Out of the success from the shortly planned WC2004 meeting, we knew EC2005 must happen. Many people have already shown great enthusiasm in participating in this meeting, including Jazzers all over the US and Canada, as well as maybe one or two from Europe. What we need to start doing now is to form a general idea of how we can pull this together. The purpose of this thread is to poll those of you who are thinking of joining so we can get some statistics to further work from.


Location
For the location, lets first start by tallying which states people could possibly make it to. Here's a general list of the NE US states around which we're considering: NH, VT, MA, NY, RI, CT, NJ, PA, DE, MD, DC, OH, MI, MN, IL, IN, plus ON and QC in Canada. If you can't make it to any of these, then it's probably not worth replying. And if you want, you can separate your list into 'likely' and 'less likely' categories for a little bit of detail.

Month
Next, this will be sometime during the summer, so when about in the summer might you be available? You can give this in general terms such as Early/Mid/Late June/July/August.

Days
Also, which days of the week would you prefer? If only the weekends would work for you, then you can say Sat-Sun. If only the first half of the week works for you, then you can say Sun-Wed. You can give the range of days you'd be available, and you can also give the number of days you'd like to stay around.

Activities
Now, what are we going to do? This is greatly open to suggestions. This could also depend on where the meeting ends up being, but for now try to give general ideas. Some possible ideas could be going to a theme park, wandering around some mall, going to tourist attractions or going sight-seeing, going to see a movie, going camping (like those crazy Europeans), having a picnic somewhere, having a LAN party, going bowling, or just hanging out somewhere where we can chat and goof off or whatever.

Funds
What we decide to do depends somewhat on if you're able to pay for it. So just in general terms, how much do you think you could afford beyond your own traveling and lodging costs that would allow you to participate in whatever activities that could cost money. Could you pay to see a movie? Go to a theme park? Help put together a LAN party?


So, if you could just answer those questions if you're thinking of joining, that should help us plan further. Also if you have any other suggestions as to what we should be polling, bring them up now.

Location
New York or Ontario. Ontario gets my official vote. If it loses, transfer my vote to New York.

Month
No idea. I know at least some of the summer I'll be unavailable.

Days
No way in hell am I going on a trip that costs more than 1000 bucks and only stay 2 days. Mon-Fri.

Activities
Depends on city. A LAN party would rule, but I somehow get the feeling that won't happen.

Funds
I'd bascially have to travel across the whole continent. In other words, expensive. So depend on other people for extra funds. Assuming I even can afford to go.

Location
I'm in OH, but I have no preference to what state it is in. We'll get to that later, I imagine. For now I consider any state or province within reason as long as it is actually east of where I am (excluding Chicago).

Month
I will likely be most busy during June, so any time in July or August is the best bet.

Days
Weekends would be optimal. If I could choose, maybe Thursday-Sunday or Thursday-Monday. Weekdays aren't that good but I suppose if all else fails I can just take them all off work.

Activities
I think we should stay in or very close to a major city where there will be lots of activities to do nearby. All of the things you mentioned sound great but camping might be more of hassle than just going to a cheap hotel. Amusement parks would be great but that shouldn't be the focus except for maybe 1 day. Something like swimming would be cool too but more difficult to arrange in relation to location. Another fun thing would be a concert, but it would be hard to pick something everyone likes.

Funds
I am pretty confident I'll be able to pay for any random activities in addition to lodging and transportation. Movies, bowling, arcades, food, whatever. Maybe we could consider bring our own food to some extent so we wouldn't have to eat out. If everyone brought something or bought something there and we shared at the hotel it may save some monies for people without a lot of waste.

Le fin.

Location
All of the locations are equally workable for me. But really, none are better than NY or ON. I'd prefer ON though. Same as Mike, more or less.

Month
I think we should shoot for late summer to get the most people. Not too late though. WC2004 missed some people due to school. I would say Early August would be the best time.

Days
I think this definitely needs to be a 4-day thing for the "main events". Maybe have people arrive on Sunday, get things going Monday-Thursday, then leave on Friday. If there's a lot of demand for it, 5 days would be good too, but almost a bit excessive.

Activities
I think we shouldn't try to repeat the same things we did at WC2004, though a theme park would be great. Tick was suggesting a concert, and I think that idea would be good too. Or a movie, or bowling. A LAN party would be amazing, but hard to organize. I'd support it if enough people want it though.

Funds
I have no idea how much this trip will cost me, so this is up in the air. Definitely at least a few bucks though. We'll see.

Location
Ontario or New York would be fine with me.

Month
June-August

Days
4-5 would be good

Activities
Probably depends on where we're going, but perhaps a movie if there is a cheap theatre around or something

Funds
Extra funding might be nice... or someone with the knowledge on how to get a very very cheap flight

Location
I'll be flying from the other side of the country anyway, so each state is just about equally accessable. I could probably make it inside Canada as well.

Month
Right now, any month.

Days
Any days of the week also work. As for the duration, I think I could go for about 3-5 full days.

Activities
I actually think it'd be cool if we could just spend a lot of time hanging around somewhere, chatting, playing games, watching movies. This sort of requires a good place to do such a thing though. A small motel room doesn't really work too well. I actually don't care much for theme parks, but I'd probably go anyway. Sight-seeing, mall wandering, movie watching, bowling, those are all pretty much fine with me. I'm not much of a concert goer, so I'm not sure about that. And a LAN party would be great, but I think that'll depend mostly on whether or not people have the funds for it.

Funds
Just getting there will be a lot for me, but I'll probably have enough money for most other activities.. somehow (I hope).

Location
Ontario, then NY. Lovely how everyone else also seems to want that. Depending on where things are I might be able to house a person or two if in the NYC area.

Month
Can't be certain about anything.. but it'd have to be sometime in june/july/august obviously..

Days
3-4 days including a saturday and sunday sounds good..

Activities
All/any of the above? I can't think of anything else to add right now

Funds
Transportation will be a fair bit more than any other costs, so if I can go, I'd be able to fend for myself.

Location
NY/NJ area (close to NYC) would be best for me since traveling very far would be hard for me. I might be able to house a few people for a few days if in the NYC area.

Month
Not sure right now.

Days
Over the weekend or extending a little past that would be best for me.

Activities
We would need to have a JJ2 LAN party of course.

Funds
Seeing as how I'm in college I won't be able to spend too much money for this.

Okay, I may be going on a limb here by choosing something not in the location, but things might work out.

Location
Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Specifically, the Eastside of the city.

Month
Late June - Early July

Days
June 30th to July 10th.

Activities
I can't hold to myself the joy of Summerfest any longer. Summerfest is an 11-day festival of music, games, and culture. I'd almost guarentee that there is something for everyone at Summerfest, may it be a trinket shop or a major artist playing at the Marcus. For example, Last year in one say I saw Dropbox, Motion City Soundtrack, Dark Star Orchestra, and Lewis Black. Rock, Emo, Prog, and Comedy. I'm sure that I just appealed to maybe half the community with that statement there.

Funds
Once again, depends on the day that we go. Usually they have freebies if you have certain items, but if we go between 10AM-Noon on Children's Fest, admission to the ENTIRE PARK is absolutely free. And if people want to see the band(s) at the Marcus, They give out wristbands to people that show up before Noon, or before they run out of bands, whichever comes first.
So, all you'd really need is money for food and shopping. Bring what you want, but I reccomend at least 20$ for lunch and dinner.

See? A very efficent, entertaining, and wallet-friendly idea. And Milwaukee is just 2 hours away from Chicago, so it's not that big of a jump from the origional suggestion of IL in the "Where" category.

I'm interested in this.

Location
Ontario or Quebec would be best, because I'm going to be in Ontario and Quebec in early July. If it's not in early July, any place is probably fine though Canada would be cheaper for me.

Month
As I said, early July would be best for me if it's in Ontario, but other than that it wouldn't matter.

Days
3-5 days is fine. If it's combined with a family vacation I may not be able to stay for the whole thing though. I think it would be better during the week if we go to any attractions (e.g. theme park) because it will be less busy, but other than that it shouldn't matter.

Activities
I like basically everything that has been suggested so far. Going camping might be hard because taking camping supplies on an airplane is difficult. I'm also not a concert-goer, but if that's something everyone else wants to do it would be okay. I'll also suggest going to an arcade, and laserquest\lasertag. A JJ2 LAN party would be good as long as there are enough computers.

Funds
I can save on travel costs if this takes place in Ontario in early July, but if it doesn't it will probably be my parents paying anyway. Other than travel\lodging I can afford a reasonable amount, and less in the US.

Location
NYC or any state near MA would be cool.

Month
June/July/Early August

Days
I'd probably prefer weekend.

Activities
JJ2 LAN party! Heh, JJ2 would be the only game I'd be able to play on my old laptop, though.

Funds
It would be awesome if some people were able to provide lodging, and someone could have a LAN party at their house...I imagine that would make both those things a lot cheaper. (How much would getting space for a LAN party cost otherwise?) If not I could still pay for transportation & staying at a hotel and cover my expenses for things like going to see a movie or bowling and so forth.

I also posted this at the JJ2 LJ Community.

This response came from VeggieMan

Location:

Canada. Where in Canada? Ontario. Right down to Toronto. I've always been saying come to Toronto. Why? Simple.

1. American dollar is worth more then the Canadian. It's cheaper for Americans to travel here. Thus, for the Canadians it's less expensive then going to America.

2. Easier for Americans to come into Canada vs. Canadians trying to get into America.

3. Toronto is a city of 3 million. Lots to do. I know the city very well since I live here. Crap loads of activities to do. Anything you can think of they probably have here. Theme park? Yup, movies, malls, sports, Hockey Hall of Fame, CN Tower, Downtown Toronto, bars, clubs, etc. etc. Travel around the city is simple with public transit (TTC) the subway system. Because I'm from Toronto I can take everyone around and make sure no goes to the "bad" areas or whatever.

Also, as for activities and having an LAN in Toronto. That's easy we could all go to one of the many cyber cafes or just everyone bring laptops and I can set up a LAN at my place no problem. I already have 3 coms that can run jj2 no problem. My router will hold wireless connections and wired. If we have too many wired I have a switch I can link to the router for another 5 ports.

Why would I rather it be here? Probably because I won't be able to go unless it's in my city. I have to work all summer and getting enough time off isn't really an option. Working around my work scheduale is more likely. Plus, I think I am doing summer school again this summer.

So for me personally Toronto is better. If it's not in the Toronto the chances of me being able to go are pretty slim, but keep me posted because I may be able to make it.

Month:

Meh, doesn't matter at this point. I will be working I just don't know how much and when. So probably mid-summer or end of Aug. It's all the same to me.

Days:

Again probably weekends again.. I don't know too far into the future to really know a work/school schedual right now.

Activities:

Get drunk. I mean see what I wrote in location.

Funds:

I am a university student. I am poor. Having the thing in Toronto means I can afford it. Having out of Toronto means I probably can't. The costs I am worried about are travel and hotel. The other costs like buying beer. Not a problem.

And in the spirit of Veggie's response, the drinking age is lower here.. er.. there ()

*back in Canada in 7 days*

Scratch me off the list i won't be able to make it.
Xion's idea is great by the way.
Have fun.

There's a few of us in New Hampshire, (me, Ducky, Sh4dow), I know that Paul's in Mass, which isn't far, and there are a bunch in New York State, so I say New England. I get home from college in June, return in August, so any time within there. I have no money, so we should just do some thing like a LAN party where we could all just chill together. (However, if we did do it in Canada we could get a keg! ) Anyway, most of us are broke and younger, so it can't be too expensive. Anyway, those are just my thoughts...

Blackie

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeepieieiieiei hugs <3 <3 <3 !!! I miss youu ;_;;;;;

:D You are all so awesome.

Location: I really don't know what's best, I havn't traveled. I've only been close to home. I guess the easiest for me would be PA , NJ (of course. ;P) NY too. :) But I want to see all the other states and Canada. I don't know if it would work out. x.x

Month: Any month in the summer would be Ok. :)

Days: I guess a weekend would be better.

Activities: I really don't think it would matter what we did..I mean being together would just be amazing. Lan party, sightseeing...everything sounds good. :)

Funds: Wouldn't be what I'm be worried about..actually getting there would be. x.x

Take care. :)

Location
I'm biased, because I grew up here, but I would strongly recommend Boston. It's an easier version of New York without the psychos, it's got just as much stuff to do, and I know my way around :P

Month
My best time would be in August, but obviously before the 15th for all of those people at uni. And we can't coincide this with the UK2005.

Days I can do anything, pretty much. I will most likely have quit my job by August, but if not, Friday-Monday would be the best for me.

Activities
If we go to Boston(or even New York, which I'm not partial to, and I'm not familiar with Canada) there is loads of stuff to do- pretty much anything we could want. However, I think Bobby said it before- I would be thrilled to pieces about a JJ2 LAN. (Finding the machines is another question, as I doubt those flying want to pay for an extra seat for their towers ;P) But in all honesty, I'm just psyched about seeing everyone and getting to hang out and get to know each other. (And I don't think we should do things like movies because then we don't talk.)

Funds
I would be willing to shell out as much as $100 on messing about(ie, not counting rooms and the like.). If some other's funds needed help, I would do that too.
(Regarding what Turtleslayer said about lodging, etc? That would rock my socks, too, because hotels really break the bank. It's a shame the enormous, EMPTY mansion my dad owns is in New Hampshire, or I would offer that up for everyone to stay in. (Unless you want to commute the 3 hours to Boston or Canada or the 6 to New York.)


