> On Aug 18, 2015:4:33 PM, at 4:33 PM, Jared Mauch <jared@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > >> On Aug 18, 2015, at 3:26 PM, Behcet Sarikaya <sarikaya2012@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: >> >> It seems like IETF is reserving around 300 rooms at the main hotel. >> I think that in the past few IETFs, it became clear that the number of >> people who make quick reservations and who wishes to stay at the main >> conference hotel exceed this amount. Maybe the total of such a >> population is around 500. >> The fact that IETF has been reserving less number of rooms is causing >> a frustration among so many people, such a frustration did not happen >> before. >> Maybe the reason is there are now more people attending IETF. We are >> seeing similar tendency in IEEE 802 meetings as well. > > there is a trick here if you haven’t booked hotel blocks for a conference before: > > 1) you have to pay for a specific number of rooms in your block, even if people > end up booking via 3rd party or otherwise at the hotel you may or may not get > credit against your block and get fined. > > 2) often hotels will trade catering, space, etc.. for rooms. > > 3) predictions and negotiations are tricky. when dealing with large groups > of people, there’s not that many hotels that have 1k rooms available. There > is even a list of all of them in the world. You may see recent places you > have visited: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_hotels_in_the_world > > Not all of these hotels have ballroom or meeting spaces to meet the needs > of a group, hence why the meeting isn’t at a hotel this time (my guess). > > Even when we were at the Hilton last November, the meeting wasn’t *at* the hotel, > but a short walking distance across the road. I am not trying to be confrontational here, but wouldn’t the lack of these things you described above simply disqualify any hotel from being our meeting venue? This isn’t the IETF’s first rodeo, so the wide-spread frustration around this situation is because we’ve grown accustom to meetings being held in places that did meet these requirements. Even in relatively exotic locations like Hawaii, the Hilton easily supported all of these criteria. I’d suggest that in the future, if the hotel cannot support the meeting or its attendees, that we simply do not hold it there. Problem solved. 8) —Tom > This doesn’t seem to be any different from other venues. If you haven’t been to > japan before and are worried about a non-roman based alphabet, many signs are in > english as are the train, subway and other announcements. the ticket machines > can even be convinced to use english. (Have some cash, or put money on a Suica > card). The trains run on time unlike in the US, trust them and plan accordingly. > > Go see Tokyo and other things in the area. The people there are amazing, the > last time I was there I left my cell phone in the cab and the driver returned > to give it to me. > > - Jared