Okay, plans for a massive fan dinner have been thoroughly derailed. According to Jim, these signings can last as long as six or seven hours! That's more than DOUBLE the longest signing I've ever been to. Subsequently, it's impossible to know how soon all invitees will get through the line, and therefore what time to schedule the start of dinner.
Maybe the solution will be to suggest a restaurant as a designated meeting place, and have people show up as they exit the signing. We'd have a continuously rotating group of Butcher fans to squee with!
Of course, if we
did do a fan dinner, it has occurred to me that it would be NIGHTMARISH. Everyone would have GS
in their hands, but I still couldn't flail at them about it! Half the room would probably have read the book in the week it would have been out, but we wouldn't be able to say a word, for fear of spoiling! Maybe we could put people at two tables, one GS-spoiler-friendly and the other No Spoilers Allowed.