I have to say that every time we went back to Minneapolis, they got
friendlier. It also made our job easier because they knew what we needed,
and it wasn't a shock to them. Having extra tables in the common areas,
allowing us to wire up the bar, asking them to turn off their wireless,
and advanced access to rooms in the middle of the night were all things
they didn't have to be talked into. The _knew_ having IETF access points
in the bar meant extra sales.
The IETF meetings are quirky. No doubt about it. They move a lot too, so
running into the "ownership" thing with IETF isn't too dangerous. Most of
the hotels we went to usually were trying to get us to come back.
The largest problem with a 2 year proposal is getting the host. It was
easy back in the day when a location could be chosen, and then a host was
happy just to host it. Now the host has some pretty significant costs in
relation to bottom line profits. So it makes sense that the host needs to
be involved with that selection.
Making sure that the host is around, solvent, and willing to "make the
bits fly" at show time is a consideration. (That and if they agree to it
2 years in advance, they then have 6 meetings to attend and realize it may
not be something they really want to do and back out!)
Minneapolis was great though. They knew us, we knew them, we all liked
each other, and it was a good situation.
Keep up the good work IETF!
--Brett Thorson
--On tirsdag, juli 19, 2005 07:09:16 -0700 Dave Crocker
<dhc2(_at_)dcrocker(_dot_)net>
wrote:
As noted in the current thread, early site selection permits attendee
budgeting. From the IETF side, it permits serious negotiating for site
terms and operational efficiencies when a previous site is re-used.
Minneapolis has been a useful demonstration of this latter point, I
think.
Since nobody but Foretec has seen the Minneapolis contracts, we have no
idea whether that's true or not.
I've had it argued at me that a hotel that believes it "owns" the event is
actually harder to negotiate with than one that believes that there are
alternatives.
Harald
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