Let's talk about venues...

[RunawayEngineer]

SFL was the smallest regional that I have been to and I liked that the seating was really close to the action - arenas don't have the luxury of positioning the seating.
One of the coolest parts about the venue was that it was hosted in a convention center at the same time as other events - which meant that there were passersby who could just walk in and see what was happening. I have unconfirmed reports that people were skipping out on their seminars to watch robots instead. It was one of the few venues that naturally brought in new people.