(no subject)

[rivka]

I took the morning off so that curiousangel and I could visit potential hotels for alt.polycon 12. We had fun, and gathered a ton of information, and refined our hotel criteria. (Thanks, tammylc, for giving us ideas about what to look for.)

So far, we've crossed four potentials off our list - two for inadequate meeting space, one for the wrong kind of meeting space combined with lack of flexibility on the part of the sales manager, and one for failing to return our phone calls. We've requested quotes from two others, one of which seems very likely indeed. The other one is probably going to be too expensive, but I suppose it can't hurt to try - after all, apc9 was held in a Westin. Because it makes me nervous to only have two active options, we've got calls in to two more hotels.

It's nice to see salespeople's faces light up when you explain that you want to have a convention and a catered meal in their hotel in January. Hopefully we'll be able to get some good deals. I'm still a little nervous about negotiating a hotel contract - even though I know that negotiation is expected, part of me kind of expects them to be offended if I ask them to lower a price or comp something. We'll see what happens.

Comments

[geekchick]

My coworker-with-the-same-name does the meeting planning stuff for our company and is very good at dealing with hotels and such. If you want, I can ask her on Monday if she has any particular helpful hints.