Paul,

You are free to stay at a property other than the host property, but the host expects a ceratin number of room nights from the convention and if not enough people stay at the host property the club is going to have to pay more for the conventions.

This is one of the major factors that limits the number of places we can hold our convention since our members gnerally don't want to pay high room rates.

On another note, while you are free to stay at another property, if you are going to be spending a lot of time at the convention, its nice to be just an elevator ride away from your room.