Anyway, I've meant to post on here a lot sooner then I have.
Since I'm one of the few actual East Coasters, I'm willing to work a lot harder on this in terms of planning and strategizing and basically putting the thing together. I'll try and be around some more to talk about this.

Yay.
`Ducky

I don't suppose there's stuff we could do around New Hampshire, is there? :P

Not unless you're a dendrophiliac. We could go cow tipping.

(I was pretty much being facetious about the cruel irony, is all.)

Oh well. But really, having some place where we could comfortably hang out and chat or whatever, would be quite desireable. Ten people in a motel room is rather crowded. If we stayed at a hotel with a nice lobby, would that work? Having someone's house to hang out in would be great, but having to shuttle people between there and wherever people are staying wouldn't be so great. Does anybody have any ideas about this?

I'm up for cow tipping!

Honestly, for those that suggest NYC, I have to ask where? It's an awful big city afterall. Granted I haven't been all over NYC, but I have been to Manhattan, part of the Bronx, and I drove through Queens once.

Manhattan would be the best place to stay, but it's frickin' expensive! Last year I stayed at the doubletree on 47th street and it was well over $100/night with taxes. I think I ended up paying ~$1500 for the week I stayed there. Work reimbursed me for it all, but it was still expensive. Not to mention just about anyplace you go costs a bundle, even for food or whatever.

When I was in the Bronx, that just scared me. We had to go to a school there and it had bars over all of the windows, and a chain link fence around the schoolyard that had to be at least 10 feet tall. Maybe even taller. There was graffiti everywhere. I'm not saying that all of the Bronx is like this, but this part sure made me wish that I had a bullet proof vest. Queens didn't seem quite as bad, but it did seem packed and dirty to me. Not a place I'd be overly interested in visiting.

Personally I'd like to go to Ontario if anyplace. Maybe around Niagara Falls, since it's right next to the border. But I haven't been to Toronto since the 80's, so that would be nice too. NY state isn't bad since it's convient for me but that's not a big deal. And of course there's always ohio. I've met up with CaptainSpam every year for the past few years there. :-)

Location
Ontario, preferably Toronto

Month
Early July, anything else probably won't work.

Days
2-3 days.

Activities
Practically anything would be fine with me, I just don't think camping would be such a good idea.

Funds
Nothing mayor expensive, I know that Theme Parks usually are pretty expensive but I think that'll be allright. As long as we dont do that and something else expensive.
And if it was to be held in Toronto, well I'll be having to pass by there anyways, so that's fine, since EF will pay for my flight

I might be in, anyways heres my list-
Location:
Currently, I dont care.
Month:
Anytime not in august (they keep pushing up the skool(yes, skool) starting date and I dont know the exact date till after may.)
Days:
2-4 days.
Activities:
Anything but camping is alright with me. A LAN party would be really cool.
Funds:
I'm 14 and I'm workless, whoop-dee-doo. But I think if my parents pay for the transportation and lodgings, I can probally scrounge up 100-150$ for stuff by summer if I save some of my money.

Location
MA, CT, or NY are all good for me cause I can only really drive.. speaking of which.. what are we talking about?

Month
Dont matter, prob in summer.

Days
Any

Activities
LAN

Funds
I'd put down as much as was needed maybe. :-p

Hey, quick suggestion.

I know a lot of us are pressed for funds, and this might not sound like such a peachy idea to those of us who would rather we each fend for ourselves. When my friends and I go out to eat, we always just chip in what we can, and it doesn't really matter if one person can only put in a few dollars and someone else puts in ten.

What I'm saying is, once we get to our location(read: we need to pay for ourselves to get there & home), suppose we put together like a communal fund? We'd each donate what we could towards the group's activities during the meet. I mean, maybe some of us could only give like $50 or something, but we would just use the fund for doing whatever partying it is we wanted to. That way, if someone couldn't afford something, we wouldn't all have to screw that plan, they'd just take from the soup kitchen.

Yes thank you bye.

Location: Toronto or Niagra Falls, Ontario

Month: Any time during the summer

Days: Any

Activities: Anything, (Orgies would be nice)

Funds: Anything below one million, perhaps?

I was talking with iCeD last night about getting the next phase started. We want to get a final tally on where and when. Before we just go with the general consensus of this first phase, I want to start gathering details on possible locations. That way the final decision on a location can be directed by the details of the possible locations, rather than being stuck with trying to find stuff for a single location.

