al@mot.UUCP (Al Filipski) (01/29/85)
I sent the following to the USENIX office. What do you think? > I just returned from the Winter USENIX conference in Dallas. Although > the organizers are to be congratulated for putting on a smooth-running > conference with such a large group, I have one suggestion to make: > It does not seem quite appropriate to hold the USENIX conference at a > five-star downtown hotel where single rooms are $100 a night and parking > and food are also rather expensive. I heard grumbling from a number of > people at the conference about this. There appear to be many USENIX > members who are students and pay their own way at these conferences. > Holding it at a cheaper hotel with a more suitable level of amenities (coke > machines in the halls instead of shoe polishing machines in the rooms) would, > in my opinion, serve the members better. There must be (possibly suburban) > hotels with large conference rooms, free parking, and room rates one-half to > two-thirds those of the Dallas Fairmont. (The Austin Marriott, for example, > at which I recently attended a regional ACM conference). > Again, I think the organizers did a very good job, but perhaps > a slightly less expensive class of hotel would be more appropriate. -------------------------------- Alan Filipski, UNIX group, Motorola Microsystems, Tempe, AZ U.S.A {seismo | ihnp4 } ! ut-sally ! oakhill ! mot ! al -------------------------------- "To support our life-style for one day, a twelve-year old in Mongolia would have to carry a bundle of sticks the size of a Volkswagen three times around the Grand Canyon."
howard@cyb-eng.UUCP (Howard Johnson) (01/29/85)
> There must be (possibly suburban) > hotels with large conference rooms, free parking, and room rates one-half to > two-thirds those of the Dallas Fairmont. (The Austin Marriott, for example, > at which I recently attended a regional ACM conference). I think the Austin Marriott would be a good choice, too. I live within walking distance of the Austin Marriott. -- Howard Johnson Cyb Systems, Austin, TX ..!{gatech,harvard,ihnp4,nbires,noao,seismo}!ut-sally!cyb-eng!howard
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (01/31/85)
There are other constraints besides the price of the hotel. (1) There have to be enough rooms available for the 1000-2000 people who attend the conference. If you hold Usenet at the Motel 6 by the airport, we could probably have a 20 or 30 person conference. But for something as large as Usenix, you need a cluster of fairly big hotels. These are usually downtown or near a convention center. (2) They wanted to be near enough to the UniForum hotel and InfoMart to allow people to get to it in a reasonable amount of time. (3) UniForum was in town, sucking up all the hotel rooms. I understand that the only two choices within a reasonable distance of InfoMart were the Fairmont (where it was held) or at the airport (which I'll bet is incredibly noisy.) (4) We don't need the shoe shine machines or the room service, but on the other hand we needed a meeting room big enough to seat everybody, a few smaller rooms for BOF's and meetings, and enough places to eat so we don't all have to wait 4 hours for a table at the Denny's across the street. Things will probably change in the future. I understand there aren't going to be any more joint conferences with UniForum. The next UniForum is next February in Anaheim, but the Usenix next winter is in Jan in Denver. Mark
bees@drutx.UUCP (DavisRB) (01/31/85)
I like the conference to be held at a first rate hotel. I think it
adds to the environment. But... I didn't pay for the trip myself. If
I did have to pay, I would have stayed with a friend in Dallas.
Ray Davis
AT&T Information Systems Laboratories, Denver
{ihnp4, houxe, stcvax!ihnp4}!drutx!bees, (303)538-3991