Having organized (or tried to…) conferences at a US university, some caveats: - You can get cheap housing, but only in the summer and some places. (I recently stayed at the U. of Toronto for $38/night, albeit having showers down the hall may not be everybody's cup of tea. Rates in Columbia summer housing are no better than NY hotel rates and you'd have to book years in advance to get a large enough room block, given all the summer events at major universities.) - Most university class room are designed for smaller classes than the typical IETF room size (with 5 or 6 parallel sessions, you'd want 200 or so seats in each, I'm guessing), so you might have all the larger venues (100+ seats) spread around campus, maybe one per building. Makes it difficult to have a single cookie area. - Some universities will charge pretty hefty sums to use their student center facilities, which is probably the only facility large enough for a plenary. Generally, they'll charge market rates for rooms unless you can get local faculty to sponsor the event. - With a few exceptions (GaTech is probably one and maybe Toronto, if you define city center generously), large universities are not in the city center and not close to large number of business-level hotel rooms, for the obvious reasons that students aren't their typical customers and you can't survive on parents weekend and graduation alone. You will typically find more motels and such, but geared towards driving to campus, not walking. Universities outside North America may be more suitable, but again only during semester breaks in most cases. Even Internet2, which presumably could easily get campus event sponsorships through their CIO members and has mostly university attendees, typically doesn't have its member meeting at universities. Henning On Aug 24, 2011, at 7:32 PM, Ole Jacobsen wrote: > > Sorry, I wasn't trying to suggest a bad faith situation, just reacting > to your WORDING :-) > > I agree that hotel prices have risen and that isn't limited to the > venues under consideration by the IETF. NANOG and APRICOT hotel rates > have gone up as have other meeting hotel rates, and certainly the > hotels I stay in as an individual have gone up a LOT in, say, the last > ten years, and that's not even accounting for the currency changes. I > have a couple of "favorite" hotels that have have gone from "under > 100" (for values of Euros, Pounds, Dollars, other kinds of dollars) to > "well above 200" in that timeframe. > > I think the only way to get HQ hotel rates down is to go to the sort > of places that the IETF seems to not want to go. One of the cheapest > places to fly to in the world is Las Vegas. You can also get really > good hotel rates there, group or individual. Since I went to Las Vegas > every year for 10+ years and basically did nothing but attend a > conference and tradeshow *I* have no problem going back and would > certainly consider it an option, but I certainly don't love it and > wouldn't care if I ever set foot there again, and I know for a fact > that many on this list feel the same way. > > The University Campus, or maybe "University Conference Center" idea > is worth exploring, such places do exist (in Atlanta for example), > but, as others have pointed out, we need to clearly define what the > goal is here and recognize that there are some incompatible > requirements. > > Ole > > Ole J. Jacobsen > Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal > Cisco Systems > Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628 > E-mail: ole@xxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj > Skype: organdemo > > > On Wed, 24 Aug 2011, Stephen Farrell wrote: > >> >> >> On 08/24/2011 11:07 PM, Ole Jacobsen wrote: >>> >>> "....doesn't look that good in terms of iaoc performance over time." >>> >>> Are you seriously suggesting that we are looking for more and more >>> expensive venues over time? >> >> No. And obviously not. I don't see how it helps to suggest >> that either. >> >>> Do you not think there might be some >>> factors such as inflation, currency fluctuations, general cost >>> increases (oil prices perhaps) that dictate most of this? >> >> Inflation is accounted for in the figures given. We're >> still >20% above inflation in terms of hotel prices based >> on these figures. >> >> You might claim hotel price inflation is higher than the >> overall, I don't know. I would hope the iaoc would know >> that. What I'm claiming is that the numbers seem to me >> to show that the outcome is not so good. And hence it seems >> to me that the iaoc is not performing that well in this respect. >> >> You might bring out the meeting fee argument etc. but I >> think you (the iaoc as a group) should start by acknowledging >> that there is a real issue here and then try to address >> that and *not* argue I'm accusing you of bad faith or >> something. >> >> S. >> >> >>> >>> Ole >>> >>> Ole J. Jacobsen >>> Editor and Publisher, The Internet Protocol Journal >>> Cisco Systems >>> Tel: +1 408-527-8972 Mobile: +1 415-370-4628 >>> E-mail: ole@xxxxxxxxx URL: http://www.cisco.com/ipj >>> Skype: organdemo >>> >>> >>> >> > _______________________________________________ > Ietf mailing list > Ietf@xxxxxxxx > https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf > _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@xxxxxxxx https://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf