[Deptheads] Rooms are sold out ...

Mon May 12 17:42:32 PDT 2014

The issue I see here is one of perception. At Orccon we had several reports
of issues with the reservation link. That was quickly resolved and
relegated to a "growing pains". At Gamex, those of us who follow social
media and have a very good rapport with our volunteers also noted
several complaints about booking desirable double/non-smoking rooms. If
this remains consistent, (which I expect it will if we do not make a strong
effort to assure that the room allotments are deep enough in the kind of
rooms our attendees want) the common perception will be that the convention
room rates are difficult to book or fill up too quickly. This will cause
people to look for other options straight off the bat. Once that perception
is fixed it will become very difficult to break and we may have problems in
the future with meeting our room quotas which could cripple us in the long
run. If we continue to have this kind of feedback going into Gateway and
Orccon 2015 this may become a more serious issue. Especially if the hotel
is running out of physical space without us hitting our 100% mark.

Once again, this is a matter of perception. The reality may very well be
that there are plenty of rooms if you book on time and that the Hilton is
doing everything they can for us, but if the perception is otherwise and we
choose to ignore consumer feedback that won't matter. There should be some
way to track our room blocks in real time with some way to display this
data on a web site so that our attendees can see how many rooms are still
available during the open reservation period. This kind of transparency can
go a long way to reassure people. There seems to be a dissconnect in
communication between us, the Hilton and our attendees. We need to fix that.

On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 4:58 PM, Eric M. Aldrich I <ealdrich at penguinlust.org
> wrote:

> We did not exceed room quota -- we made it. The difference is a value of
> 20 percent (making it means 80 percent, exceeding means over 100 percent).
> We exceeded at Orccon.
>
> Pre reg's are up over last year by a bit at this point. Now our room quota
> this year is higher than last year's by a lot -- it was a calculated risk
> taken to driven down the price of the facilities. It worked, but I had
> hoped for a larger margin of error -- there's always cancellations.
>
> The Hilton just simply ran out of rooms. I have no idea if anything is
> going on in the area, but someone/something else is sucking up a fair
> number of rooms. They dumped an extra 15 rooms into our block Friday --
> they all went (at least for Saturday night).
>
> Fred, if you end up not getting a room at the con rate, we have a little
> staff wiggle room, but not much. Let me know.
>
> We will go over this post-con with the hotel. We're all a little
> dumbfounded as to how this all played out.
>
> Also, that said, we took up a bit too many rooms this show as con staff.
> That has impacted things as well.
>
> But given we upped our room count 25 percent over last year's Gamex and
> that still wasn't enough means this might be the largest Gamex we've ever
> run.
>
> And Victor, be thankful we didn't open the 2004 Pinot at the last show --
> it was awful.
>
> Eric
>
>
> On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 02:05:47PM -0700, Eric Burgess wrote:
> > Agreed - that's pretty terrible and it hurts convention growth.
> >
> > On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 1:51 PM, Jim Sandoval <
> plustentoawesome at gmail.com>wrote:
> >
> > > I would assume that exceeding our room quota is a good thing? We should
> > > probably have a good sit down with the Hilton and see what we can do
> about
> > > having them prioritize doubles and be a little more proactive about
> letting
> > > us know about booking shortages and the like. We should have some kind
> of
> > > information flowing from them so we can anticipate issues before we
> have
> > > angry attendees point them out to us.
> > >
> > >
> > > On Mon, May 12, 2014 at 1:42 PM, Fred Upton <frupton at sbcglobal.net>
> wrote:
> > >
> > >> Hilton apparenlty doesn't like it if we exceed room quota, as they
> don't
> > >> continue to offer the con rate once the quota is met?
> > >>
> > >> If the $99 rate isn't still available I hope nobody minds that I stay
> at
> > >> a cheaper hotel a block or two away.  I consider it rather greedy of
> the
> > >> Hilton to expect me to pay full rate for a room just because our room
> quota
> > >> is met.
> > >>
> > >> -- Fred
> > >>
> > >>   *From:* Kryssie M. <phantom.hopscotch at gmail.com>
> > >> *To:* "deptheads at strategicon.net" <deptheads at strategicon.net>
> > >> *Cc:* "deptheads at strategicon.net" <deptheads at strategicon.net>
> > >> *Sent:* Monday, May 12, 2014 10:24 AM
> > >> *Subject:* Re: [Deptheads] Rooms are sold out ...
> > >>
> > >> Alright.  I can make sure this gets to FB.
> > >>
> > >> We have one more marketing email going out this week.  PLEASE SEND ME
> > >> THINGS!  Sending it Friday, unless Eric needs it sooner.
> > >>
> > >> Beauty is in the eye of the beholder...as is instant death.  Avada
> > >> Kadavra, Sweetie...
> > >>
> > >> > On May 12, 2014, at 9:58 AM, "Eric M. Aldrich I" <ealdrich at mac.com>
> > >> wrote:
> > >> >
> > >> > on Saturday. They sold out this past Friday night. Doubles and kings
> > >> are available on Friday/Sunday, but Saturday has nothing left but
> suites.
> > >> >
> > >> > The Hilton has added some smaller rooms -- the Hilton has a few
> rooms
> > >> with just a double. But not many. Also, they found us 2 more doubles.
> They
> > >> might be gone by the time you read this.
> > >> >
> > >> > People might have to book piecemeal, as their system will put you in
> > >> the same room for the whole show. It would obviously mean making room
> > >> changes during the show.
> > >> >
> > >> > But yes, this means we made room quota, but not by as much as I
> like as
> > >> a lot of people seem to be staying Saturday only.
> > >> >
> > >> > Spread the word. Updating the web site.
> > >> >
> > >> > Eric
> > >> >
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