--On Sunday, August 16, 2015 10:39 -0700 Ole Jacobsen <olejacobsen@xxxxxx> wrote: > The Intercontinental is not a particularly large hotel, but it > IS the hotel directly connected to the venue. The venue is a > conference center, not a hotel. I think you will find the > venue quite excellent, and access to other hotels easy. Ole, In years past, when we have had a small venue or venue-connected hotels, we've arranged contracts so that there are really two or more "official" (even if not all "HQ") hotels, hotels with which the IETF has contracts that cover relevant policies, Internet access, etc. We also managed to announce all of those hotels at the same time as the HQ one, thereby alleviating some of the panic that leads people to want to make reservations in the first hours in case they might want to come (something I've been guilty of as my meeting attendance pattern shifts to "decide within the month prior to the meeting whether I really need to travel to it"). That is different from "overflow hotels", with which IETF/IAOC has traditionally facilitated identification of locations and reservation arrangements but not otherwise been involved, and "nearby hotels" that are around and may be identified but for which the IETF doesn't even identify a handy travel bureau. Since you seem to be the one giving reassurances, what are the actual Yokohama arrangements on the spectrum between "official" and "nearby"? Also, and reinforcing Melinda's point that this many imply that we should be lowering emphasis on f2f meetings, part of the claimed value of f2f IETF meetings has always been the informal meeting opportunities. We seem to be getting away from that as the traditional "Bar BOF" becomes something that is formally organized and scheduled, the Thursday evening examination of drafts and draughts get harder to reliably schedule, and so on. But distributing people among multiple hotels tends to make those semi-spontaneous events harder to arrange (e.g., if breakfasts are included in hotel rates and/or hotels don't expect people to eat breakfast there would aren't staying there, scheduling actual breakfast meetings can get challenging). My experience with many IETFs (although not as many as you, Mike, and a few others) is that, especially in the last several years, there always seems to be something, even after one adjusts for the tendency of the community to whine and make a big issue out of small glitches and inconveniences. I can't help but feel that some of them indicate that we are losing sight of our priorities relative to effective meetings versus, e.g., nice locations or outreach to new regions or locations. john