Ok...we'll just get straight to the point.

Every year, we have a certain number of room nights that we're responsible for covering. Reaching this goal means we don't have to pay the hotel for the meeting room space and allows us to spend that money on entertainment, prizes, snacks/food, etc.

There are multiple tiers. If we hit the top tier, we get all our meeting rooms for free. If we hit the second tier, we pay a large chunk of change. If we fall under that second tier, we have to pay a much larger amount.

In years past, we've never even come close to that second tier and we've always gotten all of our meeting rooms comped.

This year, however, we're still about 35 room nights short from the second tier, and 55 rooms short of the first tier.

What does this mean?

In a nutshell, it means that if we don't pick up enough room nights to hit at least the second tier, virtually our entire budget will have to go to the hotel. This isn't negotiable. We can't go to the hotel at this point and ask for fewer meeting rooms in the hopes of paying less money because it's unlikely they'll be able to book anyone into those rooms to make up the money they'd be losing. If we don't get enough room nights to reach the first tier, then roughly half of our budget goes to pay for the rooms and will put a dent in any plans we have.

Our room block will remain open until June 9th. If you are coming to the Con and haven't taken care of your room situation yet, PLEASE make sure you are booked in our block ASAP. If you are on the fence about coming to the Con, now would be a GREAT time to decide to come! We're working on some fun things that we can do in the games for attendees (special items, shops, etc.) as a bit of extra incentive to come this year, so if that will help make up your mind and join us, then that would be fabulous!

I will also say with a certainty, that if we end up having to blow all this money on the meeting rooms because of low attendance, then there will be very little discussion about whether we actually have a Con next year or not. This is a lot of work and if it's gotten to the point that folks don't want to come anymore, then that will be unfortunate, but this will be the last one. I absolutely hope that's not what it boils down to, but that's the simple fact of the matter.


Solomon