This is the first of two official threads about Forge Midwest 2007. This thread is to open up planning and discussion a little bit. This will be short lived as details must be finalized soon! The second official thread will be about the actual, finalized reservations and specific event planning.

So, to kick it off, here are the preliminary details:

Dates:
* Friday April 13 through Sunday, April 15
* Friday April 20 through Sunday, April 22

Locations:
* Rosemont, which is very near O'Hare International
* Skokie, suburb northwest of Chicago proper

Use this thread to do the following:
* Voice concerns or ideas about dates, location, or expenses.
* Comment on last year, good, bad and ugly.
* New ideas for this year.

You get the idea ... Be warned. It will be IMPOSSIBLE to meet everyone's needs and wants. Also! I'll be talking it over behind with scenes with Illinois experts Ralph, Ron, and Keith. We'll consider concerns and weigh those as we finalize reservations.

Matt wrote:

Dates:
* Friday April 13 through Sunday, April 15
* Friday April 20 through Sunday, April 22

April 20-22 works best for me.

April 13 is nerdnyc's Gotham Gaming Guild.

I do not have a location preference.

I loved last year!

I would love a little more structure for the games. I don't think pre-registration is necessary. But having a wall of signup sheets would be awesome. This would help diversify groups so that games aren't just filled with existing friends (which isn't a bad direction to go either).

I would love to include seminars or roundtable workshops like what Luke moderated at Dreamation.

You rule!

- John

As a possible attendee from out-of-town coming by air, nearer the airport is probably better, all else being equal. I also second the notion of some kind of sign-up process, perhaps even before arrival. I know folks are awesome and inclusive, but if I'm going to come in from Arizona I want to ensure I have a rockin' time with a full slate of games.

Cheers,

Eric

I'd prefer the 20-22nd myself, though I might be able to make the previous weekend work.

Jae Walker

Matt-

First off - much thanks for organizing again this year.

Keith mentioned that one of the locations is off of the blue line, and much more convenient for transportation from the airport and into Chicago (for Jared's goth club excursions and our trips for real Chicago pizza)

I'm also excited about 20th-22nd.

Last year was great - very chill and informal. As long as we keep that vibe, it's all good. Pick up games, some board gaming, and maybe a few specific things people have brought specifically to run/playtest.

Hope to see you there!

Mayuran

Well, after all my bitching in the other thread...

the 20-22 increases my chances of attendance, also. FWIW.

I love you guys...

Jake

the 13th - 15th works best for me, but I can make either one. Rosemont is preferable to Skokie, although neither are as close as last year's location which I could almost have walked to from my place. Too bad the service there was sub-par.

Last year was the sheezy. I somehow manage to not game that much at GenCon, so having a weekend with NOTHING BUT GAMING is freakin' awesome. I will happily make blood sacrifices to whomever in order to assure Forgecon's continued success.

I feel so loved!

I wanna go again. I wanna play some games and run something. I may be drunk right now...

...on power!

- J

Either date is doable for me. I'd prefer the earlier date, but if Jake can come, his schedule trumps mine.

I'd like more scheduled events.
I'd like to do a couple of roundtables.
I'd to start a "Get Vincent Out There" fund.

-L

This is me, putting in a word for 20-22.  I know that I don't have the same pull as Jake, although a Dust Devils reunion would be cool.  (GenCon 2002...)

Also, I'm pretty dangerous at Jungle Speed, and I'd take Blue Moon challenges, too.  Ron, I'm looking at you...

I'm aiming to come down again, and have no weekend preference.

Planning to drag Harlequin down with me this time, and if flights permit, not leave frakking early on Sunday morning.

I would like some scheduled events, but not the whole thing.  A roundtable or two would be cool.

I'd also really like it (I know it's not something we can easily affect) if there was a place to eat that's non-smoking.  Man, that hit me like a brick last year.

James

Thanks for organifying, Matt!

I care not a whit about the dates, but would much prefer to be somewhere connected by public transport to downtown.

Cost was phenomenally good last year.

I liked the (lack of) structure last year, but maybe we could get, like, a corkboard and some pins for posting "Hey, I feel like running XYZ, anyone wanna play at midnight tonight?" kind of things.

Also, If you don't bring the 9W, I will tear your liver out every day and feast on it.

Oh, and please, non-smoking. Dear god, yes. Send those plague-suckers outside. (I mean you, Senblowski.)

As someone who most likely will not be able to attend no matter what the details, but who read a great deal of the post-con threads from last year, I just want to point out the benefits of having scheduled timeslots. They allow you to get into games with new people When you don't have timeslots, most people end up gaming with the same group all day. Why? Because games don't start and end at the same time. Sure, some people will wait around until that BW game is over so they can wheedle in to Luke's BE game, but without any official start/end times, they're just as likely to get bored, start Jungle Speed, and miss the start of the BE game anyway.

