It'd be cool for the Kan to be in a convention center, but being able to walk out of the elevator into the convention is really nice :]
Convention centers aren't as cool as you'd think. They're huge, impersonal affairs where everything is done on an industrial-sized scale. Only the biggest events wouldn't feel lonely, because even their smallest rooms are enormous. NDK would take up a small fraction of a convention center, and we'd be sharing the building with probably several other events. The only food available would be in a food court with insane prices. And I'm not talking about the high-ish prices of hotel food, I'm talking $5 for a hot dog, $4 for a small slice of pizza, or $6 for a fast-food-sized burger (that doesn't include the fries). A small, very mediocre meal with a drink would run about $10 on average; $15 if you're hungry. We're talking at-least-as-expensive-as-ballpark food here (in fact, the food service is usually run by the same companies that run stadium concessions). And no, they wouldn't let you bring in outside food or drinks. (We'd be lucky to get permission for dealers to sell pocky and ramune.)
And because your hotel room would be, at best, across the street, going to your room would become a short trek. (Or a long one, if you opted not to spend $200/night for a room across the street, but instead $150/night for a hotel several blocks away.) Hope that costume would either protect you from the cold or the heat, depending on whichever one we're experiencing at the time, because you'd likely be leaving the premises several times a day, either to go to your hotel room or to go get food. There would only be a few restaurants in the immediate vicinity and they'd all be expensive because they serve the business crowds from the convention center; if you didn't want to spend $20 (or more) on a meal, you'd need to walk several blocks (at the least).
No, convention centers suck for cons like ours, even if you discount the direct increase in costs in terms of hotel rooms and ticket prices.
