GWC 1st Annual Nat'l Meetup: March 20-22, 2009 (Frisco, TX)

Want to hang with the GWC Crew and watch the BSG season 4.5 finale? Here’s your chance.

This thread will serve as ground zero for my planning of the Dallas, TX -based BSG season finale GWC meetup. I’ll set up more as time goes on, but obviously my plans are going to hinge signficantly on how many of you are interested in attending.

For example, if two or three people want to come, we can schedule a small watching somewhere. If ten want to come, I’ll find a venue. If twenty (yeah, right) want to come, I’ll figure out something bigger.

Some things we can plan for any size group – like some side trips, dinners, etc.

Anyway, to start, please PM me if you’re seriously considering making the trip. We’ll finalize the date once sci-fi does this for us, but right now it looks like they’re considering a mid-January launch, which means sometime in the March-April time frame for the finale.

More soon.

[b]UPDATE: We’ve set a date!

GWC First Annual National Meetup
[/b]March 20-22, 2009
Frisco, TX

Check later in this thread for ongoing planning, and please PM me when you book tickets so I can plan/re-plan for the correct attendance.

I’ve never been to Texas and think this would be a lot of fun. Due to the nature of my work, the dates are really important and we don’t have a finale date yet :\

That being said I’m interested in attending if the timing works out.

woot!
S

Based on factors like my university possibly eliminating some jobs and canceling pay raises for 2009, I might not be able to spare the coin… but if I can, I will SO be there.

I’ll be back living in Texas so I will definitely be there!

And your handle will be suddenly ironic.

IMDB shows a Jan 16th start date for season 4.5 and a March 20th date for the last episode:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0407362/episodes#season-4

Granted this could change but at least it gives everyone hope that it will start in January and end sometime before 2010 rolls in.

Oh and I am so going to be there. I’ll put in for vacation time in January for half of the months of March and April if I have to just to have the week of the finale off. I don’t know if the new company (old company got sold in Sept) will like that but tough. :slight_smile:

I am definitely interested. Should be doable, but till we see Scifi announce it I can’t be 100%. :smiley:

unfortunately i can’t do anything out of the nyc area for the finale…

but scifi has “officially” announced the air dates for season 4.5
here is a link to a site that has the official press release:
http://www.patriotresource.com/bg/articles/s4brelease.html

It says the premiere is on January 16th, and the series finale will air March 20th.

that makes room for 10 episodes, we can only hope that this “extra material” that they’ve been talking about will air as two-hour episodes…

or maybe skiffy is full of sorry barb

Flights for me to DFW from here are really, really expensive I am finding. Craaaaaap. I figured American was expensive but the ticket on this one would run almost $500.

Must think further about this one.

Ugh I dunno. I might road trip down there if I have someplace to crash for a night…=D

Yikes. $500 out of the airport near school.
$300 out of Bradley but it’s a drive down there anyways…

Maybe I’ll see about borrowing some frequent flier miles from my parental units :slight_smile:

I too am date senstive from a travel perspective…once we have a lock on a final date, I might consider a road (air) trip.

I’m not convinced that’s the correct airdate. We all know how Skiffy likes to draw things out and frak with us. I wouldn’t be surprised if there are at least a couple mini-hiatuses.

I wouldn’t buy any non-refundable plane tickets yet, but, surprisingly, Skiffy actually mentioned a finale airdate of March 20 in its press release:

http://www.scifi.com/scifiwire/index.php?category=0&id=61270

As for making it to the meetup, if it really is March 20, I might actually be able to. crosses fingers

okay, I’m in

All right!!!

Oh yeah, we’ve got about 4 months before we have to worry about airfare or whether to drive. That date could change but it should be posted somewhere before March anyhow if it does. No doubt airfare will change too before then.

Thanks so much, everyone, for showing real interest in this! I’m really looking forward to getting the chance to hang out with all of you in person – either again or for the first time!

Obviously we’re going to have to wait for SciFi to set a date for us to find out who’ll be able to swing time off from work and airfare/gas money. But in the meantime, a few thots:

  1. What if SciFi changes the date around – like they almost always do?

I think that once SciFi announces a serious date we should pick ours and stick to it – even if they move the finale. It’d be incredible if the two dates align, but if the out-of-towners are going to have any chance at all of securing airfare (and all the other arrangements required for a trip, from time off work to pet sitting, etc.) we’re going to have to give 'em at least a few months notice.

  1. What are we gonna do, just watch the finale?

Hells, no! I figure we’ll plan this as a Fri/Sat/Sun event lining up with the first-announced finale date. Once we set the date and have true RSVPs based on ticket/hotel purchases, I’ll set up a viewing (or a viewing of something else if SciFi screws us on the date between announcement and the event) appropriate to the size of the group. If it’s three or four people, you’ll get an intimate viewing somewhere fun. If it’s twenty, I’ll book some place, snag some gear, and put together a bigger showing. I’m pretty crafty that way. :slight_smile:

But I figure we’ll also plan a number of other GWCish events as well, plus some planned lunches and dinners so everyone gets an opportunity to hang out, get to know each other, and have a good time. Again, I’ll start figuring 'em out once we have dates and a rough number of people to work with. If it’s a small group, we’ll just hop in a car or two and go for it. If it’s a large group, I’ll plan the hell out of it. Either way, I imagine we’ll hit the 'coupla tourist sites here and have some good eats minimum.

  1. Where the hell would I fly into/stay?

If you’re already hitting Farecast, your airport of choice is DFW – Dallas Fort Worth International Airport. I’ll research hotels/etc. as we get closer, but I’m guessing we’ll likely suggest hotels in the Frisco, TX area. (There are about a hundred little “suburbs” jammed in/around/between Dallas and Fort Worth. Frisco is one of them, located on the north side of Dallas.) They’re building zillions of hotels up here, and with the economy the way it is, there’s going to be some killer deals.

Of course, as we get closer and I start locking down “to do” plans for the weekend, we might vary that. Either way, I’ll make sure you have some hotel options long enough to book way ahead. And hey – at least it’s not D*C. You’ll be fighting, like, three other people for hotel space in ten new hotels. :slight_smile:

  1. What the hell do we call this?

I propose that we treat this as something like Lebowskifest. The guys who started that did it because they really, really wanted to hang out with other people who enjoy The Big Lebowski. I figure we GWCers have at least as big a bond as that. Screw that – bigger! So I think we oughtta come up with a name for this, even if it’s only a couple of us getting together.

And remember: we’ll be the first.

Count me in ! Too bad there’s no definitive date indeed…I was looking at some one way air tix for $99.00 from Dallas to Boston and back !!

As for lodging, I have no prob sharing a room with someone cool as long as it’s a nonsmoker who doesn’t eat too much garlic.

Names for the event…hmmm…This begs for it’s own thread !!

“Coolerfest”
“ErfQuest”
“Craaaptacular”
“ArrgCon”
“Buckaroo’s Big Battlestar Bash”

???

Can’t Wait !!:smiley: