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Originally Posted by JSWolf
I might be able to make Arisia 2009. It's in a much more convenient location then 2008.
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I fail to see how it's in a more convenient location, since the main hotel is the same one as last year... (The Hyatt Cambridge)
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Also, Boskone 2009 is in a rather convenient location as well. Both locations mean I won't have to pay for a hotel as I can commute very easily.
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Being local always helps.
Arisia was in Boston proper for years at the Boston Park Plaza hotel, but got bumped a couple of years ago when the hotel got new a new owner, who though he could book something else that weekend that would bring in more revenue. He was wrong, and the hotel has been a ghost town the last couple of Arisia weekends.
Unfortunately, by the time it was clear Arisia would not get a new contract, time was limited to search for an new venue, and the curent location was the best at hand. It's required some compromises, since it's a smaller facility, and Arisia has had to implement a membership cap to fit, but the hotel staff has been the best I've dealt with in many years of doing this, and has bent over backward to accommodate the con.
Boskone has hotel issues, too. They had been in the Boston Sheraton, but were simply too small to make effective use of it. The new hotel is a better fit, but I've heard mixed reviews of the location.
Both are worth attending. I find Arisia to be more fun. After the "Boskone from Hell" some years back, which caused Boskone to lose its hotel, the sponsoring organization decied to radically downsize the con and move it partway across the state. Unfortunately, the way they chose to downsize caused a lot of hard feelings, and Arisia began as a response to it.
It tends to attract a younger audience, and has more activities based on gaming, LARPs, anime and the like than Boskone, but it's still essentially a literary con.
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Dennis