It's not difficult at all. The person who's organizing it simply chooses a restaurant that will be able to accomodate the group, and makes a reservation. People will come if:

(1) The restaurant is mainstream enough that the cuisine choice doesn't turn a lot of people off, not so expensive that it is unaffordable for most people, and located centrally enough so that it's not a long trip to get there.

(2) People have been given enough advance notice (a month is best) to be able to plan for it, and it's on a night when a lot of people can make it (i.e., a weekend is best).

(3) There haven't been so many other FlyerTalk events recently that people feel saturated.

The difficulties come in when no one has stepped in to organize (I think this was the case last week, when EPS ended up being the de facto organizer but very late in the game), also when there is not enough advance notice (I didn't hear about the even until a coule of days before it happened, when ChanelCinq e-mailed me). In addition, we have been having a lot of events here in SF of late (i.e., squeakr's dinner in honor of mjm, dinner with spiff) so enthusiasm might be a little down.

So many FlyerTalkers from out of town come in and out of San Francisco that it is difficult to entertain everyone! That does not mean we are standoffish here or difficult - actually, it's a really nice group. But it can be difficult to get groups together on the spur of the moment!

It was ChanelCinq's event. I wasn't party to much of the behind-the-scenes discussion, and there was little I could do to salvage things at the last minute. The Right Thing probably would have been meeting for dinner in the East Bay, but I was still laboring under the assumption we were trying for something in San Francisco proper.

I'm hoping, perhaps foolishly, that it's possible to achieve some sort of consensus rather than resorting to management by fiat. I agree, more lead time would have helped immensely.

>>I'm hoping, perhaps foolishly, that it's possible to achieve some sort of consensus rather than resorting to management by fiat.

After organizing a few of these, I'm firmly of the opinion that consensus on a restaurant is next to impossible. Trying to get 20 or 30 (or even 8) San Franciscans to agree on a restaurant is torture. Others who have organized such events have concurred with me privately.

For me, the most important thing is that we have a place where people can get together, have an affordable and pretty good meal, have conversation, and hang out with one another. There are so many good restaurants in the City - why get stuck in a big debate about which one we end up at?

I probably should have left everything in Goldlust's original thread. But he had 4 cities mentioned and I thought SF would get lost.

EPS you were part of all the emails just not the phone calls. It was Goldlust's idea to stay in Concorde. I had no intention of driving to Concorde. I think he was hoping more people would join in but it was last minute.

Also we met for coffee in Burlingame the evening they flew in. Goldlust had met you, EPS, in YVR. I am speculating but maybe he wanted to meet new faces.

Anyway, dgolds you want to plan the next diner? Sounds like you have this down to a science.

Almost time for Rudi to be heading back this way

Hello all

Wow. The last few posts here seem to be an internal SFO discussion on hosting events

I can tell you all that I had a very pleasent stay in SFO. Of course I regret that I failed in meeting the people I know like EPS, dgolds, Horizon as well as some new folks. However, that is entirely my own fault since I announced my visit to your wonderful city so late.

On a side note we (me, Tom911 and my friend) did have a very nice dinner on Saturday. Too bad I couldn't meat more of you and have you sign my "Goldlust visits USA" paper. Well, not to worry, I will see you again sooner than one might think.