Just to deal with a couple of issues here
The December event is an Open, not restricted to Amateurs/recreational players. It is an alternative to a £250 Pro-Am, and therefore a balance struck between making the buy in more inclusive to the majority of our regular players and yet differentiated from our regular buy in level, same for side event. Make it attractive to some different players.
It should not be seen as a precursor to an upping of National Championship buy in levels
Manchester not London because hotel etc expenses are cheaper away from London just before Xmas, and we are going down South in January
I am not sure for either venue that the City location for either venue precludes anybody attending. Quite staggered by the "Manchester may as well be Prague" comment. Under 3 hours on a clear road from London, an hour flight from Scotland. Pretty accessible to anyone.
Dealers. The Vic and DTD aside no venue can comfortable deal anything apart from HE and Omaha across the number of tables we require. Luton, Newcastle and Coventry did for us previously, but that took significant time in staff training in each case, time I was unprepared to ask Luton to commit to the recent Side event as I knew they had just trained a number of new dealers in HE.
I mentioned other variants to Brighton and got a chuckle down the end of the phone that told its own story.
We do, of course, cater to as many variants as we can in the WCOAP.
With regard to scheduling, the February event (presence of a season six assumed) will be UK based
