One can't 100% protect against disruption from emergency situations. I'm Vice Chair of IEEE 802 and there was a case where a venue became unavailable due to a disaster. In that case it was enough before the meeting that it worked as Bob described - the hotel chain worked with us to identify and contract an acceptable alternative. On the other hand, the tsunami hit Japan just before the IEEE 802 Singapore meeting - close enough to it that some folks were in the air on the way to the meeting when it hit. Many attendees had travel disrupted and arrived late. Some even were unable to attend due to problems getting an alternative routing. Fortunately, enough were able to arrive so that we had an effective meeting, but it was difficult. There are also cases where a wide spread weather disruption has caused problems for meeting effectiveness - e.g. a blizzard on the east coast of the USA. Pat -----Original Message----- From: ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Bob Hinden Sent: Monday, July 15, 2013 12:56 PM To: Abdussalam Baryun Cc: Bob Hinden; ietf@xxxxxxxx Subject: Re: Sunday IAOC Overview Session at the Berlin IETF AB, <snip> > - Is there an alternative venue if the venue was closed for any > emergency reason at any time? or only one plan so if the plan changes > there can be problems with the communities expected plan because they > were not aware of the needed information per time. No, there is not an alternative venue under contract. It isn't practical to have two venues under contract, build two networks, etc. It is technically feasable, but would cause the registration fee to go up significantly to cover the extra costs. If there was, for example, a fire at a venue months before the the meeting we would look for an alternate, but what happens would depend on availability of alternative venues. We have good relationships with the hotel chains we use and they would work very hard to find an alternative venue, as would the effected venue.