Why not, right?  Vegas is a great place to have a conference. 

I guess the question is, how is it that these cities get chosen year after year for the annual conference?  Well, we put up a giant map of the US and play "pin-the-tail-on-the-conference-city".  Just kidding. 

There is actually a fairly involved process to selecting the cities where we hold the annual conference.  The conference revolves around the country regionally - North Central, Western States, Gulf Coast, East Coast.  Cities are selected 5 or more years in advance.  In some cases that can mean the current staff and governing body may not have even had a part in selecting the current year's city or several future cities.

Obviously, the city must be able to accommodate the conference and be "located within a recognized APCO International US or International chapter affiliate."

APCO staff determines the top 3 most suitable of all bidding cities, notifies the chapters whose cities have been selected, compiles the list and then presents it to the Board of Officers and Executive Council.

Once the top 3 have been presented to the Board of Officers and the Executive Council the Executive council votes to determine which city becomes the next site for an Annual Conferece.

So there you have it...

And in case you are wondering, here are the next 6 years of future cities that the APCO International Annual Conference will be setting up camp...

2009 Las Vegas, NV
2010 Houston, TX
2011 Philadelphia, PA
2012 Minneapolis, MN
2013 Reno, NV
2014 New Orleans, LA

Get ready, we're headed to a city near you!!