Celebration V should return to Indianapolis!

Alas, I was constantly gagging as I wandered that area during my sweeps of the LACC. Another reason why my desire to eat was crushed. Oh well, it didn't interfere too much with my primary objectives of being there.

 

Seriously, no conventions in NYC. No one will be able to afford to come unless they want to stay in hotels across the river in Jersey. LA is dirt-cheap compared to midtown Manhattan. I was surprised by how much lower the price of the average consumer goods were when in LA. Hotels around MSG or the Javits Center are also 150% to 200% the cost of comparably-rated LA hotels. Check on the hotel websites if you don't believe me.

On the flip side, I suppose I might be willing to put C5 guests up with me for the low, low price of $100 per night.

 

100 bucks for a night with you? What do you mean NY is expensive...

 

Ouch. That really hurt me, man.

Though if I pack 'em in like sardines......

 

Where can I book the entire room for myself?

 

I could smell the taco stand in alot of places. They had good tacos, but sometimes the smell....

It could have been the chopped sandwich too...

 

why have so many people around here said that the middle of the country is so desolate? has no one heard of chicago (3rd largest city in the nation, i believe), detroit, milwaukee, cleveland, cincinatti, minneapolis/st. paul, and let's not forget beautiful indianapolis? and that's just my little region of the mid-west. yeah, i know they're not as grandiose as l.a. or nyc, but people do live here. i'm not talking about all of these as possible venues for a future celebration, just saying that this area of the country isn't barren.

for instance, someone said earlier in the thread (when i was reading the other day) that there was something like 7 million people in l.a.(wiki says "greater l.a. area" is about 18 million) and that there wasn't that many within four hours of indy. detroit area is about 5 million and chicago-land area is about 9.5 million. so there's two cities right there, both of which are about 4 hours from indy that equal about 15 million. now i know if you break it all down there's probably more people living w/i decent driving distance from l.a., but i'm just saying: it's a silly argument to say that there's no one and nothing in the mid-west.

i am, of course, biased since i'm obviously from the mid-west, but c4 being in l.a. is exactly why i didn't attend (i went to 2 and 3) this time around. a) way too expensive for me to travel there (yes i know, no matter where it is someone's gonna have to pay a lot to travel there, but when you're planning your trip you're thinking about your cost, not everyone else's) b) no offense meant to anyone in cali, but i just really have no desire to go there c) i was kind of offended @ the fact that the guest list was no more spectacular to me than what was @ c2 and c3, especially in light of the fact that it was in l.a. i had already purchased badges and a hotel room and that guest list was a big part of why i canceled it all.

i know the guests aren't as an important a factor to everyone who attends celebrations, but it is to me seeing as how i'm paying to get into the place.

oh and d) i'm also a little bit afraid of flying.

@ least there was some good news, sounds like gencon finally figured out the line situation. overall though, the reviews sound like a mixed bag, much like the celebrations that took place in indy. so i guess there's no such thing as a perfect celebration.

i would love for it to return to indy, but i'm not going to get my hopes up. especially since @ the end of c3, my best friend and i started planning out what hotel to stay @, where to eat, and what to bring to an anticipated c4 in indy.

 

The hotels in downtown Indianapolis are very reasonable and they're connected to the convention center by skywalks and they're surrounded by lots of good restaurant choices.

 

Iwakura, realise though that that reasoning always effects someone. I didn't go to C3, for example, because it was in indianapolis and thats an expensive travel for me. All locations will be too far for some people, so bringing that up on a personal level doesn't alter anything since someone will be able to say that for any location.

 

Also, the coasts - east or west - make sense in the grander view of being "in the middle", since a fair number of attendees are NOT from the US. That always seems to be forgotten in these debates.

 

well yeah, i know. that's why i said: "(yes i know, no matter where it is someone's gonna have to pay a lot to travel there, but when you're planning your trip you're thinking about your cost, not everyone else's)," but since this thread is called "c5 should return to indy" that's why i posted it here. 'cause i didn't wanna go into a thread where everyone's having a good time reminiscing and derail it by talking about my personal preference for celebrations to be in indy (or the mid-west or east or wherever isn't the west coast).

basically, all i was trying to say was...yes i would love for it to return to indy and part of the reason why i didn't go was the fact that it wasn't in indy. i just recall that after II and III (especially after II) a lot of people complaining about the fact that it was "in the middle of nowhere," and that it would make so much more "sense" somehow to have it in a more populous and well-known city, and similar sentiments to that being expressed. it obviously didn't really resolve location complaints (everyone will always have a location complaint, i know) to move it to some huge metropolitan area. all that did was present con-goers w/ new problems: hotels were farther away, no close restaurants (that were open late), to engage in sight-seeing or whatever you had to have transportation (public, private, or rented) to do any of it, and no close convenience places (rite-aid, gas stations, that type of thing).

i know that there's no location everyone is going to be happy w/. since there are obviously people in this thread (based on the title and many posts i've read) that wish for future celebrations to return to indy (or @ least change locations from where it was just held), i posted my thoughts here.

