parking pass at the hotel garage for the weekend (I could have worked that into my budget if purchased when registering); my suggestion is that CrimeCon planners look into that possibility for future CrimeCons, if it's going to continue to be marketed as "driveable for much of the country." I live within driving distance of Nashville, as well...but not close enough to drive in every day, and I'd need to stay in a cheaper hotel and drive to the convention hotel every day...so no 2018 CrimeCon for me. I realize I sound whiny, and I'm sorry for that, but I've been a member of WS for a loooong time, and I had a really ***** semester, so we saved up for CrimeCon as a treat for me, and I was sooooo excited...only to have the frustration of not being able to attend because of something stupid like not being able to find ANYPLACE to park.
For those thinking about attending next year, I would say that sure, you should go--but only if you can afford to stay in the convention-designated hotel. If you're going to drive in from out of town, or stay at a cheaper hotel and drive in from there...well, make sure there's no huge Grand Ole' Opry-thon going on the same weekend, or plan on leaving your car at the cheap hotel and taking an Uber over to the convention hotel.
Also, will you be there again?
