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Early signs point to attendees who register under government rates being able to count toward our room block. We'll have "for sure" info on that at time of registration. But it sounds like y'all can go for the government rate if it's available to you; this hotel does have an amazing government rate. And yes, this price is a significant reduction over the standard nightly rate for this hotel. And it does include wireless, which otherwise would be $10/day, I believe. As has been pointed out already, this location is primo downtown location, which we chose for its walkability to restaurants and pubs. The Hilton on the north side of town is not walkable to similar food / entertainment, nor is there public transportation to make up the difference, which impacts the room cost. There are indeed cheaper hotels in the area, and we do assume that some folks will book those cheaper hotels, as always happens. We encourage those who can pay this reasonable rate to do so as we need to meet a certain minimum requirement toward rooms as part of our agreement, otherwise we begin to be charged extra for our meeting space. We can always approach the hotel about the pricing, but the contract has been signed so we really don't have any additional leverage at this point. On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:53 AM, Tim McGeary <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > A few more factual follow-ups for reference: > > - The negotiation process was NOT easy and we explored many different > venues. We are not getting a raw deal. Trust me, we had some raw deals > offered. This contract has a lot of things that help us keep our > collective costs down and protect the conference. > > - The Hilton in Raleigh is not competitor geographically to the downtown > hotels, which have their own conference spaces but also serve the Raleigh > Convention Center across the street from both. > > - I am checking with CONCENTRA and the Sheraton about whether those booking > with government rates can count toward our block. The Sheraton conference > manager is on vacation this week so it will be at least a week before I > have an answer. However, I do expect we have more government rate eligible > attendees than hotels typically allocate for in any given situation. > > As Francis said, it is hard to convince hotels to trust a non-organization > like Code4Lib. But that's why we hired CONCENTRA for this year. They do > this all year long, for conferences big and small, and they know how to > negotiate (as I saw and heard firsthand the past couple months). And > they'll be continuing to work with us through the end of the conference and > all the bill paying that happens after the conference. > > We are in good hands, but as Roy said, please join the planning committee. > There is plenty of room! > > Tim > > > On Mon, Jul 1, 2013 at 9:46 AM, Francis Kayiwa <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > > > On Mon, Jul 01, 2013 at 05:00:42AM -0700, BWS Johnson wrote: > > > > > > ??? Chicago is not Raleigh. I would expect to pay more in a major > > metropolis than in the Southeast University market. Further, ALA's > > continued to mystify me in the conference department, too. We are > terrible > > negotiators. > > > > Dunno about that. Given that we "the Code4lib we" do not exist as a > > "real" (as in Taxman) organization. I suspect this years planners ran > > into the same problems we did. This was articulated to us really well. > > Our request for rooms compares to. > > > > We are having a wedding in Chicago in February and we promise 400 of our > > family will be coming. It is hard to convince them otherwise. Now the > > delicious irony was after the Conference they were wondering if we would > > be returning to Chicago again in 2014. > > > > You can keep conference costs down in other ways by helping raise money > > for sponsorships. > > > > http://code4lib.org/node/487 > > > > regards, > > ./fxk > > > > > > > > Cheers, > > > Brooke > > > > > > > -- > > No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. > > -- Eleanor Roosevelt > > > > > > -- > Tim McGeary > [log in to unmask] > GTalk/Yahoo/Skype/Twitter: timmcgeary > 484-294-7660 (cell) >