 

Well, they finally had it it in a "more populated place" and C III still had more people attending.

 

I highly doubt attendence will ever exceed C3 again, even if C5 was brought back to Indy. Only by generating interest with a new Star Wars movie will a SW Celebration stand a chance of breaking attendence records.

EDIT: Refer to post below, I guess records were broken afterall. *whistles innocently*

 

Not according to this excerpt from Bantha Tracks Online (dated June 5th):

From the fan perspective, and maybe from most every perspective, Star Wars Celebration IV was a party of epic proportions, with a variety of programs, exhibits, guests, and fun that entertained fans from all around the world in the Los Angeles Convention Center May 23-28. Early indications are that the event broke the attendance records of the hugely popular Celebration III in 2005, and many fans who have reported in to Bantha Tracks suggest that it was the best Celebration for them yet.

 

It's Philly's turn.

 

Where do you get this from? From what YOU SAW? Where you in both levels hallways, the outdoor concourse, the 2 huge lobbies, the big terrace foodcourt, the fan fair hall, the exhibit hall the Concourse stage, Petree Stage, Digital Theater and the half dozen other rooms that had panels all going simulatiously throughout the day?

At Indy you COULD almost see everyone at once and get a feel for the attendance, cause you could see probably 70% or 80% of the one big main hallway all of the time. At LA, you could not see even 20% of the hallway space at any one time.

Look, you folks who claim this lower peak attendance of Saturday, could be right, but if you are basing your opinion on the fact that the halls were not as congested as they were in Indy... well duh! There is 10 times more hallway space! At least 8 times the lobby space and there were THOUSANDS more available seats for panels! So more butts were in seats throughout the day as well. All of this has to be taken into account. The fact is that with the increased size of the con center, it could very well FEEL like there was less attendance even if it was more.

All I know was everywhere I went on Saturday, everything was packed. Hallways, lobbies, panels. About the only places not super crowded were the Store and the Fan Fair Hall. There was even a wait just to get into the R2 Builders room and at one point there were no seats left in the Fan club lounge.

Maybe I'm deluded, but taking the roughly twice as big con center into account and the vastly increased seating capacity at nearly all panel venues I think peak capacity was at least as much as Indy.

I won't post about this anymore because even if Gen-Con or LFL release attenance figures that show any sort of increase in peak attenance figures, the nay-sayers will claim they are cooking the books. So you can't win.

-Doc

 

Responding to Armchair_Admiral's post, C5 likely will be tied into the start of the Live Action TV series. One of the things noticeably missing at C4 were the Rick McCallum Spectaculars, but as you stated there was no new footage to show to fans. That will be different at the next one. There will be a lot to talk about with the TV series and nobody does it better than Rick McCallum.

 

yes it will be tied up with the tv series whatever happens i will be there!!-LA was fine for me apart from the huge flight from the UK,next time i will come out a few days before so that i can do some sightseeing and take part in any pre celebration events

 

This has been covered before I think, but, one thing I did like about LA, is the non-stop flight.

I flew in from Austin, TX for CIV and didn't have a stop in Dallas or Phoenix. Cost wasn't bad, either, around 350.00, I think. I was very pleased.

I'm trying to put together a trip to a "Big Lebowski" festival in Louisville,KY in July and am looking at 5-6 hours flights costing 365.00 or more roundtrip...with stops/layovers in Dallas.

One good thing about a large city like Chicago, LA, NY is the non-stop inexpensive flights from almost everywhere.

Martha

 

Oh, he didn't even go so he's basing it off ... actually, I have no idea what he could be basing it off other than second, third or fourth hand info. Or personal biases.

 

With indy building a new stadium, wouldn't that free up more space for the convention to "spread out" a bit? The RCA dome is attached to the convention center, so couldn't it be utilized as well?

 

Renting that stadium for anything would be prohibitively expensive, IMO. It would mean extra security, probably concessions, etcetera, all which add to the cost.

 

These sort of threads can go on forever.
I have been reading these sort of threads now for a few days and its all very well people saying it should go back to indy or stay in LA but seriously from my point of view flying over from the uk and many other other countries besides all over the US we like to make these trips abit of a vacation as we are not going to attend a convention for 5 days and simply come back home, the point I am trying to get at is I booked two weeks holiday at work for C3 beings it was my first trip to the US and what a mistake that was, there is nothing in Indy at all to do which I found shocking for a city, it actually got to the point where I considered in catching a early flight back.
Even if its a 10 1/2 hour flight from london to LA I simply do not care cause afterall I came away from LA with a feeling that theres more places I need to discover there.

 

Hope that means you had a good time in LA

 

If this is true then start saving your money because C5 WILL BE in LA.

You've got 2 years to save your money. (or 3?)