I was going to make a long post about this, but Chad has pretty much said everything I wanted to, and better than I could. So, first off, please go read his post. (The summary is that Intercon K, the 2011 New England Intercon, will be held at the Waltham Westin – pending finalized plans with the hotel.)
I’m very excited about having Intercon at the Westin. It’s an absolutely fantastic space, and as a GM, I’m really looking forward to making use of it. The function space at the Radisson is great for us, and I can confidently state that the space at the Westin is an improvement on it in every respect.
Even more exciting than the bigger, better function space, though, is the fact that this change lets us grow as a convention. Last year, at Intercon I, we saw the largest registration numbers for any Intercon convention in history. Not only did Intercon I break the records, it shattered them – we grew almost 50 attendees; about a fifth of the convention size! This year (not surprisingly, given the economy), the numbers are down a little, but they’re much closer to the I numbers than the H ones. Moving to the Westin will let the convention continue to grow without having to worry about capacity.
Of course, moving to a different hotel comes with some downsides, too, and Chad did a great job covering those in his post as well.
The most important one, in my opinion, is that attending Intercon K will probably end up costing you a bit more than previous Intercons have, due to the fact that we won’t be able to provide meals at the new hotel. This would have been true with any new hotel, not just the Westin – the deal we have with the Radisson is basically unheard of in the hotel world. We’re actively looking into ways to keep the costs down for our attendees as much as possible, and we already have a few ideas, but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes by speculating here.
Finally, I just want to say that I’m immensely honored to be part of the Intercon community. I often marvel at the fact that not only do I know some of my favorite writers in the world personally, but they’ve played my games too. We have a truly amazing, participatory LARP culture here, and now we have the opportunity to expand it and share it with even more people. I won’t lie and say I’m not nervous about the changes ahead – but I know this community can come together and make Intercon K work.
