One other thing I'm considering, although it's a bit rougher on logistics (we'd need more cars/drivers): having the con without a rental house.
PROS:
- Cheaper. Renting out hotel rooms, split 4-ish ways each, will be cheaper than the $50/night deal we're looking at with the most reasonable rental house deal. In addition, if we have enough people booking rooms in the same hotel, we may be able to swing a group discount of some kind.
- More comfortable. Assuming people share hotel beds, everyone gets a bed - no having to deal with bunking on couches or air mattresses. Groups going to bed at different times is also less of an issue, as there'll be separate rooms and plenty of bathrooms.
- Separate spaces. At least with the two cons I've attended, the con tends to break up into smaller groups to do things, whether it's talking, playing games, or whatever. Having hotel rooms for this gives separate spaces, and anything going on at the hotel (i.e., non-electronic gaming or chatting) would be fairly easy to move between rooms in order to check out.
- Proximity to food/activities/transportation. The hotel is in the Lakeline area, which is right next to one of Austin's major malls and a park-and-ride/commuter rail(har har) station. There's a ton of moderate-price restaurants within walking distance (i.e. Applebee's, Denny's, etc.) and a couple of fast food places not a lot farther away (there's a Wendy's that's a bit of a hike and a Chick-Fil-A that's closer, as well as a Fazoli's). The two rental houses that are the most likely subjects for a house rental are in a rather nice part of town just south of downtown, and while I haven't seen either location directly I'd be shocked if they're convenient for getting to things like that without a driver.
CONS:
- Logistics. This will likely be a bit of an issue with the rental house as well, but we'll need more drivers than just myself and Alex to get people between the hotel and my apartment (which will likely be the main gaming spot for console/PC games and large-space games like Arkham). The closest hotel I can think of to my current place is about 5 miles away along highways, so it'd be a bit too far to hike. I'll check around to see if there are any places closer, but we'd need at least one or two additional drivers to ferry folks back and forth.
EDIT: After a bit of research, it appears that the closest hotel is about 2-3 miles away:
http://www.lq.com/lq/properties/propertyProfile.do?ident=LQ6338&propId=6338&IATA=99020571&sisearchengine=231&siproduct=6338&clearppc=1Would be a bit on the long side for a walk (particularly in the middle of the summer here) but no more than a five minute drive.
- Large meeting area. For events where we want the entire group together (like the music quiz), we won't have a good central place to do so. I estimate that my current apartment could probably fit about 15 folks in it at once for a big group activity, but much more than that and we're approaching sardine conditions. For those that remember DLcon2 it wouldn't be nearly
that cramped, as my new apartment is about half again as large as the one that hosted DLC2, but if we're in the 20+ people range for the con overall it'd still be pretty tight. I can probably make arrangements with my folks to borrow their house for an evening for something like this (which has -plenty- of space), so this isn't a -huge- hurdle, but still one to consider.
OTHER NOTES:
In regards to the mid-late June dates, this is largely for two reasons. One, Texas weather - despite DLcon2 evidence, central Texas is not generally prone to cool, rainy summers. The later in the summer we go the hotter it's going to be, and for folks not used to the heat the low-mid 90's we'll likely be seeing daily in late June will still be pretty brutal - compare this to August, where we're usually pushing or over 100 daily. Two, most (not all) of the DL no longer has school concerns to worry about, so the timing isn't quite as critical as it used to be.
It's looking like the weekend of the 23rd-26th is the favored option so far.
