Why Blizzcon is held in Anaheim
Q u o t e:
I don't mean to cast aspersions upon your mundane response; but, there is no reason to d-escalate the topic into a flame-fest. The main idea is profound.
Since you are willing to discuss this reasonably I'm going to take the time to lay the logic of why they hold in Anaheim. I promise not to reduce myself to flaming you :)
Q u o t e:
Statistically the East Coast of the USA has a higher population than the West Coast. Proof can be found here: http://www.mapsofworld.com/usa/thematic-maps/usa-population-map.html . Using this data, one can extrapolate that the potential for player population would also be higher amongst the Eastern populace.
Your forgetting about all the other Blizzard players all over the world. Here's an image I found today :
http://static.arstechnica.com/04-20-2010/wowactivity.jpg
That's a visual representation of the people currently logged in all over the world at 10.49am office time
Blizzcon is open to any Blizzard subscriber not just the USA. Just because this is the North American region forums for the game does not mean only people from the Northern USA will be coming.
You have people flying in from the UK , France , Germany . Austria , Europe . Africa , China , Taiwan , Australia , NZ etc etc.
I have not seen any wow population figures to quote but I'm betting the total population served by World of Warcraft Europe would far outweigh your figures for people on the East Coast of America.
So realistically there isn't any place in the world they can hold it where it isn't going to disadvantage people from a certain Area.
You'll also have fans of the other games Blizzard puts out - Starcraft and Warcraft III are still huge in places like Korea and Taiwan. I'll imagine more then a few players from that side of the world would be wanting to come to find out more about other RTS games Blizzard may want to put out.
Q u o t e:
Constantly hosting events that alienate a large portion of the fan base is leaving a lot of loyal Blizzard customers feeling a bit superfluous when considering the whole picture. To us it seems all Blizzard cares about is our money and not our feelings. The OP even suggested that if an all out Blizzcon is not an option, to consider something smaller, yet still awe-inspiring.
Well that's where they had to make a decision.
You either hold multiple Blizzcons all over the world costing lord knows how much money. Or you hold one near your home base , keeping the costs low so the ticket price is fairly low so you can be fair to everyone.
There is a very very good reason they hold it in Anaheim.
Have a look at this map :
http://maps.google.co.nz/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=Ffu-AwIdBq34-Cl5B-WI3dfcgDGM5gLSjglTdg%3BFev5AQIdepj6-CnjQJFoDt3cgDE5mkpgdbV6pw&q=anaheim+convention+center+to+irvine+california&sll=33.835293,-117.914504&sspn=0.452292,0.453873&g=anaheim&ie=UTF8&z=12&saddr=anaheim+convention+center&daddr=irvine+california
Their offices are in Irvine , CA which according to my rough google map estimates is around 14 miles from the convention center. 22 mins or 40 mins away in traffic.
That's really close.
So close in fact that it's not unreasonable to assume that Blizzard don't have to put their employees going to Blizzcon up in hotels or pay transportation or flight costs. Most of them should be able to just drive to the convention center from home.
They won't have to pay for freight costs on the equipment either - they just find some truck and load it up in the back and drive over. All their employees also know the area which is another huge plus - they know where to go to obtain certain things so if emergencies come up they are better equipped with local knowledge to deal with it.
All this also means they can keep the ticket price down - I imagine if they held it on the east coast they would have to factor in their employee costs for transportation to the event , freight for the equipment , hotel costs ,costs to feed them and all the other costs inherent in holding it in a location not local for them they would have to make the tickets even more expensive :(
Oh and before you call me a local to Orange country think again my friend :)
I live in the sunny waikato in New Zealand. To come to Blizzcon this year I will be paying around $1,300 USD. To me you are lucky. All you have to do is pay for gas there or a plant ticket that might cost you $300 or a bus.
I meanwhile are going to have do some serious saving this year maybe even a bank loan in order to come :(