[Chicago] Pycon 2008

[Jason R Huggins]

Brian Ray wrote on 05/01/2006 09:56:23 AM:
> Maybe what we need is to do is designate someone to lead this effort. 

Can't we off-shore this role to increase our value-add and ROI? ;-)

On a serious note, I'm +1 that we should host it, but I'm also unavailable 
to help lead this. 

In reply to Michael Tobis:
> I think the hotels around O'Hare might be a better bet in terms of
> bang per buck than the donwntown ones, and they are close enough to
> the CTA for an intrepid geek to get there from a friend's apartment, a
> hostel, a cheesy motel, etc.

Yes, but (low) cost isn't everything. I don't want newcomers to think that 
O'Hare (and what you can walk to around it) == Chicago. Conferences at 
airport hotels are for sleezy wannabee tycoon types selling 
get-rich-quick-with-real-estate "infotapes". I don't want that karma. 
Seriously, shlepping it onto the blue to take the 45 minute trek into 
downtown to experience "the night-life" would be a total buzz kill for the 
poor airport-bound event-goers. Lots of people would just hang out at the 
O'Hare Hotel's bar and think "Wow, this sucks". Being near the center of 
downtown (either Mag Mile, Millennium Park, or the Theatre District) would 
not suck. My company has had very good results with the Allegro hotel 
(Theatre District) for the past several years, though, I don't know if 
they'd be big enough to handle PyCon? How many people are typically 
expected on PyCons?

Here's a crazy idea... is there any chance we could coordinate with the 
Ruby and Perl (and JavaScript!?) communities and try to host 
"DynamicLanguagesCon2008". (That way we get a conference in Chicago, but 
we can let the Ruby&Perl guys do all the work. ;-)

- Jason "what's the net-net?" Huggins