Announcement imminent - Lodging

[Paul W. Frields]

On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 12:37:56PM -0700, Robyn Bergeron wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:47 AM, inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 27, 2010 at 8:39 AM, Paul W. Frields <stickster at gmail.com> wrote:
> >> On Mon, Jul 26, 2010 at 04:54:49PM -0400, Paul W. Frields wrote:
> >>> Robyn has forwarded a contract with the hotel for rooms.  We are
> >>> trying to work out some details on that contract so that we're not
> >>> stuck with a bill we can't pay, but (ironically?) one of the things we
> >>> could use is a growing list of out of staters that tells us we can
> >>> make a specific minimum (like 35, 40, or 50 rooms).
> >>>
> >>> ...snip...
> >>>
> >>> What do you guys think?
> >
> > Here is a bit of my thinking. 35 rooms would cost the project just
> > about its entire normal FUDCon budget.
> >
> > I was thrilled to find a flight for under $300 - rare from my
> > location. So I did a quick search of hotels near ASU and the closest
> > one was Twin Palms which I could book for $411 for three nights
> > combined with my flight. It sits on the south edge of campus a couple
> > blocks from the union and has 24 hour airport shuttle service. It
> > doesn't have all the shops and recreation facilities but I won't be
> > spending any time at those anyway.
> >
> > It may well not be suitable for the main FUDCon hotel. I have no idea
> > how many rooms are available. The biggest downside to me is that while
> > it is close to central campus it is not close to the Mission Palms so
> > going from one hotel to the other at night would be inconvenient.
> >
> >>>
> >>> ...snip...
> >>>
> >>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FUDCon:Tempe_2011
> >>
> >> We need to be very cognizant of is the lodging costs for FUDCon Tempe
> >> 2011.  They're significantly higher than in previous FUDCon events.
> >>
> >> Decent hotels (not luxurious, just decent) are not cheap in the
> >> Phoenix area in winter.  Just as our own contributors really wanted to
> >> go somewhere warmer for a winter FUDCon, so does everyone else in the
> >> USA!  That means the hotel costs are higher.  Rooms at the hotel where
> >> we're looking at a contract are $165/night + fees + taxes, which comes
> >> to almost exactly $200/night total.
> >>
> >> Even at that rate, we are getting a *significant* discount from
> >> published rates (which start around $229), and this hotel has
> >> advantages, such as proximity to our FUDCon location, and plentiful
> >> transportation options on grounds.  All our other options would have
> >> required transportation costs that would have eliminated any of the
> >> cost savings.  Some of them would have been *more* expensive once you
> >> counted those costs.
> >
> > Twin Palms has free transportation to/from the airport and anywhere
> > else within a 3 mile radius of the hotel. It is within easy walking
> > distance to campus. But as noted above, it may have other drawbacks
> > that make it not suitable.
> >
> >> When we announce, we'll take great pains to let people know that we
> >> want them to stay with the whole group at the hotel.  That helps us
> >> achieve our minimum block.  If anyone needs subsidies to make that
> >> happen, they should ask (privately is fine).  We will be *happy* to
> >> make it possible for people to come to FUDCon!  We don't want to find
> >> out later that someone "would have, could have, should have" come if
> >> only they'd known we could help them make that happen.
> >>
> >> No one should think they shouldn't ask for subsidies, or that they're
> >> somehow taking money away from other people in doing so.  Everyone
> >> who's involved in planning knows it's tough to break loose the full
> >> costs for a FUDCon, on top of all the $REAL_LIFE expenses we all
> >> have.  We want to help, and Max Spevack has already said he can commit
> >> some extra funds to make sure we can do so.
> >
> > Yeah, the advantages of everyone staying at the same hotel are huge.
> > Was the Twin Palms considered and rejected as a main conference hotel?
> > I'm curious because looking as a single traveler it seems cheaper and
> > almost ideally situated.
> >
> > John
> 
> A few notes here:
> 
> On Location: Please see a rudimentary map, located at
> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/File:Tempe.png - The Yellow star is the
> Tempe Mission Palms. The Red Bubble is the Brickyard Engineering
> building.  The purple star is the location of the light rail; the red
> star is the Twin Palms hotel, and the Blue Star is the Memorial Union.
> 
> That said, we are planning on having two days in the Brickyard
> facility, and one day in the Memorial Union.  It is less than a 5
> minute walk from the Mission Palms hotel to the Brickyard; probably
> more of a 20 minute walk from the Twin palms to the Brickyard.
> 
> Aside from those items - I have stayed at the Twin Palms, albeit many
> years ago and upgrades may have been done since then.  It was not a
> pleasant place to stay, and given its proximity to campus dorms, and
> fraternity housing, it tends to be more of a party hotel.
> 
> WRT transportation - I realize both of the hotels both provide
> transportation.  Transportation in general was one of the many pieces
> of feedback we got from the FUDCon Toronto survey
> (http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/File:FUDCon-2009-survey-draft.odp) -
> people don't want to pay $100 bucks to get back and forth from the
> airport. Both of these hotels save us on that fact.  Additionally,
> people lamented the fact that the hotel was (1) not close to places to
> eat, (2) not close to any major transportation to take them to other
> things in the city to see / do.  Mission Palms is literally across the
> street from the Light Rail, which is a direct line to downtown Phoenix
> (for those interested in our sparse cultural offerings).  It is also
> in the heart of downtown Tempe, with numerous food / entertainment
> offerings.  Twin Palms is not exactly surrounded by anything - it's a
> half-mile to a mile to food, except the IHOP - it's a hike down to the
> light rail.  It is lacking in common areas as compared with the
> Mission Palms as well - the Mission Palms has an enormous lobby for
> hanging out, as well as a giant courtyard with heaters, fireplace,
> lots of chairs, for late-night fun.
> 
> This has been the best hotel as far as convenience. There is a
> Courtyard Marriott also in downtown Tempe which was approximately $10
> less per night than the Mission Palms, which is located next to the
> train tracks, and also was fairly uncertain that they could
> accommodate the group, or have any type of meeting space for us.
> There are numerous other hotels near the freeway, which are probably
> comparable in price to the Twin Palms, but would be a multi-mile walk
> to get to the Brickyard.
> 
> If we want to weigh the option of making people walk against saving
> money, we can do that.  By my math, for those sharing rooms, this is
> about $140/person (probably less) total over the course of 3 nights.

It's also important to consider that we really do want to make sure
people are staying together to collaborate.  Also, if Fedora ends up
with a minimum block we have to fill, we'd really like contributors to
help us fill that block! :-)

At the same time, we don't want that to cause any hardship for anyone,
and we will offer subsidies to people.  It doesn't need to be an
all-or-nothing approach.  If the difference between the bills is
something like $150, we can easily offer someone that kind of subsidy
if they let us know that's what they need.  Another reason why earlier
I wanted to be crystal clear that we want people to tell us what would
help them.  Because the bottom line is, the happier people are staying
together, the better a FUDCon event we'll have!

I note that Maria had a couple concerns about the cost of the rooms --
do note that, in general, USA hotel prices tend to be higher in
absolute terms, and any warm location in the winter will tend to be
again even higher.  Our contributors in NA asked for a warm location.
When we opened the bid process for FUDCon the team in Tempe was the
one that answered the call. :-)

We have a somewhat higher budget available for this event because,
from the outset, I talked to Max to make sure we could support it,
knowing about higher cost already.  So in that respect I think we're
OK, and can offer an increased number of subsidies in line with the
increased cost of the hotel.

-- 
Paul W. Frields                                http://paul.frields.org/
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