Structure: It's like vegetables and creative constraint. It's good for you.

Hey guys,

Correct me if I'm wrong but I could have swore there was attempted structure last year. I was signed up for two games ahead of time. Games were supposed to run like 8 to 11, 12 to 3, 3 to 6, or something like that. If I remember correctly folks decided to ignore the structure. Maybe we need whips?

GreatWolf wrote:
This is me, putting in a word for 20-22.  I know that I don't have the same pull as Jake, although a Dust Devils reunion would be cool.  (GenCon 2002...)

I think that any structure we did have was chucked, as Clyde says. But, that said, I also think that I played with different people on every single game. Not 100%, but it certainly wasn't the same group over and over. Not sure how we accomplished that, precisely. But it seemed to work to me, at least.

Further, and people should correct me if this impression is wrong, but due to the freeform nature I think that nobody ever was without a game to play. I didn't see anyone wandering around looking to get in a game. Everyone was playing all the time.

(I should note that I was only there on Saturday).

Mike

Mike,

Not everyone was playing all the time last con.

I'd love to see more structure, and either weekend would work well for me!

Regards,
Daniel

Not that this is a vote, but I'm pulling for the earlier set of dates. Way too much going on in late April for the 21st/22nd to be feasible for me. But that's just me; and I don't expect special consideration.

I also vote for more structure, or at least a combination of planned *and* unplanned events.

- Tim

I'm extremely social but I didn't have any idea about half the games last Forgecon and there were several I would have liked to have had a chance to play in if I knew beforehand. I also didn't know most the people attending.

I would be down for a "Get Vincent Out There" fund. I'll put in $20 right now. Even if you pick a date I can not attend (I can only do the later date).

I have no preference for the when nor the where. I should hopefully be able to take a couple days off in April in order to attend, but I will really only know for certain once we get closer to March.

April 20-22 would be the best dates for me. Otherwise, I'll only be there in spirit.

I had a blast last year but I was fairly removed from the processes of running it but, from my casual perspective, things worked out well.

When will the date be solid, for those of us wanting to book flights?

If it's soon, I can get onto a relatively cheap & direct flight.  The closer April gets, the higher the price gets, and the direct flights sell out early, leaving me with eeeevil connecting flights.

James

Blankshield wrote:
When will the date be solid, for those of us wanting to book flights?

If it's soon, I can get onto a relatively cheap & direct flight.  The closer April gets, the higher the price gets, and the direct flights sell out early, leaving me with eeeevil connecting flights.

James

The official date is April 20-22.

I'm still working on hotels -- haven't found a great option yet in Rosemont. They're either booked or too expensive. Working on it!

Heya,

I'd like to start scheduling my arrival and departure times.  When are most other people going to show up on Friday and when do most of you plan to leave on Sunday?

Peace,

-Troy

Eric (Harlequin) and I will be hitting the ground around 5:30 and leaving Sunday after supper.  Last year I arrived late Friday and left early Sunday and while I had a blast while I was there, it sucked to be leaving when everyone else was sitting down to game.

James

I see the date is settled (April 20-22nd), but the location is still being scouted.

I'd like to put in a vote for structure to the extent of time slots, at least, so that people know that games start at 9, 2 and 7 (or whatever).  I'm not a designer, but would be interested in running Cat.  And playing just about anything...

I also would be happy to contribute to get Vincent and Meg out there.  Just tell me where to Paypal (or mail) the bucks!

Jae Walker

I'm down with structure as well. Although some unstructured time might not be bad... but hey, I'm gonna be there no matter what, so it's all good.

I also would be willing to chip in what I can to help Vincent & Meg attend. It's just not a party without 'em *g*

Especially if there might be some Mechaton going down...

skokie would be cool since I live there. But really its not that far from there to Rosemont--15-20 minutes tops.

anyway I can get more information on who or what this is as I'm a newbie and am really looking for a con to check out in my area this spring?

Jeff

Hi folks, here's a quick non-update.

The date, as I've said, is indeed officially April 20-22.

Right now, work is kicking me in the ass so hard I barely see my wife and kids. So, I haven't had time to call hotels. I could use some help!

Here is a web page with the hotels I'm looking at:

http://www.rosemont.com/hotels/index_hotels.php

And this different one gives an estimate of room prices:

http://www.tripadvisor.com/Hotels-g36630-Rosemont_Illinois-Hotels.html

Those prices are actually represented too high in most cases. When I get room rental quotes, they almost always are less than those on the page immediately above.

I have already contacted the Holiday Inn Select. I have attempted to contact about 3 others, but can't yet get through to pricing.

