As of last night, we still had quite a few rooms available in the main hotel block: Thursday, 15-Mar — 11 rooms Friday, 16- Mar — 32 rooms Saturday 17- Mar — 130 Sunday 18-Mar — 198 Monday 19-Mar — 192 Tuesday 20-Mar — 192 Wednesday, 21-Mar — 193 Thursday, 22-Mar — 200 Friday, 23-Mar — 140 Saturday, 24-Mar — 13 Regards, Alexa > On Dec 18, 2017, at 9:26 AM, Tobias Gondrom <tobias.gondrom@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > FYI just in case there are any concerns for supply for London. I just booked > my room in London through the public booking link. And there are rooms > available in the main venue hotel right now. > > IMHO one challenge for the hotel room supply might also be our generous > cancellation policy, which leads to people rushing to book early and then > cancel late without risk. That can lead to unnecessarily shortening supply > up for a long period of time up until 2 weeks before the meeting... > > And as a general comment: I would be in favor of transparency. > > Best regards, Tobias (IAOC hat = off) > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of John C Klensin > Sent: Monday, December 18, 2017 11:59 PM > To: John R Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxxx>; Tim Chown <tjc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> > Cc: IETF general list <ietf@xxxxxxxx> > Subject: Re: How many rooms _actually_ available ? Re: IETF 101 - > Registration and Hotel Reservations Open! > > > > --On Monday, December 18, 2017 10:30 -0500 John R Levine <johnl@xxxxxxxxx> > wrote: > >>>> It wouldn't help us get rooms for IETF-101, but it would help with >>>> IAOC oversight (who oversees the overseers?) to know how many rooms >>>> were in the block. For example, knowing that only 75 rooms were >>>> blocked out and that 74 of them are reserved for staff and I* might >>>> raise questions. This where some transparency would help. >>> Indeed. Or at least it can't hurt. >> >> As I understand it, you're saying that you suspect the problem is that >> the IAOC, which is all volunteers you know, is holding back unneeded >> rooms for the people who run the meetings? If that's not what you >> mean, what do you mean? > > John, Let me take a try at answering the question. > > Over the years, we have moved very gradually from a rather small number of > people for whom the Secretariat reserved and held rooms in the HQ / meeting > hotel to what some people believe is > an ever-expanding list. I can remember a time when, if rooms > in the main hotel were scarce, most of all of the Secretariat stayed > somewhere else and just about the only special reservations were for members > of the IAB and IESG and maybe not all of them. While I'm willing to assume > that every addition makes sense, I think it would be healthier if the > community understood how far the umbrella spreads and, insofar as it becomes > a constraint on getting work done, that the fundamental > decisions about criteria be subject to community review. For > example, do IAOC members now get reserved rooms? Can that be justified in > the same way that the IAB and IESG originally were, i.e., improving > accessibility to those people, freeing up extra space for very small > meetings with them, and making the meetings run better. How about senior > (or other?) ISOC or ICANN or other guest people or organizations staff or > representatives? > > The question of how many of those rooms there are and who they go to is > important for another reason: once upon a time, most of all of those rooms > were comp-ed by the hotel in return for bringing the meeting in, just as > meeting rooms are. Has the number of comp-ed rooms become part of meeting > location and hotel locations? Or, if not, is IASA paying for some of them > and how, if at all, does that affect the bottom line and the meeting fees > paid by "ordinary" participants? > > Note that this interacts with a different concern. The number of reserved > small meeting rooms is definitely on the increase relative to where it was > 15 years ago (IIR, if I recall, at that time it was one each for the IAB and > IESG, a work area for the Secretariat, and, in season, one for the Nomcom). > If the number of those rooms that are required has expanded to the point > that it is a constraint on hotel choices and negotiations, whether it is a > source of upward pressure on registration fees or not, then I think the > community is entitled to knowledge about, and probably even control over how > the tradeoffs should be considered. > > I note that none of this is about contracts with particular hotels or the > like, only how much visibility fundamental IASA policy decisions have the > community and whether the community is given enough information to provide > effective input into those decisions. > > john > >