yeah thats the sad part about this country - spread out. I'm sure if I lived in the states it's just be a 2-3 hour bus ride to visit my parents for christmas. In my current circumstances, its a 2000km plane ride, with two different aircrafts! (767 and a dash 8).
Mabye we should organise a bi yearly thing where we host an auslem in one state (e.g. QLD) then another (e.g. S.A), so everyone gets a go at not having to fly, and those cheap flights can get the out of state people there. We could host it on a popular holiday period (e.g. leadup to Melbourne Cup day, lead up to Australia day etc). If its cup day we could even have the famous race on a telly so we can lase and see if we won on the nags at the same time.
We'd need to give people plenty of notice so they can book and sort accomodation, and set it up for a time where most will be on holidays.
A member in the hosting state can provide room to store peoples projectors so when not playing lasers (and exploring the hosting state for example), that way projectors dont get left in hotel rooms. Laserists will need to be happy to have a tag placed on their gear so it can be identified when they come to collect it for the day (or days) it will be used. Non laserists will need to be informed that they must not approach an open or running projector without laser glasses on.
I'd be happy to host the SydLem storage area here, just as soon as David sends the removalist for all his stuff (he moved to melbourne, and instead of throwing it out, I told him to store his stuff here). So there is plenty of room on the workbench and next to the couch to put projectors and associated gear safely. I also know where I can get my hands on a beefy sound system for short term use, without cost. We'd just need a hall, and a way of advising out of staters how to get to it.
Anyway I should create a seperate thread for this, even though the three of us (Things, TTerbo and myself) are aussies, as it has relevance, but only just.
Sorry for threadjacking your build thread TTerbo.