Here's what I'm shooting for:

1) Meeting room rental Saturday, April 21 from 9 a.m. up through at least 12 midnight. And Sunday, April 22 from 10 a.m. through 2 p.m. (possibly later). We probably want 2 different rooms, possibly 3 (it starts to get expensive at that point). Last year, just about 50 people showed up. I expect a similar, slightly higher number around 50-60. Conceivably, it could be higher.

2) Room rates that do not exceed $200 per night. I'm attempting to keep it affordable for as many people as possible.

3) Refreshments supplied as an afternoon snack. We did this last year. It wasn't perfect, but it was nice. Some hotels REQUIRE this (which sucks, as they also require minimum spends).

4) Details on any special rules, etc. For example, food ok or not?

5) They always ask about reserving a block of rooms. SOME REQUIRE A BLOCK OF 10-12 TO BE ABLE TO RENT THE MEETING SPACE! Find out about that one!

I tell them I can really only guess at the number of rooms, and that my guess is around 6 rooms. This is almost NEVER enough rooms to earn a discount rate. That's fine, so long as we can still get meeting space.

6) They always ask out of "curiousity" what kind of group we are. I explain we're a casual social group, that we play games, and have a loose association as book publishers. I suspect they're fishing for information on whether we're going to cause a problem (drinking alcohol or something, maybe, I dunno).

So! If anyone wants to take a stab at calling a hotel or two, please give it a shot. I wont' be able to until at least next week. They usually keep normal office hours.

The only other problem is that they will want to reserve the space, and so on. And, it'll get confusing who the go-to person is, whose credit cards reserves, and so on. I'll take on any of that responsibility, I just need help identifying the information and getting the RFPs.

IMPORTANT: RFP stands for Request for Proposal. So, they have a "sales" office who handles meetings, and they'll send you a quote, aka an RFP. This sounds more scary than it is. They usually deal with corporate meeting type stuff, especially around O'Hare.

So, call, give 'em information, get an RFP, and send it to me at matt (dot) snyder (at) meredith (dot) com (that's not my usual addy -- it's my work addy).

If I don't hear from anyone, I'll get to it eventually. I thought it worth a shot to save us all some time in preparation.

Heya Matt,

My wife is looking into this for us.  Right now, she has narrowed them down to the Embassy Suites and Double Tree from the link you posted.  Those are the ones she likes the best (which means that anyone else working on this should keep on working).  She's waiting to hear back from them on a few things.  I'll post when she gets more information.  Is there any further guidance on rooms, rates, and locations you'd like me to pass on to her?  Any preferences?

Peace,

-Troy

Troy, that's an amazing help! I really appreciate you and your wife doing this. THANKS.

I don't have anything to add, really. I'm a fan of Embassy Suites hotels overall. People have to realize we're trading better location for higher expense, however!

Heya,

Matt wrote:
Troy, that's an amazing help! I really appreciate you and your wife doing this. THANKS.

I don't have anything to add, really. I'm a fan of Embassy Suites hotels overall. People have to realize we're trading better location for higher expense, however!

Hi Troy,

I'm gonna pull some Executive Action here and suggest that you and your wife go right ahead and make arrangements with the hotel. Time is getting way too short for us to let it lag much longer. If you're uncomfortable, just send me an email with the website or whatever information you've got already and I'll take it from there.

Best, Ron

Heya,

We can reserve the room (if you mean meeting room) no problem.  But everyone will be in charge of reserving their own room (for sleeping), right?  We told them we would need at least 6-7 (sleeping) rooms.  Let me know if we need to do anything else.

Peace,

-Troy

That's right, Troy. People will have to make their own reservations for sleeping. But yeah, we need that meeting room. You might want to double-check with Matt about the precise days needed.

Best, Ron

What Ron said. Troy, you're on target completely.

So...has the final location been decided and reserved?

Heya,

TJ wrote:
So...has the final location been decided and reserved?

Matt, thanx for all the hard worl you've put into organizing this monster.

I'll see you there.

Heya,

Anyone know what the weather will be like?

Peace,

-Troy

April can be tricky. I'd guess somewhere between 50 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit during the day, and down to maybe 30 to 50 degrees Fahrenheit at night. In Celsius that would be 10 C to 34 C in the day and -2 C to 10C at night. With a decent chance for rain. However, Winter or Summer can decide to rear their head.

How many of you booking rooms are mentioning you are with Forge Midwest Gathering?  There are a few rooms left at a slight discount for those who say they are. 

Peace,

-Troy

Oops. :/

I booked online, so nope.  I did the 'pay now for $10/night off' net thing.

For weather info: http://www.weather.com/weather/local/60018?lswe=60018&lwsa=WeatherLocalUndeclared&from=whatwhere

Looks like it's going to be a very nice weekend.

Mike