Re: [Harp-L] Coming to St. Louis? Tues night transportation issues

[Douglas Tate <douglas.tate@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 17:20 13/08/2004, Michael Peloquin wrote:
> > From: Ken Ficara <kenficara@xxxxxxxxx>
> > I think it's worth mentioning that the habit of holding SPAH at remote
> > suburban hotels makes transportation difficult
>
> I agree with this. Chris Michalek had it right when he put on the 
> Harmonica Summit in 2000. That was a fairly happening area of Minneapolis. 
> I was at Denver & St. Louis 96 and can agree.
>    They can usually keep room rates below $100 by going to the sticks. 
> Those of us that are more urban though would probably incur additional 
> expense to be in the middle of it all.

I really wonder if you would pay the extra $30/ night to be in downtown 
anywhere?
We run the convention more to allow harmonica players to see harmonica 
players rather than to allow a jumping off point for a great time in 
Downtown Burbank! :))

One of the problems, for example... say we are paying for 20 people for 5 
nights... that's 100 X $30 extra = $3000
To pay for that we need an extra 30 attendees.
Another problem.  If we are downtown we would be pretty far from the 
airport (and we really need a pretty large town to have a decent air 
hub)  This usually incurs shuttle fees for attendees.   You should have 
heard the screams when people found they had to pay $30 shuttle fee at Denver.

The hotel rooms are bad enough at $90/night, but we need the size of hotel 
that has the rooms which will house the events.

The Summit wasn't all beer and skittles... the openair event on Saturday 
was great, if you had transport. The other events were great ... if the 
transport had turned up!  After waiting for half an hour at about 1 in the 
morning we , had to start walking back 1.5 miles to the hotel through a not 
very nice, dark district.  This was not necessarily the fault of the 
organisers but it is what happened.  (didn't we give you a lift back to 
your hotel with Rob, Mike, because the hotels were a distance apart??)   We 
also had to walk about half a mile to the main venue at the Cedar Centre 
from the nearest hotel.  We can't DO that with SPAH because of our wide age 
range.

Whichever way you organise an event SOMEONE is going to want it different 
and tell you so.  You listen and come to the best compromises you can.

If you want  a bit of nightlife away from a convention it's easy...
Get a small group of you to hire a car for a day... $6-$7 each.

By the way, I doubt you will be able to hire the Hotel shuttle on Tuesday 
evening.  SPAH has nearly 200 people coming in from all over on that 
afternoon and evening and the wheels will be red hot!

Whatever... Hope you have a great time!!!  AND that you enjoy seeing Jason 
and friends for a second time at SPAH!

Douglas Tate
President ... SPAH