After touching base with the hotels in the expanded search area, I believe that one of them stood out as clearly the best candidate. It won’t allow for much expansion in-place (if any), but it’s a lovely all-suites hotel that is convenient to plenty of restaurants and other amenities. The meeting room rate is very reasonable (for Austin) and decreases by as much as half if we can book enough room nights.

It even has fire!

I don’t yet have a formal rate quote for a sleeping room block. However, their published rates for the equivalent weekend in 2019 were under $100- extremely low for a newly-built suite hotel in Austin. This same hotel charges over $200 a night during busier times of year!

All the rooms have a kitchenette.

As far as the date, I was weighing a lot of different factors, both religious and practical. This weekend kept “pinging”, despite its proximity to New Year’s Day- or perhaps because of it.

As much as possible, I wanted to avoid conflicts with holy days, though that’s nigh-impossible to do perfectly. This weekend does fall right around the end of Yule in some traditions. It is also roughly around the time that the Romans sometimes celebrated Compitalia- the festival of crossroads Powers. I haven’t found others, though I could certainly be mistaken.

This weekend is close enough to the general “Holiday Season” that many of our academics will not yet have returned to the classroom. Some of us might even be lucky enough to work at places that are closed through the following Monday.

Furthermore, January in Austin is a time of year when visitors from other parts of the country aren’t likely to burst into flames when walking outside. While the locals might wear parkas, our colleagues from more northern climes might consider it lovely spring or fall weather.

In addition, my comparison of airfares showed an average of $173 in round-trip savings compared with busy weekends like those during SXSW. There is also a large park-and-ride bus terminal less than two miles away and four different bus lines pass near to the hotel.

Finally, there is the esoteric gravitas of conducting an event like this on the first weekend after the dawn of a new year. While our various faiths and traditions may use different calendars, we all live in a society the runs on the Gregorian one. Rather than just making forgettable personal resolutions, perhaps we can put the power of this liminal time to a more holy use.

To that end, I have tentatively confirmed a keynote speaker- a published author who has a long history of service to the Gods.

-In Deos Confidimus

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As with VC #2, this location is near the airport and has an airport shuttle.

Their room rate is basically $120 a night, but they are only willing to block 10 rooms and that with an “attrition clause” where we’d owe them money if less than 80% of the rooms blocked are used. After those 10 are reserved, the pricing and availability would float like normal.

Their meeting room rate is slightly higher than #3, by about 5%. This puts them in the second lowest cost position- for now. I need to get back to VC #1 with a shortlist of dates to get a meeting room quote.

Here are all the dates they said were available (at present):

• April 5 – 7, 2019
• April 19 – 21, 2019
• April 26 – 28, 2019
• May 30 – June 2, 2019
• June 14 – 16, 2019
• July 12 – 14, 2019
• July 26 – 28, 2019
• August 23 – 25, 2019
• November 1 – 3, 2019
• November 8 – 10, 2019
• December 20 – 22, 2019
• December 27 – 29, 2019
• January 3 – 5, 2020
• January 10 – 12, 2020
• January 17 – 19, 2020
• January 24 – 26, 2020

Thoughts?

-In Deos Confidimus

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Here are the best rate dates that I received from them:

$100-110 for Single/Double

• June 28 – 30
• July 5 – 7 (Independence Day weekend) [Cheapest]
• July 26 – 27
• December 20-22
• December 27-29

$110-120 for Single/Double

• August 2 – 4
• January 3 – 5, 2020 (Also shown for VC #1)

As with Venue #1, the contact person was conscientious and the facility has a lot of room to grow. It does have a free airport shuttle (it’s right there, after all) and is on the Route 20 bus route to downtown in case people want to see the sights or go out on the town after the sessions.

Sadly, the per day meeting room rate is WAY more than expected- about twice the rate for Venue Candidate #4 and three times Venue Candidate #3. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding “per day” or they misquoted, but still… wow.

As part of my due diligence, I reached out electronically to a number of other hotels in Austin. Some declined, for various reasons. I’m waiting to hear from the others.

Thoughts on any of these dates in case I find them elsewhere?

-In Deos Confidimus

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It is located within walking distance (1/2 mile or less) of a number of restaurants, two movie theatres (including an artsy one), and is directly next to an old shopping mall that is being redeveloped into a mixed-use center including a community college, apartments, shops, and the like. It is one of four hotels in the vicinity that I’ve been interested in, and is the most walkable of the four.

That said, this part of town is fairly far from the airport and I don’t think this hotel offers a free airport shuttle. I need to remember to ask next time we talk. At least one hotel nearby does. The route from the airport isn’t complicated, but for those who don’t or don’t want to drive it could be an issue.

