I would have added a bit of International love and include into the mix Niagara Falls Canada.

It has the convention space/hotel rooms is within a 10 hour drive of 40% of the population of North America.

Not only that, Americans currently would have a 40% discount on everything due to the exchange rate!
 

Not disbelieving, just surprised. Last time I was there was...really a long time ago. Early 90s.

3rd benefit: we could all get our fill of Lime Crush.

Niagara Falls has really built up over the past 25 years.  I know that they have hosted events around to 40k mark.  I'm not sure if they have the room capacity within walking distance for beyond that.  However, there sure would be within a 15 minute drive.  If they were striving for a second event, this would make a great location.  I don't think it would work as a replacement for the main convention.  Though it is a tourist city, it would have the same issues we currently feel in Indy - just not as smelly!

As for Lime Crush, I would have to get you some.  It is more common in the maritimes and a little hard to find in Ontario :)

I still have some Lime Crush horded away from a while ago--it's new forums and new usernames, but you might even be the same Kevin from Canada who brought me some at Gen Con :)

Hey Brotherbock,

I did bring a care package of Lime Crush to GenCon a few years ago.  I dropped it off to a booth in the dealer hall.  

That was a few years ago - I hope it doesn't have an expiry date :)
 

As far as restaurants go, we got into Weber Grill and Tilted Kilt pretty easily in 2014, waiting less than 30 minutes each time. But we went at off hours. This mirrors our strategy for Disney World.

Additionally, we usually eat most of our meals at the food trucks. Whoever is responsible for getting those trucks is a genius. Sometimes you can wait a long time if you really want the popular truck at a popular time, but if you don't have the time or inclination, there are tons of other choices.  Last year we weren't planning to go to Gen Con but decided to drive over (90 minutes) for a day to eat a couple food truck meals and ending up buying more games than we did during the whole 2014 convention.

There's a sell by date, but anything that unnaturally green will never go bad. Still tastes good. 

I like the East coast options, but I live 1/2 hr outside of Baltimore.  There are plenty of places in the metropolitan area that people would consider "Baltimore" that are actually outside the city itself which would be much cheaper.  I don't know about the other cities, but the inner harbor area of Baltimore hotels run in excess of 450.00 a night.  But I'm sure there's a bulk discount that Gen Con would get.

I don't see taking my family cross country for a four day con, paying 1500.00 in airfare and hotels, then add food, and like dreamitdoit says, buying lots of games :)

We had 80 degree days in Baltimore this week.  But of course 2 years ago this time there was 2" of snow everywhere.

For example, the Towson Area of Baltimore county (10min from the inner harbor) hosted the Macabi games several years ago.  Made me lots of overtime blocking roads :) but it was an event that used 4 of the 7 college campuses  in the area and you could drive to each one in less than 10 min.  Plenty of free parking also.  Both Towson University and Goucher College have very large arenas / convention spaces that could be used to host various events.  Our County Exec loves getting stuff like this to come here (tax breaks galore !!!!)

The problem with suburb/outlier areas is, you need somewhere that has a lot of hotels next to each other.  Hunt Valley (at the north end of the light rail system) has a Marriott that hosted the World Boardgaming Championships (what Avaloncon became after Avalon Hill went out of business), but I don't think there are any other hotels in the vicinity; it's pretty much in the middle of a business park, although there is a shopping center nearby.
 

Niagara Falls is a great idea!  Though for a bigger Gen Con The MTCC in toronto might work for space and housing.

Perhaps I missed it - but were the results of the survey posted?

Did Gencon post how they are leaning after they read the survey results?

Inquiring minds wanna know........................

Nope, and nope. :)

I would say though, that regardless of the survey results, that's just one thing to be considered among many things that would have to be considered in this issue.

I go to Shore Leave and Far Point on a regular basis, both of which have been held there for many years, although Far Point is at the....uh, is it a Crowne Plaza now?

Anyhow, to be honest, I do not think anything close to a Gen Con could happen in the Hunt Valley area.  There's pretty good convention space in that Hunt Valley....uh, I almost called it a Mariott, I think it's a Wyndham now?  Anyhow, the space in there is good, for a convention of about 2K.  Can you imagine how insane that hallway would be from the Escalators over to Frank and Vinnies for a crowd the size of Gen Con?  That space just can't handle a crowd much bigger than Shore Leave really.

And you've got the main hotel, and you could walk across the street from the Embassy, and that's it.  There's other hotels there, but they are not walkable.

And the parking is not enough. I actually got so angry at an RV parked sideways in the parking lot last year, that I posted about it on Shore Leave's FB.  There's not enough parking there.

I mean, I guess you could have it at the fairgounds, but that doesn't have any walkable hotels, with the possible exception of that Crowne Plaza that Farpoint is at.  And that would be quite a walk.

I just don't think that's a viable location in teems of space and hotel rooms.

Some sarcasm here, but how's about we take over Norfolk naval base..  4 carriers, all those destroyers and buildings/barracks..  That would work to house everyone!

"Towson and UMBC have experience in hosting gaming conventions, having hosted Origins in 1985 and 1987.  (The Inner Harbor hotels have hosted as well, in 1991.)"

What this says is that 3 Decades ago when Origins was a much smaller convention that migrated to different cities, it was hosted in the Baltimore area.  You can't seriously think that anyone with any "institutional knowledge" related to running these game conventions is present at any of these venues after 3 decades.  Even if they were, is knowlege related to running a game convention 30 years ago all that applicable to running the type of convention that Gen Con has evolved into.