Of course cons have to happen somewhere - hence why I added "where all the important and interesting things happen and anyone who wants to be anyone goes there...", because the person who posted this explicitly said they felt as if their fandom interaction was limited due to not being able to go to the con because so many of the US-based fans considered that con such a fundamental part of fandom. Cons, great, but if the con becomes so central to the fandom it winds up excluding the people who can't go because they're treated as lesser, there is an issue. And of course there are reasons fans in the US might not be able to make it to a con like that - this kind of attitude is exclusive of more than just the non-US people seeing as money is *always* an issue - but there is still something of a major difference between someone who lives in the US travelling to Chicago for a con and me travelling from Germany or someone from, say, Australia which I think was where the OP of that post was from. I just did a quick check on some airlines - if I wanted to book a one way flight to Chicago in August now, Lufthansa would like to charge me three and a half thousand euros.

I am also going to point out that - okay, I'm not hooked into the con circuit, but in my eight years of fandom participation there have only been two cons I thought I might be able to make it to. So "one or two at any given time" is not an *only* for me.