If you've never been to Austin, Texas you're in for a treat! Smoke some BBQ and get ready for some live music because Netroots Nation is taking over the capital of Texas July 17-20, 2008

Austin is an amazing town, full of great food, great progressives and good times. In addition to all that, we've got a fantastic venue for the first ever Netroots Nation.

There are many reasons that we choose Austin, personally, I was most compelled because the hotel rate was $25 better than the other city. But it also gives me piece of mind to know the venue can handle our technical needs because they host South by Southwest every year. Another great reason is that we have already been approached by people on the ground to help with organizing local volunteers (always a consideration for a convention that relies on getting 100+ volunteers, many of whom tend to be local to the area). Finally, Austin has everything that our audience asked for in our post-convention surveys this year. The rooms are cheap, the city is walkable, there are many food and accommodation options, and the meeting space is compact.

How did we wind up in the heart of Texas? Well come on in and I'll tell you a story...

The truth is that I arrived in Chicago for YearlyKos with a contract for a hotel in New Orleans.

In the weeks and months before YearlyKos I began working with INMEX to find a venue for the 2008 convention. INMEX is a company that was started by UNITE HERE to fill the need of a meeting planning company that helps organizations that believe in workers rights. They work with all kinds of organizations (such as the NAACP, Free Press, Teamsters and La Raza) that want to lend a little strength to the labor movement. They help to place conventions in venues that are union, or where that isn't possible, in venues that are strategically important to the labor movement.

But to back up a few steps to when we first starting looking at locations for 2008, at that time there was really only one location we considered, NoLa. There was strong netroots support to have the convention in New Orleans and as a board we wanted to go to New Orleans for all the obvious reasons.

We found what we thought would be a great venue for our convention in a hotel in New Orleans. That hotel was not union, but we couldn't ignore the overwhelming support that city enjoyed in our community.

The plan was to go over the '08 contract with the committee before, during or right after the convention, but we never found a time when one of us was not flying around some corner. But the problem with the NoLa venue arose during and immediately after our convention in Chicago because we realized it would be too small to hold our growing community. It was _way_ too small. There was simply no way to make the main panel room work. We thought about simulcasting the main ballroom events in other meeting rooms to accommodate our size and we thought about shoe-horning ourselves into the space... but neither of those would have honestly worked.

I have to admit, when i got back from Chicago and I opened up the contract to take a hard look at it, I was devastated when I realized it would not work. Devastated because I was so looking forward to being a very small part of rebuilding NoLa's brand as a meeting destination. Devastated because I knew the community wanted it so badly. And devastated because I knew we were starting back at square one.

Which we were. Still working through INMEX, we went back to New Orleans with the hopes of finding a venue that would be large enough for our convention.

Moving on from New Orleans, we expanded our search. It was now September and we were trying to book substantial convention with about a 10 month lead time, which is no small task. Since we've been trying to move the convention around geographically, we originally limited our search to the South and the Northeast. But on a whim we received an email and an invitation from the good folks down in Austin. Intrigued, we added them to our list of places to consider.

Three cities expressed strong interest in our convention, one of which was Austin. After ruling out one for outrageous hotel rates, I visited Austin and the other location. I reported back to the NN core committee and we decided on Austin.

Our one reservation is that this venue is not a union facility, which is traditionally has been a deal-breaker for us. However, we had been willing to part with that criteria to go to New Orleans and based on the other cities bidding on our convention, we felt this was the best option. There are only two union hotels in all of the state of Texas (one in Houston, one in Dallas) so if we were ever going to visit this former (and future) blue state, we would have to cross this bridge. Additionally, we are hopeful that we can help UNITE-HERE leverage our patronage of Austin as they try to organize a new hotel that is being planned for the downtown area.

Netroots Nation remains committed to the labor movement and we will continue to partner with INMEX as we plan future conferences. We're going to start looking at venues for 2009 and beyond as soon as the dust settles from this announcement. We're a lot bigger convention than we were back at The Riv in Vegas, and that has turning into a major criteria for finding a venue. We need about 40,000 square feet of space in our main room and a lot more than that in various configurations for the rest of the convention. Additionally, we need to find a venue that is in a great town, has affordable hotel rooms, and has some reasonable, walkable life around it.

If you've got questions or comments, drop them in the contact us form. Make sure you mark it lodging-travel and it will go right into my email box.

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