A Moveable Feast

At our annual CCCC convention, we typically register 3000-3500 people. While most of those registrations take place in advance of the convention, quite a large number of registrations take place on-site. This probably means that while long-term members register in advance, people near convention cities attend because it’s a big convention that’s close.

We have felt, therefore, that keeping the convention moving every year increases access, on average, to all attendees. Depending on where you live, two-thirds of the time the convention city ought to be no further than one airline hop (or, if you’re so inclined, a reasonable drive). Unfortunately, the other third of the time, you may have quite a commute. We’ll talk about this in later blog posts, but the available of travel moneys is a major factor in enabling members to attend the conference. The other economic factor is the cost of housing. Actual registration costs represent a miniscule portion of a member’s convention budget.

There may be alternative meeting structures that can mitigate those costs to our members, and it’s worth exploring those alternatives. But I also think the bell will not toll for face-to-face meetings any time soon, as too many of us value the camaraderie, collaboration, and improvisation between members as we share ideas, argue with each other, and work through the issues of our discipline in real time.

While the C’s held its first conventions in the 50s in the Midwest or New York City, we have been moving around ever since the 60’s, generally in a pattern like this: East, Central, West, Central, East, Central, and so on…. After this year in Houston, the sun also rises on our future meetings as they go west to Portland (2017), then central Kansas City (2018), then east Pittsburgh (2019), then central Milwaukee (2020). We are set to choose the west city for 2021 in the next few months.

For your visual enjoyment, here’s a map of all our conventions. Single red dots are cities that have hosted only one meeting. Darker red dots with numbers indicate cities that have hosted us multiple times. Green dots are the future meetings. As you can see, Chicago holds the record with 10 conventions, followed by St. Louis and New York with 5, and Minneapolis and San Francisco with 4.

Map of Conventions

2 thoughts on “A Moveable Feast

  1. > The other economic factor is the cost of housing. Actual registration costs represent a miniscule portion of a member’s convention budget.

    With the advent of Southwest airlines, etc, maybe this is an argument for second cities. E.g., housing (& food!) in Baltimore is way less expensive than DC or NYC. BWI airport is 20 minutes by taxi or Marc train from center city. Can you tell where I live?

    The counter argument is that second cities have lower concentrations of “I can drive there cheap” CCCC folks surrounding them. But Baltimore’s location could be a model. It’s not that far from George Mason Universiity (1.5 hours in bad traffic?) and 3 hours by car from NYC (same by less cheap train).

    Maybe look at similar cities near San Francisco. Providence, RI is only 60 minutes from Boston by car and 4 hours from NYC by cheap train (2.5 hours by accela).

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