HawaiiBigSis
List Management
I think it's back to the "less expensive booze" and "want our own food".
Same rebuttal as above, but I'm willing to go along with that sentiment as long as we can then take up Desktop Icon's!
TAM 7 Forum Party Proposal
- Thread starter TsarBomba
- Start date
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- forum party tam 7
Doubt
Philosopher
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Otherwise known as just another day at the office.......
Dicon
is not a radish
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Kittyclaws
Muse
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Can we just take over a bar and bribe the DJ/bartenders to pour freely and play good tunes?
Horatius
NWO Kitty Wrangler
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I'm back from Vegas, and have some photos of the South Point Casino to post, and some comments on what I think of it all. I'm off to swing swords for a few hours, so hopefully I'll post it all later today.
Brief note: there are two bars that it would be easy to take over like we did at the Flamingo, but there's one that is on the casino floor, so there's no chance they would play our own music, and I'm not sure if the other one can.
Horatius
NWO Kitty Wrangler
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Chebutykin
Student
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Hi, all! Just saw this thread.
Let me start off by saying that I would be happy to be part of the hivemind part of arranging a Forum party. However, I am a really lousy person to help with the actual logistics of the event, as I'm not even completely sure I can make it to TAM 7 yet. (I'm helping run a 3,200 attendee convention in Minneapolis the week before, and helping run a corporate conference in Chicago the week after.)
I have a long history of throwing parties at conventions, both corporate gigs and sci-fi cons. I even did it as a sort of hobby business for about five years.
My thoughts so far:
* If you decide to go with renting a suite again, you should be able to work with the hotel to arrange a block of rooms around the suite -- a couple rooms on either side, and a block on the floors above and below. Ask Forum folks to volunteer to take up residence in this block of rooms; I'm sure that the Forum could easily fill a block of 10 or 15 rooms with folks who are intending to be at the party anyway. This should cut the noise complaints significantly, as the rooms serve as a noise buffer to the rest of the hotel, and have the benefit of not costing the Forum party organizers anything extra. They would just need to do the footwork of arranging the block through the hotel.
* Have we looked into open air rooftop venues? Are there any in Vegas that are affordable? That should help with both the noise factor and the buildup of heat in a normal enclosed space. Perhaps even a rooftop pool space?
* Any commercial event venue, be it a hotel, bar, restaurant, or event hall, will want to take over booze/food arrangments, as that's where their money comes from. You can sometimes dodge this by holding a private party in a suite, but it depends on the hotel. Otherwise, if you are looking at BYOB/BYOF opportunities, you need to look at non-traditional venues. Someone mentioned renting a house earlier, and I think this would possibly be the best bang for the buck on all fronts. The one drawback, of course, is that it's a few blocks from the TAM convention space.
* There is one possibility that we haven't considered yet: completely non-traditional venues. Do we know anyone in Vegas who owns a business or a theater or some other space that doesn't normally host food-n-booze events? I attend the Butt-Numb-a-Thon film festival every year in Austin, TX, and for many years, the pre-party was hosted at a local video store. We'd pack about 100 people into the place, and had a keg and food and even a bonfire out behind the store. One year, the BNAT had the pre-party in a gas station that had been converted into a bar. I also know a couple folks who got married in an old art deco movie theater; it was a very inexpensive, yet very beautiful and unique venue. We had a great time there.
Food for thought!
Let me start off by saying that I would be happy to be part of the hivemind part of arranging a Forum party. However, I am a really lousy person to help with the actual logistics of the event, as I'm not even completely sure I can make it to TAM 7 yet. (I'm helping run a 3,200 attendee convention in Minneapolis the week before, and helping run a corporate conference in Chicago the week after.)
I have a long history of throwing parties at conventions, both corporate gigs and sci-fi cons. I even did it as a sort of hobby business for about five years.
My thoughts so far:
* If you decide to go with renting a suite again, you should be able to work with the hotel to arrange a block of rooms around the suite -- a couple rooms on either side, and a block on the floors above and below. Ask Forum folks to volunteer to take up residence in this block of rooms; I'm sure that the Forum could easily fill a block of 10 or 15 rooms with folks who are intending to be at the party anyway. This should cut the noise complaints significantly, as the rooms serve as a noise buffer to the rest of the hotel, and have the benefit of not costing the Forum party organizers anything extra. They would just need to do the footwork of arranging the block through the hotel.
* Have we looked into open air rooftop venues? Are there any in Vegas that are affordable? That should help with both the noise factor and the buildup of heat in a normal enclosed space. Perhaps even a rooftop pool space?
* Any commercial event venue, be it a hotel, bar, restaurant, or event hall, will want to take over booze/food arrangments, as that's where their money comes from. You can sometimes dodge this by holding a private party in a suite, but it depends on the hotel. Otherwise, if you are looking at BYOB/BYOF opportunities, you need to look at non-traditional venues. Someone mentioned renting a house earlier, and I think this would possibly be the best bang for the buck on all fronts. The one drawback, of course, is that it's a few blocks from the TAM convention space.
* There is one possibility that we haven't considered yet: completely non-traditional venues. Do we know anyone in Vegas who owns a business or a theater or some other space that doesn't normally host food-n-booze events? I attend the Butt-Numb-a-Thon film festival every year in Austin, TX, and for many years, the pre-party was hosted at a local video store. We'd pack about 100 people into the place, and had a keg and food and even a bonfire out behind the store. One year, the BNAT had the pre-party in a gas station that had been converted into a bar. I also know a couple folks who got married in an old art deco movie theater; it was a very inexpensive, yet very beautiful and unique venue. We had a great time there.
Food for thought!
Hokulele
Deleterious Slab of Damnation
UnrepentantSinner
A post by Alan Smithee
Seconded.
And one request to everyone when we do this regardless of the forum party status - leave some room for the waitresses to get up to the bar and get drinks. IIRC, Sunday night was really bad with people clogging what wasn't that large an area in the first place cutting off appraoch and egress for the waitresses.
Chebutykin
Student
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- Aug 19, 2008
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- 48
That would be AWESOME! *grin*