So instead of reinventing the wheel for each regional event in the future, and having extensive and expensive planning, why don't we start hooking-on to a existing lighthouse event in different regions of our country?

For instance, it seems like we could hook-on to the Great Lakes Lighthouse Festival event in Alpena, MI held yearly in Oct. This event already has a multitude of lighthouse related activities planned we could offer Regional Event attendees. For the price of a meeting room and a meal (Holiday Inn close) we could have the Regional and an In-Store event too (HL Dealer in Alpena). Many lights along Lake Huron are open during the GLLF and often the Fall colors are beautiful!