Their rate was just shy of $120 per night for Nov. 8-10, 2019- so about $20 more than #1, which also quoted that date. They are, however, the only one that explicitly included a hot breakfast buffet for up to four people per room.

This hotel is located next to candidate #3 and across the highway from #1.

Unlike #2 & 3, they have free parking (like #1) and they also have no airport shuttle.

Their meeting room cost for the weekend is half that of #2 and about 50% more than #3. If we decide to pin down for a different weekend, I can probably get a new quote, but I expect it will be similar.

Thoughts?

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Hotel Rates and Dates from Venue Candidate #4 appeared first on Hearthingstone.

Sadly, this hotel has fewer dates available (or quoted fewer). I haven’t spoken with the rep there- they called, but didn’t leave a message.

$100-110 for Single/Double

• August 23-25
• December 20-22 (Also quoted by #2)
• December 27-29 (Also quoted by #2)
• January 3-5, 2020 (Also quoted by #1 & #2)

It turns out this hotel does not have an airport shuttle as we thought; however, they do have a local shuttle that goes out 2 miles.

As far as meeting room costs, this hotel’s total price is equal to the daily price for VC #2. On the other hand, this hotel charges for parking- in this case $15+ per day. VC #1 does not, but #2 does.

I feel like I need to get a couple of other quotes from smaller hotels and then decide on a date and venue. But, smaller hotels wouldn’t have a lot of room to grow and we’d definitely have to cap registrations.

Thoughts?

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Hotel Rates and Dates from Venue Candidate #3 appeared first on Hearthingstone.

Under $100 (Barely)

• April 19 – 21 (Also being considered by someone else- Easter)
• June 14 – 16
• July 12 – 14
• November 8 – 10 (Veterans’ Day weekend)
• January 3 – 5, 2020

$100-120

• April 5 – 7 (Would have to start late on Friday)
• April 26 – 28 (Would be using less than my preferred rooms)
• May 30 – June 2
• July 26 – 28
• November 1 – 3
• January 10 – 12, 2020

Over $120

• January 17 – 19, 2020 (MLK Day weekend)
• January 24 – 26, 2020

So far, the staff contact has been wonderful and I like the space. However, it turns out that they don’t have a free airport shuttle. With perhaps 80% of our attendees coming from out of the area, we’d need to think about options.

It’s been a really busy week at day job, but I need to reach out to at least a couple of other hotels. I found one right at the airport, but would that be too noisy?

Thoughts on the dates above? I’d like to aim at the cheaper end if possible, but so far no dates are jumping out at me as ideal.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Hotel Room Estimates From Venue Candidate #1 appeared first on Hearthingstone.

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

The post Date Considerations appeared first on Hearthingstone.

Hearthingstone is intended to serve a small subset of the polytheist populace- namely those in (or being groomed for) positions of responsibility and service to some tradition and/or community.

This immediately shrinks the size of facility down. Even if Hearthingstone grows miraculously large, we will probably never need hotel rooms and seating for 50,000 people. This might seem obvious, but if I were planning a media fandom event I’d have to consider such a possibility.

I can’t find my materials from the 2014 PLC in Fishkill, but I recall the attendance being around 50 or so. It might have been larger, but I’m pretty sure there were less than 100 attendees. Once I can give this conference a little more life of its own, I’ll ask the organizers if they recall.

My hope is the have between 100 and 200 attendees for the first Hearthingstone. This will require more in-depth outreach to bring in leaders from local and regional pockets who aren’t necessarily connected to the same networks as the folks at the 2014 PLC. In picking a venue, I’d also like to be able to roughly double that size over time without having to change locations.

This brings up another very important issue- transportation. In order to bring in attendees from around the nation (and world), good transportation is a must. I’ll explore host city considerations in another post, but figuring out how to get people to the conference will consume a considerable amount of time.

As far as programming, I’m thinking that a main “stage” and 2-3 smaller sessions per block will provide a good variety of options without spreading people out too much. Given that there are several “big” categories of topics and nearly endless subcategories of each, this should also help ensure that nearly every block has a session appropriate to any given attendee.

Why is this important?

Hearthingstone is asking folks to expend considerable time, effort, and money to attend- as host, I owe them my best effort to make sure they feel it’s worth the trouble. The first time someone attends a conference and rubs shoulders with a famous blogger or author, that’s usually a big deal to them. The novelty wears off, though- it’s the general quality of programming that enables a conference to attract people again and again.

If we are going to be successful in building up the strength of polytheism in the world, we need people coming back.

That’s enough for one night’s noodling. Keep an eye out for more detailed posts in the coming days and weeks.

-In Deos Confidimus

The post Planning Begins… appeared first on Hearthingstone.