I have always felt that the Lone Star Audio Fest (and the earlier Great Plains AF) did this right. A small organizing group makes an arrangement with a Hotel (Always Embassy Suites in these cases) for an appropriate rate, with a modest discount, and folks come. You do with your room as you wish within the hotels tolerance. In the LSAF case, you would remove or relocate some stuff like tables and desks in the sitting room, and set up your system, while using the bedroom and bathroom as your lodging. There needn't be any or much organized program, and individuals and commercial folks have rooms. You wander around, learn and enjoy. I have always felt this worked better for me than program or serial demo situations. I might well come up with a system (from 80 miles south of SF) for such an event. You get a couple of days of sharing to balance out the grief of tearing down and setting up twice, and the opportunities for comparison are ample.
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