After a one-year stint at the Holiday Inn down the street, the Association of Alternative Newsweeklies will move back to San Francisco’s Cathedral Hill Hotel for next year’s AAN West conference, which will be held on the afternoon of Friday, Jan. 28 and on Saturday, Jan. 29.

And its East Coast cousin, AAN East, after a successful premiere in 2004, will be held three weeks later. It will take place at the historic Mayflower Hotel in Washington, D.C., on the afternoon of Friday, Feb. 18, and on Saturday, Feb. 19.

Unlike the annual convention, whose programming is geared toward the needs of management personnel, programming at AAN’s regional conferences is designed for rank-and-file staffers. (To highlight that point, the AAN Board this year briefly considered changing the names of the conferences to AST East and AST West, with “AST” serving as an acronym for “AAN Staff Training.”)

While the bulk of programming has yet to be confirmed, Kelly Wirges — the highest-rated advertising-stream speaker from the 2004 Convention in San Antonio — is scheduled for two sessions at each of the conferences.

For AAN members in the retail advertising track, Wirges will lead a session focusing on intermediate and advanced selling skills called “Maximum Sales Success.” For members in the classified advertising track, she will lead an advanced session called “Classified Sales Strategies.”

One AAN member who answered the convention survey said of Wirges: “Kelly Wirges was the best speaker in years! She could have been an all-day session. Strongly suggest you bring her back.”

Click here for up-to-date schedule, hotel and registration information for AAN West.

Click here for up-to-date schedule, hotel and registration information for AAN East.