<font size="2" face="arial">Please note, while my tone my sound a bit flamish, I mean everything in a sincere way, and Im not out to get anyone, or flame anyone.
Broken record time for me:
I have a hard time understanding peoples arguments that Indy is a bad location to hold C3, based on geography alone (not taking into hand other possible circumstances).
Now I understand, that regardless of where it is, people are going to complain. Unless they hold Celebration III in the backyards of every star wars fan in the world, people will complain.
Now, I wont get into the whole facilities argument, or anything else, but it just bugs me that people are complaining about Indiananapolis not being the best place to hold it, geographically speaking.
Indiana isn't called the crossroads of America for nothing! The facts are:
Indianapolis is a days drive from approximately 2/3 the population of the US.
Indianapolis has the most interstates bisecting it.
For those two reasons alone, Indianapolis is geographically a better choice than 99% of the rest of the cities in the US. Mind you, that is only geographically speaking.
Im not defending Indy because Im from there, Im defending the fact that it is indeed the most geographically accessible city in the US. If they announced tomorrow that C3 was in San Diego, I would go. Heck, if they announced it was in London, Id go! I don't care in the least bit where it is, its what they have to offer that matters to me.
And to breach the other arguments: Like it was mentioned above, the convention center has a LOT more room than was used for C2. While I cant give an exact square footage of extra space, I can say there are at least two other large exhibit halls, and many other rooms and ballrooms. Also look at the fact that, no matter how big a place is, if you dont use the space well, it still wont work. My two issues: the book giveaway and the computer section. Both of these too an enormous amount of room, and each of them could have been placed in smaller halls or ballrooms.
I guess my point boils down to one simple idea: Blame Indy all you want, but 90% of the problems arose from bad planning on WOTC's part, and not because of the convention center, or Indy itself.