[Lnc-business] Future Convention Sites

[Alicia Mattson]

Arvin,

What's insane is what heart-of-the-strip Vegas hotels charge for use of
their convention space.

Just because you can go on Kayak and buy a single leftover-inventory room
in Vegas for $59 does not mean you can waltz into a prime location and lock
down 400 rooms plus use of their convention space at that rate.  Especially
over a weekend, which is peak rates for Vegas...

I got 2012 bids from some strip hotels (no reference to James Weeks, II
intended).  Our delegates would have to pay $50-$70 more per night for
guest rooms to get use of the convention space, and the hotels demanded
minimum F&B (food and beverage) that was 2-5 times higher than our typical
spending.  The only affordable bids we got were off-strip.

We would face the same situation in many destination cities.  We might be
able to swing something on the outskirts, but our delegates are generally
unwilling to pay for premium locations.

-Alicia




On Thu, Jun 2, 2016 at 10:32 AM, Arvin Vohra <votevohra at gmail.com> wrote:

> Please note that Las Vegas was done off the strip, which was insane. -Arvin
> On Jun 2, 2016 1:28 AM, "Alicia Mattson" <agmattson at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Las Vegas is one of those top-10 destination cities.  We were in Las
>> Vegas in 2012 but did not have the turnout we had in Orlando.
>>
>> Atlanta is not one of those top-10 destination cities, but in 2004 we had
>> over 800 delegates there.
>>
>> What really drove convention turnout this year was Donald Trump and
>> Hillary Clinton, not the fact that it was Orlando.
>>
>> Some of those top-10 cities are VERY, VERY expensive for conventions (New
>> York, San Francisco).  If we didn't have Trump/Clinton to drive our
>> convention attendance, and we chose a very expensive destination city, we'd
>> lose our shirts on the convention finances.
>>
>> -Alicia
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Wed, Jun 1, 2016 at 9:31 PM, Arvin Vohra <votevohra at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi all,
>>>
>>> This year's convention was an amazing success. One of the many reasons:
>>> the location. We picked a destination city, so people brought their spouses
>>> and kids. Many people bough gold packages, even when they weren't
>>> delegates, and routinely bought packages for their families as well.
>>>
>>> I believe that all future conventions should be in destination cities. I
>>> know that the common wisdom is that presidential conventions should be in
>>> non-destination cities, because people will go to the convention anyway.
>>> The argument is: don't waste good cities on presidential years.
>>>
>>> This argument is flawed. While delegates will go anywhere, they won't
>>> bring their families to non-destination cities.
>>>
>>> Here are some cities we should consider:
>>> https://www.tripadvisor.com/TravelersChoice-Destinations-cTop-g191
>>>
>>> And we should stick to the top 10.
>>>
>>> Even if we repeat cities constantly, that's fine. Most people would be
>>> fine going to Las Vegas or New Orleans every four years, or even every two
>>> years.
>>>
>>> I await your feedback, and I intend to make a motion on this in advance
>>> of the July meeting.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Arvin Vohra
>>>
>>> www.VoteVohra.com
>>> VoteVohra at gmail.com
>>> (301) 320-3634
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Lnc-business mailing list
>>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Lnc-business mailing list
>> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
>> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>>
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Lnc-business mailing list
> Lnc-business at hq.lp.org
> http://hq.lp.org/mailman/listinfo/lnc-business_hq.lp.org
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://hq.lp.org/pipermail/lnc-business/attachments/20160602/c644e98f/attachment-0002.html>