[Deptheads] Child Care at the Convention

[Janice Sellers]

One of the things to think about in terms of moving the convention
away from the LAX area is that it could become more expensive to
brings guests in, as LAX tends to have fairly good flight pricing
overall and better availability.  If we go to a smaller airport, the
best pricing is usually restricted to one airline (e.g., JetBlue at
Long Beach, Southwest at Ontario), with reduced flight options.  I'm
not saying this should override other considerations, just mentioning
it as a factor to consider.

As for the area being family-friendly, as Sarah mentioned, for the
most part people come to the hotel and stay there, because that's
where the event is that they've come to attend.  If we were able to
effectively add more family-type options at the convention itself, it
may not be as much of a problem that the area isn't as
family-friendly, as the entire family would be interested in the event
at the hotel.

As I mentioned earlier, a convention I used to attend in Boston had an
excellent children's activity track.  I talked with somebody about the
possibility of doing something similar, though smaller in scale, at
the Strategicon conventions.  At this point I don't remember if it was
Rocky or Eric (sorry, it was a while ago, and I have too much on my
mind right now).  As I also mentioned, it took lots of volunteers to
make it work, because it does take extra effort to coordinate
children.  I even had one of my regular volunteers express interest in
helping with the children's track if we get one going.  But we'll
definitely need more than the one person for it be effective.

Janice