On the other hand, it’s the closest hotel to the Greyhound bus terminal, being a little more than a block away. As far as mass transit, there is a red line train (to downtown) stop about a 7/10 mile walk away. The route 350 bus stops a bit closer, but it’s still a hike. Given Austin (and Texas) mass transit in general, this isn’t bad, but it’s probably further than folks used to good transit systems expect to carry bags- especially if it’s a warmer time of year!

Speaking of times of year, I got a list of possible dates for this hotel. We cut off March of 2019 and earlier to leave enough time for planning and getting enough attendees. March and October are also the two craziest months for hotel space in Austin, apparently.

Here are the dates that the hotel is costing out for us:

• April 5 – 7 (Would have to start late on Friday)
• April 19 – 21 (Also being considered by someone else- Easter)
• April 26 – 28 (Would be using less than my preferred rooms)
• May 30 – June 2
• June 14 – 16
• July 12 – 14
• July 26 – 28
• November 1 – 3
• November 8 – 10 (Veterans’ Day weekend)

August, interestingly, was booked solid. According to the hotel, it’s usually dead, but in 2019 it’s filled up. That might be for the best, given our summertime temperatures.

As far as other events, it looks like there are three possible conflicts amongst the events I’ve found. Spring Mysteries runs April 18-21. Mystic South is in-between the two July dates. Spiritfire hasn’t released their 2019 dates, but it’s usually in mid-July as well.

Of course, for those engaged in Celtic reconstructionism, the first weekend in November might easily create a scheduling conflict. So too for those practicing Mexican traditions. While Austin does have a large Dia de los Muertos celebration, attending it isn’t the reason for the conference.

The following weekend could be tight for folks whose work includes services timed around Veterans’ Day.

That’s my report for today.

-In Deos Confidimus

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If I’m collecting 5¢ cans, it might take me awhile to find 120,000 of them!

Let’s start with an obvious “gotcha”- Wedding Season! In talking with one of the 2014 organizers, she noted that in her area October, May, and June are the big months. September is also popular, according to some articles I found. Here in Austin, it might be a bit earlier, in the spring, but I’m having trouble confirming one way or the other. Then again, being sunny most of the year probably spreads the weddings out a bit more.

That said, we’re not just trying to avoid conflicts with weddings locally, but to minimize the odds of a possible presenter (or attendee, for that matter) having a scheduling conflict.

Another time of year with MASSIVE scheduling conflicts is the November-December holiday season. Aside from significant holy days in a number of traditions, many folks have practical considerations- kids out of school, families to visit, and the like.

I’ve considered January, since many academic folks have a slight reprieve then and people from northern climes might appreciate weather that ranges from just below freezing into what would be considered full-spring temperatures elsewhere. However, January is also “Cedar Season“, when the Mountain Junipers make love with each other and war upon the sinuses of many a human.

So out of 12 months, we’ve already raised serious concerns about 7 of them!

February doesn’t seem to have any major problems (except for the possibility of lingering “cedar fever”), but it doesn’t have any significant plusses either. Most academics are back to class, people are still paying off credit cards from the holidays, and so forth. In my line of work, we call this “The Doldrums” because business tends to be slow. Then again, maybe that’s a recommendation?

March in Austin is dominated by South-by-Southwest (SXSW), an enormous multidisciplinary conference that eats just about every venue in town. There’s also a massive rodeo and another large film festival during the month. The traffic can get bad enough downtown that some folks take a vacation to be away from the area! I’d love to do March, because it’s typically a beautiful time of year, full of wildflowers and such. But it’s likely to be trouble.

April is also nice, though typically a bit more rainy (go figure, right?). It’s also a heavy allergy season.

May and June are prime wedding months and May has tons of graduations. Here in Austin, late May is sometimes Monsoon Season (and sometimes not). While lots of folks are out of school by mid-June, June is also Pride Month for many of our possible attendees. As an aside, Austin celebrates PRIDE in mid-August.

July and August are hot. If you are not used to the Southwest or Deep South, this is not a good time to be out and about- air conditioning is your friend. While we don’t have random stuff melting all over town like Tucson did awhile back, we did have a giant cowboy boot burst into flames. Okay, it was probably a wiring fault, but still. Some tortilla chips totally did spontaneously combust TWICE within the last two weeks, though.

September is wedding season again, and can still be quite hot. Fantastic Fest happens in September, which suggests it might be a reasonable enough time to hold indoor events.

October is back into prime wedding season, and though the weather is usually nice here- Austin City Limits Music Festival dominates the downtown for the first two weekends. The United States Grand Prix and Austin Film Festival eat up a lot of hotels during the latter part of the month. That said, we have a pretty decent Dia de los Muertos event.

And, with that we’re back around to November and December. These also tend to be pretty nice, weather wise. Early November might be less hectic for people, though academics will still generally be in class. By late December we are back into Cedar Season again.

What am I forgetting?

-In Deos Confidimus

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