Oh, another problem that I heard repeated a bunch of time that should go on the "to be worked on for next year" list: Available food options.
Yes, Central Square is reasonably close and a lot of folks who know the area don't mind the trip. But a lot of fen don't like to walk perceived long distances especially when they aren't familiar with the area, even though they've spent all day walking around the convention. There's also plenty of folks who want to not have to leave because of the cold or the inconvenience of taking about 2 hours to go out for meals.
Perhaps similar to the "I climbed Mt Arisia" events, someone should have a couple "Walk to Lunch/Dinner" events. If it were someone with some experience of the area, it could become sort of a historical or docent style tour of some of the sights along the way. That would take the discomfort out of venturing out into unfamiliar territory. You walk to the destination area, talking about sights along the way, and when you arrive, you take a quick orientation stroll down the main street so you know what your options are, then everyone splits up and is expected to arrive back at a specified time. This tactic works really well for tour groups in foreign cities.
Perhaps another option would be seeing if a catering company would be interested in setting up a "restaurant" in one of the program rooms with boxed lunches offered or a couple dinner options. You could even have a panel going on as part of the meal event. People would probably have to pre-register and pre-pay for an event like this so the caterers could get a rough attendance count before the event. Still, it could be a real money-maker for the right caterer
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Yes, Central Square is reasonably close and a lot of folks who know the area don't mind the trip. But a lot of fen don't like to walk perceived long distances especially when they aren't familiar with the area, even though they've spent all day walking around the convention. There's also plenty of folks who want to not have to leave because of the cold or the inconvenience of taking about 2 hours to go out for meals.
Perhaps similar to the "I climbed Mt Arisia" events, someone should have a couple "Walk to Lunch/Dinner" events. If it were someone with some experience of the area, it could become sort of a historical or docent style tour of some of the sights along the way. That would take the discomfort out of venturing out into unfamiliar territory. You walk to the destination area, talking about sights along the way, and when you arrive, you take a quick orientation stroll down the main street so you know what your options are, then everyone splits up and is expected to arrive back at a specified time. This tactic works really well for tour groups in foreign cities.
Perhaps another option would be seeing if a catering company would be interested in setting up a "restaurant" in one of the program rooms with boxed lunches offered or a couple dinner options. You could even have a panel going on as part of the meal event. People would probably have to pre-register and pre-pay for an event like this so the caterers could get a rough attendance count before the event. Still, it could be a real money-maker for the right caterer