OFC/NFOEC Bids Goodbye to San Diego

OFC/NFOEC goers who fell in love with San Diego might want to skip this story.

Go on, look at our photos from 2008 (in two parts) and 2010. Nice place, isn't it?

Now, for everyone else...

OFC/NFOEC will be in Los Angeles for the next two years and will remain in non-San Diego cities through 2014, an The Optical Society (OSA) spokeswoman confirms.

Why the change? The official line is simple: San Diego got booked up. With no dates available in OFC's traditional February/March timeframe, organizers chose to look elsewhere.

OFC/NFOEC was housed in downtown L.A. in 2004, to much griping from the attendees, and most people Light Reading has talked to don't want to go back. (See OFC/NFOEC's Next Home.) Our message boards even hint at a boycott.

But the convention center area is different now, spruced up with shops, hotels, and restaurants. Downtown L.A. even has its own promotional Website that makes the area look awesome. Websites never lie, right?

After L.A., OFC/NFOEC will do another turn in Anaheim, Calif., before moving to San Francisco in 2014. San Francisco has a reputation as an expensive conference destination, but an analysis of key metrics reveals it to be an excellent venue.

Table 1: Objective Site Analysis

Year	OFC/NFOEC Location	Approx. Driving Time from Convention Site to Nearest Amoeba Music Outlet	Easy Drive from Craig's House?
2011, 2012	Los Angeles	30 mins., even with traffic (Sunset Blvd., Hollywood)	No
2013	Anaheim	1.5 hours (Hollywood)	No
2014	San Francisco	15 mins., parking gods permitting (Haight & Stanyan, S.F.)	Yes
Sources: OSA, a guy from L.A., me

Besides, things could be worse. Remember that Supercomm camped in Atlanta in June for multiple years, apparently because, as one source put it, the surface of the sun was booked. And hey -- it's not Vegas.

— Craig Matsumoto, West Coast Editor, Light Reading