On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 01:29:40PM -0500, Edward Lewis wrote:
I really have a hard time being sympathetic to this complaint. If
the purpose of the IETF is open discussion and cross-pollination,
what does it matter where we are so long as there's comfortable
access to the expertise needed? Is there an unwritten requirement
that IETFs are placed to afford us sightseeing? To afford us access
to restaurants?
Well, many IETF'ers get tired of eating at the same hotel restaurant,
day after day, for the whole week. Also a common problem is that many
hotel restaurants are not well equipped to deal with a very large
number of people all showing up at the resturant at the same time (+/-
10 minutes), thus flooding the kitchen with orders and resulting in
glacial service times. I remember one of the first times we were at
Minneapolis, and I made a mistake of eating at the hotel restaurant
for lunch, and the food not showing up at the table until something
like 5 or 10 minutes before the next working group meeting was
supposed to start. Needless to say, that was the last time I
frequented that hotel restaurant the whole week! Fortunately in
Minneapolis there were other restaurant options that were a close walk
away from the hotel.
I am a regular attendee at many other conference series. Although
some series face greater logistical challenges (like venues
cancelling late in the planning, under powered metro and hotel
infrastructures, etc.) and pose less convenient travel arrangements
for the average attendee (using places off the "main grid"), I hear
much less whining from the attendees there than I hear about IETF
arrangements.
The IETF is somewhat unique in that it is a fairly large event that
still has fixed meeting slots so that everyone shows up for lunch at
roughly the same time. That's not so much the case at a trade show,
for example, and many conferences are smaller. But basic issues such
as access to restaurants and the ability to serve N hundred people in
a short period of time are important for anyone who does meeting
planning.
There are other solutions, such as buffet service, but it is an issue.
Yet another questioned the distance from outside
restaurants[1] - apparently "many fine lunches and dinners" is
required, exercise is immoral.
Heh. I consider myself a fairly serious foodie[1], but most of the
time when I go to conferences and meetings, especially at lunch time,
it's usually a food court style restaurant that I'll frequent, because
it's (a) fast, and (b) convenient. Besides, there really isn't time
for a proper 12 course tasting menu if you want to get back in time
for the evening meetings or BOF's. :-)
But what's really, really, annoying for me is if the only restaurant
around is a super expensive restaurant at an hotel, where service is
slow and you end up being late to the after-lunch or evening working
group meetings as a result. Being at a resort hotel often adds insult
to injury, because (a) the food is priced comparable to food served at
Aquavit or the French Laundry, but (b) the quality of the food is cr*p
and certainly not worth the $$$ that you spend *because* it is at a
resort location.
For me, I'll take business-class hotel like a Hilton or a Doubletree
any day.... and even better if it is adjacent to a mall with a food
court. When I go to an conference or a standards meeting, it's to get
work done, not to do fine dining or lounge at a resort setting. And
if I'm going to pay $$$ for an expensive restaurant, I want to get my
money's worth, which is rarely the case at most hotel restaurants.
- Ted
[1] http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2007/10/08/sous-vide-revisited/
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