I live 175 miles away and would love to go but, I HATE Chicago!
So do I. I live 15 miles northwest of the city and haven‘t set foot in the city for quite some time. Sad watching the corrupt and now radical politicians ruin it.
But MCACN is in Rosemont not Chicago. It’s sort of a mini Las Vegas bordered on the east by forest preserves and a river, and the west by highways and O Hare airport. The convention center is in a large entertainment district full of hotels, restaurants, an outlet mall, and theaters. The only thing missing is a casino, which the regulators wouldn’t approve for Rosemont due to alledged mob ties to the villages ruling Stephan’s family. So the casino is just over Rosemont’s northern border, in Des Plaines.
Rosemont has a very large active and auxiliary police force mostly dedicated to taking care of the entertainment district and crime is all but non existent there.
Also, if you fly in for the show, no need for a rental car. O Hare is just west, catch a cab or Uber for a 2 mile ride, stay at a hotel across the street, send the wife to the outlet mall or a short Uber north to the casino, and walk to the show and everything else until the short ride back to O Hare to head home.
Seeing the rip off rates hotels gouge for Carlisle and Moparty, I wish I could get the rates the half dozen hotels across the street from MCACN charge as a show rate at those shows. With taxes, rooms were around $150 a night.
Still too close to Chicago for manys comfort zone, and I get it, but again, Rosemont is not Chicago and I feel it’s probably the safest place in Crook County.