unforum

[Phaedra]

[Anton P. Nym]

Another echo of krystyn's point... staying in the same hotel (even if exiled to the most-distant wing from the BYOSP room *grin*) made the social aspect of the ARGfest much simpler by chopping out a big chunk of travel time... and probably saved a ton of money on cab fare or gas.

[aliendial]

Another reason - the herding of cats is much easier when they all start in one place. A certain reluctance to make a lot of firm plans in advance meant that detailed plans for who was going where or what was actually going to be seen didn't actually get made until it was time to go do the next thing. And that required a group in a single location to reach consensus. And konamouse to organize. People who could only be rounded up by phone generally lost the opportunity to influence where or when the cats eventually went.

[konamouse]

[EGo]

Wish UFers claimed the room next to the BYOSP room. We could have opened the doors and had a less cramped museum. And we probably wouldn't have been yelled at in the middle of the night.

[imbri]

[Varin]

[krystyn]

At peak times of the year, I imagine it would be difficult for a hotel to be able to guarantee rooms next to each other. I suppose the organizer could try to work it out, but yeah. Hm.

[Varin]

[imbri]

[thebruce]

the other choice is to organize the event as an umbrella, so 'ARGfest' would reserve rooms as a group at the hotel (likely by a deadline for those we know are coming), then they can be handed out on arrival, or people can organize which rooms they'll take... as opposed to reserving individually and organizing who's sharing what rooms.

So say a month before the event, we find out who's coming, and reserve a block of rooms under 'ARGfest' - if it costs up front, then money needs to be in to whoever does the reservation. If people decide to come after the deadline, then it's cross your fingers for a close room (as it was this year it seems).

Is that feasible? In a way, we'd be making argfest more like a conference than a social gathering of friends

[Varin]

[konamouse]

And you need more than a month in advance (like 3 or 4 months). When obtaining a group rate, you have a certain number of rooms you are negotiating (the more you can guarentee, the better the rate) and you can ask if they will be available close together. But bottom line, it's up to the individuals to try to get them close together by knowing friend's real names and asking to be placed together (or far away) when you make your own reservation.

After arrival, when proximity is noted, then designated Museum rooms may be set up. Party room just 'happens' (I don't think it was pre-planned).

[bagsbee]

Agree with pretty much everything y'all have said. There is no substitute for everyone being in the same place, the logistics of having to figure out the when/where/how of meeting up becomes trivial.

I gotta admit, I was iffy on the whole airport hotel thing in the beginning. Would it have been nice to be closer to Downtown Chicago? Probably. Would we have had as many attendees as we did? Almost certainly not. And if given the choice between having 10 ARGFest attendees at a $250/night hotel that's centrally located, or double that at the $109/night not-as-convenient airport hotel, I'll take the latter every time. Because, if I may get a little touchy-feely for a moment, it's all about us being together.

And yes, a hostel or something like that would've been cheaper, but then again, the BYOSP'ers split a room 5 ways and ended up paying, what, $25 per head per night? Granted that's not for everyone, but hey.

[INCyr]