I know for NANOG the Bay Area is a big attendance draw but costs are also much higher compared to other venues. Jared Mauch > On Jan 5, 2016, at 11:19 AM, Ole Jacobsen <olejacobsen@xxxxxx> wrote: > > Speaking as the chair of said committee, no "maximizing meeting fee > income" is not and (at least in my opinion) should not be the primary > reason for selecting a venue. There *is* obviously some predictable > correlation between location and attendance number, for example if we > have a meeting in San Jose or San Francisco we would expect a larger > than average number of "locals" to attend because there are many of > them in that area. But it's not clear that such a peak in numbers > would benefit the IETF in the long run, in other words, it isn't clear > that such extra attendees would become regular contributors.