Why not in <somewhere else>?

Walter lives in Seattle. The volunteer coordinator lives in Seattle. It has to be somewhere and no where will satisfy everyone.

Will the conference be video taped?

Yes, though it will take some time to process them.

Will the conference be live simulcast?

Nope. While amazon has a good bit of bandwidth, I don't believe it's important enough to get even more for free from Amazon. Additionally, live video gives less reason to attend and that's counterproductive.