And another thing
Jul. 14th, 2004 12:25 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gizaLet me give you some advice, folks. There are no simple answers for complex problems. Anyone who thinks that a complex problem with multiple facets (like say, spam) can be solved with a simple thing (that nobody else could have possibly thought of!) is either lying, trying to sell you something, or completely talking out of their arse.
Take running a con for example. There are quite a few factors that affect how useful a hotel is to us. These include:
The reason I wrote this is because it's just a few days after the con, and I am already getting e-mails that say, "The con has problems a, b, and c, and implementing solution x would magically fix everything", where x is usually a "new hotel". See what I said above about when someone makes platitudes about how their solution can magically fix everything. The world doesn't work that way.
Oh, and more often than not, the person writing in doesn't give us a specific hotel, they just say, "How about one in... Baltimore?" That's just not helpful. Don't you think we've CHECKED hotels in other cities by now? Implying that we haven't done so I find to be QUITE insulting, since it implies that we aren't constantly looking at other venues.
Think of my blood pressure, please.
Take running a con for example. There are quite a few factors that affect how useful a hotel is to us. These include:
- How many rooms? -- Anthrocon needs a hotel with at least 500 rooms. Anything less just won't do.
- Cost of rooms
- Cost of parking
- How open the staff is about our kind of convention
- Location -- Is it near a major airport? Is it near a major highway?
- Corkage -- Most hotels require you to use their catering services, which are overpriced. This is how hotels make money. Sometimes when you give them enough roomnights, they'll let you bring in limited quantities of your own stuff for a Con Suite or Sponsor Lounge. But this can vary by hotel.
- Function space -- This is a big one. Anthrocon uses over 40,000 square feet of function space. This is a LOT. Most hotels don't have it.
- Is the function space in the same building? If not, people might have to walk to panels or the dealers' room through rain. And this will kill a con.
- Physical layout. Sure, the Adam's Mark is tall and has elevator issues, but laying it on its side would mean lots and lots of walking to get somewhere. That's not so good either.
- Unions -- This is another big one. If a hotel has union labor, it means that we cannot carry in our own artist panels, unload our own trucks, and dealers cannot carry in their own merchandise. This would at least double the cost of membership and kill the con.
The reason I wrote this is because it's just a few days after the con, and I am already getting e-mails that say, "The con has problems a, b, and c, and implementing solution x would magically fix everything", where x is usually a "new hotel". See what I said above about when someone makes platitudes about how their solution can magically fix everything. The world doesn't work that way.
Oh, and more often than not, the person writing in doesn't give us a specific hotel, they just say, "How about one in... Baltimore?" That's just not helpful. Don't you think we've CHECKED hotels in other cities by now? Implying that we haven't done so I find to be QUITE insulting, since it implies that we aren't constantly looking at other venues.
Think of my blood pressure, please.
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Date: 2004-07-15 12:15 am (UTC)panel again next year and I wanna reiterate.
Suite goooooooood. :)
Well oiled geisha girls even better but do what
you can. ;)