On Aug 18, 2015:4:33 PM, at 4:33 PM, Jared Mauch
<jared(_at_)puck(_dot_)nether(_dot_)net> wrote:
On Aug 18, 2015, at 3:26 PM, Behcet Sarikaya
<sarikaya2012(_at_)gmail(_dot_)com> wrote:
It seems like IETF is reserving around 300 rooms at the main hotel.
I think that in the past few IETFs, it became clear that the number of
people who make quick reservations and who wishes to stay at the main
conference hotel exceed this amount. Maybe the total of such a
population is around 500.
The fact that IETF has been reserving less number of rooms is causing
a frustration among so many people, such a frustration did not happen
before.
Maybe the reason is there are now more people attending IETF. We are
seeing similar tendency in IEEE 802 meetings as well.
there is a trick here if you haven’t booked hotel blocks for a conference
before:
1) you have to pay for a specific number of rooms in your block, even if
people
end up booking via 3rd party or otherwise at the hotel you may or may not get
credit against your block and get fined.
2) often hotels will trade catering, space, etc.. for rooms.
3) predictions and negotiations are tricky. when dealing with large groups
of people, there’s not that many hotels that have 1k rooms available. There
is even a list of all of them in the world. You may see recent places you
have visited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_hotels_in_the_world
Not all of these hotels have ballroom or meeting spaces to meet the needs
of a group, hence why the meeting isn’t at a hotel this time (my guess).
Even when we were at the Hilton last November, the meeting wasn’t *at* the
hotel,
but a short walking distance across the road.
I am not trying to be confrontational here, but wouldn’t the lack of
these
things you described above simply disqualify any hotel from being our meeting
venue?
This isn’t the IETF’s first rodeo, so the wide-spread frustration around this
situation
is because we’ve grown accustom to meetings being held in places that did meet
these requirements. Even in relatively exotic locations like Hawaii, the
Hilton easily
supported all of these criteria. I’d suggest that in the future, if the hotel
cannot
support the meeting or its attendees, that we simply do not hold it there.
Problem
solved. 8)
—Tom
This doesn’t seem to be any different from other venues. If you haven’t been
to
japan before and are worried about a non-roman based alphabet, many signs are
in
english as are the train, subway and other announcements. the ticket machines
can even be convinced to use english. (Have some cash, or put money on a
Suica
card). The trains run on time unlike in the US, trust them and plan
accordingly.
Go see Tokyo and other things in the area. The people there are amazing, the
last time I was there I left my cell phone in the cab and the driver returned
to give it to me.
- Jared