Announcement imminent - Lodging

Tue Jul 27 19:42:27 UTC 2010

2010/7/27 María Leandro <tatica at fedoraproject.org>:
> Hello!
> is there no possibility to get a hotel that is affordable, not so close to
> the event, and hire a shuttle service group?
>
> I remember that this was done in Brazil, and we've done a lot in Venezuela
> and the end, bill comes cheaper.

If we were to rent school buses to shuttle people back and forth from
another location, we'd need at least 3 school buses, which (from what
I have found out thus far) run between $350 and $450 / day for rental.
 Unless we really stay someplace far away from anything, hotels will
still be running us $79-$99 a night - and then we run into the
problems of (1) most non-tourist area hotels do not provide
transportation from the airport, which winds up being a $20-30 taxi
fare each way; (2) we will again run into the problem of "we're not
near anything to do / anyplace to eat."

>
> Likewise there is no apartment-style rooms? maybe more than 5 people?

There are not really prevalent in the area; you can generally find
apartment-style, but they still are going to be 1 king or two
queen/double beds, and the pricing winds up being close to what we're
looking at.

>
> 2010/7/27 inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com>
>>
>> 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
>> _______________________________________________
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>> fudcon-planning at lists.fedoraproject.org
>> https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/fudcon-planning
>
>
>
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> Maria Gracia Leandro
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