To comment on some of Gil's recent posts, Region 1 has offered a bid, albeit 30 years ago under my admin. Bids then, as now, were hard to secure and we felt a NE bid could be attractive to a lot of people who do like to go different places. They put together a wonderful bid and everything looked good, but even then the costs associated with hosting our convention were roughly 50% higher and rooms were higher still than other good bids. The profit split between host chapter and IPMS/USA has been at 50% each since I can remember, so I'm guessing at least 35 years. I am not so sure Gil's concept of a subsidized convention is so radical at all, and the national could fund doing so by changing the ratio from 50/50 to 60/40 since they are now handling registrations to attend (not contest). That may not be popular with the host chapter, but they need to realize a big chunk of the work has been taken off their shoulders. I think changing the ratio would require a constitutional amendment but it could be done. There is already a convention fund so that would not need an amendment to direct the money into it. I prefer to go to different locations too, but it appears we are rapidly gaining a solid group of regular bidders so it could come to that unfortunately.
A final comment, regardless of some opinions out there, contest results show a regional bias ONLY because most entries are from a regional area. The judges certainly have been fair and totally unbiased since I started judging and that's close to 20 times now in a 25 year period.