This is where you can contribute. You can help us by finding stuff such as places to stay, how much they cost, how well they can accomidate a group of our size (about 20 people), how good transportation around the area is, how much transportation costs, how far it is to possible attractions that we would be interested in, what kind of places would be nearby that we could go to to easily find food to eat or have some place to wander around in case people get bored, etc. Since there has already been a general consensus for either Toronto or New York, it'd be best to concentrate your search around those areas -- however, if you happen to find another place not too far off that happens to have everything we're looking for, plus it's cheaper or something, then mention that too so we can put that up for the final consideration.

As for the dates, early August is sounding the best, possibly right at the end of July. Also, there have been voices for both the weekend and weekdays, so the best solution would probably be to include both a full weekend, and extend into the week. People seem to be thinking it should be at least 5 or 6 days long to make the trip worth it, so getting in both a weekend and weekdays wouldn't be hard. Remember that you don't have to be there for the entire duration. (But we probably would like you to be .)

Also I kind of like Ducky's idea.

im 14 and don't know anybody here, so i guess i'll just look towards going to a year 2010 US meetingthing or w/e. if they'll still happen by then, otherwise i really would like to go. BTW, i think Ducky's idea is reallly goood!

Also, for those who would care, the drinking age is lower in Canada. ;-)

Originally Posted by Brian

Also, for those who would care, the drinking age is lower in Canada.

Originally Posted by Ice M A N

And in the spirit of Veggie's response, the drinking age is lower here.. er.. there ( )

I take it drinking might be one of the popular activities.

Ahh, I didn't even notice that in the previous post. Not like it matters to me given I can drink in either country.

I'm not much into drinking myself. It's too expensive for what you get out of it.

Have there been any developments?

Axie made a good overview of things to do in Toronto in the JJ2 community LiveJournal. See here. I've done a little bit of searching on hotels in Toronto at hotels.com, and nightly room rates seem to be about $100-$200 (USD I think).

As for the NYC area, nobody has pulled together any details. So if you want the meeting to be there, you better start getting some info together for us. :P

If you want to try gathering some information, but don't know where to start, try looking up city web site. For example:
http://www.nycvisit.com/content/index.cfm?pagePkey=1
http://www.city.toronto.on.ca/visitors/index.htm

Something that would probably help us would be to have some of you call various hotels and ask them how well they could accomodate us. Sure, 20 people may not be a lot for a hotel, but it is a much larger group than they would normally get all together. For convenience (and possibly the sanity of others in the hotel), we'll probably want to stay close together within the hotel. We'll also want to know if we can get one larger room where we could possibly fit more people into. Also, if not for the number of people we'll have, at least for the duration, there might be some discounts we could get, but we'd need to know about them first. So some of you should take a little time to call around. If you need more details, feel free to ask me.

Velk also made a post in the JJ2 LJ concerning rooming arangements and activities that people should probably think about and post on. Post here.

I can see people are interested in this, as am I, but this meeting isn't going to plan itself (unfortunately). iCeD and I try to keep things moving because we're interested in this just as you are, but we can't plan this by ourselves. (You probably wouldn't want us to.) The reason WC2004 planning went so well was becase we had several people working on the planning, including a few people who actually knew the area we were going to be in. I have never visited either New York City or Toronto, but I know there are people who have, and it's those of you who could really be helping out.

I also have a feeling that those people aren't paying attention to either this thread or the JJ2 LJ, so something else you could do is talk to people about EC2005. Especially those who have expressed interest in comming, but haven't been posting comments. Then report back here or here so we can all know what's been talked about.

Location
Toronto - Seems like this is being more fleshed out and tangible, not to mention a grand Canadian experience for all.

Month
June - early August. The last EC went right into school. You can't have a parent approve for you to miss school like that for Canadian drinking.

Days
3-5 days is awesome. I really don't think we'll run out of things to do.

Activities
LAN party has my vote. My laptop can't run much, but at the very least, jj2. And I might even have my desktop for other games. We'll have to have other games just in case and for the fun that just isn't found sometimes.

Funds
EH... sorry, mostly fending for myself off... relatives ;O.

Although there is a small chance I could go to an EC2005, will there also be a WC2005? If not, I'm willing to do some of the planning for it ;p
(I really don't know anything about the east coast, so I'm kind of useless here)

EC2005 is THE north american meeting, like WC2004 was the only one for 2004.

There's been more chat about what days we'll have it on. Personally for me I want to lose as few vacation days of work as I can. I think anyone else who works during the week but not weekends would agree. In this case I think it'd be best if it started on or a little before a weekend. Then it would continue on into the next week, say, to Wednesday. People can leave whenever they want too, but that would give about a week.