On Wed, Feb 06, 2008 at 01:29:40PM -0500, Edward Lewis wrote: > > I really have a hard time being sympathetic to this complaint. If > the purpose of the IETF is open discussion and cross-pollination, > what does it matter where we are so long as there's comfortable > access to the expertise needed? Is there an unwritten requirement > that IETFs are placed to afford us sightseeing? To afford us access > to restaurants? Well, many IETF'ers get tired of eating at the same hotel restaurant, day after day, for the whole week. Also a common problem is that many hotel restaurants are not well equipped to deal with a very large number of people all showing up at the resturant at the same time (+/- 10 minutes), thus flooding the kitchen with orders and resulting in glacial service times. I remember one of the first times we were at Minneapolis, and I made a mistake of eating at the hotel restaurant for lunch, and the food not showing up at the table until something like 5 or 10 minutes before the next working group meeting was supposed to start. Needless to say, that was the last time I frequented that hotel restaurant the whole week! Fortunately in Minneapolis there were other restaurant options that were a close walk away from the hotel. > I am a regular attendee at many other conference series. Although > some series face greater logistical challenges (like venues > cancelling late in the planning, under powered metro and hotel > infrastructures, etc.) and pose less convenient travel arrangements > for the average attendee (using places off the "main grid"), I hear > much less whining from the attendees there than I hear about IETF > arrangements. The IETF is somewhat unique in that it is a fairly large event that still has fixed meeting slots so that everyone shows up for lunch at roughly the same time. That's not so much the case at a trade show, for example, and many conferences are smaller. But basic issues such as access to restaurants and the ability to serve N hundred people in a short period of time are important for anyone who does meeting planning. There are other solutions, such as buffet service, but it is an issue. > Yet another questioned the distance from outside > restaurants[1] - apparently "many fine lunches and dinners" is > required, exercise is immoral. Heh. I consider myself a fairly serious foodie[1], but most of the time when I go to conferences and meetings, especially at lunch time, it's usually a food court style restaurant that I'll frequent, because it's (a) fast, and (b) convenient. Besides, there really isn't time for a proper 12 course tasting menu if you want to get back in time for the evening meetings or BOF's. :-) But what's really, really, annoying for me is if the only restaurant around is a super expensive restaurant at an hotel, where service is slow and you end up being late to the after-lunch or evening working group meetings as a result. Being at a resort hotel often adds insult to injury, because (a) the food is priced comparable to food served at Aquavit or the French Laundry, but (b) the quality of the food is cr*p and certainly not worth the $$$ that you spend *because* it is at a resort location. For me, I'll take business-class hotel like a Hilton or a Doubletree any day.... and even better if it is adjacent to a mall with a food court. When I go to an conference or a standards meeting, it's to get work done, not to do fine dining or lounge at a resort setting. And if I'm going to pay $$$ for an expensive restaurant, I want to get my money's worth, which is rarely the case at most hotel restaurants. - Ted [1] http://thunk.org/tytso/blog/2007/10/08/sous-vide-revisited/ _______________________________________________ Ietf@xxxxxxxx http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf