This topic comes up at least a few times every year. The big items to keep in mind in holding the main convention in a place other than Vegas is the convention space needed, the large number of available rooms, the room costs, and the travel costs.

There aren't that many venues that have 20,000 square feet of convention space, plus the rooms for a banquet, auction, trade, and meetings. Then there are the hotel rooms. Costs are usually higher per night such as Atlantic City. Don't forget the cheap air fares from anywhere in the country to fly into Vegas. Also don't forget the atmosphere in a sense that chip collectors can go to 80 plus casinos to get chips they need.

I go to shjows in Tunica, Biloxi, Chicago, Michigan, etc and enjoy them all, but none of those areas could handle our crowd at a reasonable cost. If I remember right, the Tunica show had room rates of about $100. Michigan casinos don't have hotels attached so attendees would have to stay a ways away, plus there are no convention facilities. The showroom in Biloxi a few years back was about 1/10th the size of the room we use for the banquet; good size for that show, but no where large enough for the main convention.

It's great to see people coming up with ideas on how we can improve but at this time we are pretty well limited to the Vegas area.

Just some muchies for thought.

Jim