Dave, have you booked a hotel yet? Consider looking into one of the nicer hotels in downtown [as close to the Renaissance Center or Cobo Hall as possible]. If you're not familiar with Detroit, there's a halo of ghetto surrounding downtown, while the tight downtown is nice and the metro area past 8 Mile.
A pre-release meet sounds good!
Since I live here, I can put together a dinner and/or cocktails location; there are tons of fantastic restaurants if you know where to look. Let me know how much local color you want and the budget that works for everyone.