I'll add my voice to this: Either the Mall of America anytime, or as previously mentioned: GenCon in Indianapolis in August.

GenCon.... definitely.... MOST definitely.

Where you guys not clear on the guest star phases?  That's the biggest deal.  My group has actually been doing it for years without even realizing it.  Rather than drop it in the storyteller's lap on session 1 when everyone is trepidacious about the new campaign, everyone just "already knows" eachother.  Straight to the action.  Straight to the cool.

Did your storytellers not understand how to use compels?  It can be a little daunting at first, but generally after reading through Your Story it should be pretty clear.  Those make getting the party together so trivially easy I almost didn't need the Guest Star phases.  5 minutes of "candy-lined" story hooks and everyone's together.

In short... yes...
I'm not saying this flavor of FATE is "bad" or anything. I'm saying I (as the GM) had trouble with a different style of gaming. I've mainly run 3.5 and Pathfinder with a smattering of Savage Worlds. I've played a LOT of Burning Wheel and some Fiasco. None of this helps me get my head around Dresden Files RPG. I get a LOT more out of "How To Run A Game" by paying in one. I've unsuccessfully attempted to get into a Dresden Game at GenCon for the past few years. And THAT is the extent of my ability to get into such a game. But I REALLY wanted to play Dresden and felt my only shot was to run the game myself... and I wasn't very good. It wasn't all my fault and I think we will come back to the game. But we are going to get back on our feet, cleanse our gaming palate, and then see what can be done. I THINK we will have to re-do Character Creation (at least one new player and a better handle now on the system). i think we will do a one-shot to help me get INTO running a game without worrying over storylines. And then we will see.

I killed my game.

I made a number of mistakes in getting the game up and running. First and for most, no one other than myself had ever read the Dresden Books. We wanted to try FATE but I Was the only one willing to run and THIS was the flavor I wanted. Then there was trouble with Character Creation. We were all more than a little unclear as to how to tie the characters together. Add to the mix a bunch of players more used to Burning Wheel and with no good working knowledge on how to drive a story in FATE.

After 4 GAME sessions, I looked around at my players and no one was having fun.... least of all me.

But we do want to try this again. I think we can all see where we went wrong and what needs to change. I think the characters my players came up with were interesting and would still work with a bit of tweaking. I just wish I could get ALL of them to read Summer Knight first.

The Roo Sack Gamers finish up City Creation as we try to flesh out some NPCs and their Aspects.

http://media.podcastingmanager.com/2/0/6/6/8/295141-286602/Media/rsg053_Dresden02.mp3

I live in Lancaster, PA, and was going to use the entire county, instead of just the city.

This would be an EXCELLENT area for a Dresden game. I have some relatives in that area and all the little towns and tourist traps are ripe for fun game events. Wouldn't you just LOVE to have the Hershey factory as a setting? Perhaps over run by the Fay of some type....

Sigh... still waiting.

We've gotten hundreds of applicants, which is a bit more than we were originally expecting.  Even if we don't end up using everyone (and it's unlikely we would), we're hoping to come up with something to "thank" all of the folks who took the time to fill out the apps, somewhere down the road...

Fame has its down side.