Hi Gary,
I'll try to elaborate on some reasons why this can happen.
First of all, there are many decisions that go into choosing the host hotel: quality, price, LOCATION somewhat central to most activities & ease of access for large groups of cars driving together), amenities, etc. Immediately some hotels are ruled out because they don't fit well into the previous factors.
Now, October in Phoenix is a PEAK season for the hotels as it is pretty much the best month of the year. Therefore, the hotels have quite a bit of leverage and aren't willing to block off a ton of rooms for us and then allow us to cancel whatever rooms aren't used. In fact, we have to COMMIT to a certain number of rooms in order to have them held/blocked off, and any rooms not taken by NSXPO attendees will have to be purchased (with no occupants mind you) by the NSXCA. Of course the NSXCA is a non-profit club and must be fiscally responsible to its members, so you can see the challenge that we face in trying to block enough rooms off for those people attending, without putting the NSXCA in financial jeopardy (keep in mind 5 nights of rooms at $129 each can add up very quickly).
Therefore, we used past attendance records at previous NSXPO's, including the number of rooms booked at the host hotel, as our guidelines in order to estimate what the requirments would be for this year. We received help from experienced NSXCA club members and officers in making this assesment too. One of the reasons that rooms are still left on the other nights is that typically in the past (and as is the case this year to this point too) the night prior to the first full day has fewer people staying at the hotel than throughout the heart of the days.
Now for some reason Thursday night is more full than the others in respect to outside/other people staying at the hotel. Maybe there is another function, I don't know. That is why we have had the hotel information available for MONTHS and been urging people to make their plans early. Early planning would most likely be able to avoid this problem entirely.
We certainly do apologize for any incovienence, but we are limited in what we can do to block off rooms. Therefore, we have made another recommendation on a hotel in the area that fits similar facility standards at a similar cost. We have even contacted the hotel and may be able to negotiate a group rate for the night of the 6th for those people who have to stay there instead of the headquarters hotel. This is in the works and we will let people know if we make any progress on this, but it would likely be minimal if it can even be accomplished.
Also keep in mind that all of us on the commitee and the NSXCA board volunteer A LOT of our time, free of charge, to organize, plan and run events such as NSXPO. Everyone on the committee works full time and must try to plan NSXPO in our spare time and sometimes during work too, but don't tell our bosses that.
Hopefully this gives everyone some insight into what the process is composed of and that it is thought out, not simply an oversight. We are actively trying to put on a great event and feel that we are well on our way to providing a venue, activities, and food that will accomplish this goal.
Once again, we apologize for anyone who is mildly incovenienced by this and we will continue to do whatever possible to help as best we can.
Respectfully,
Stephen
The 6th should have always been part of the package, since there are events both Thursday night and Friday early morning. Now people will have to unpack one place just to pack and move to another the very next day. Where do suitcases and etc go when we are caravaning to the go-cart facility since we cannot check into the ES until after we get back. I just find this unbelievable. Sorry for the rant.
). We base our estimates on past experience (attendance at previous NSXPOs, night by night), coupled with any reasons why we might think this year might vary, but when you come down to it, it is still all guesswork. The problem is that you get burned if you under-estimate, and you get burned if you over-estimate. If you under-estimate, you hope that the hotel is able to increase the size of our block, which they usually can, but not this time, unfortunately. If you over-estimate, then you wind up blocking off rooms that don't get used, and the club then has to pay for those unused rooms, which can be very costly. We've done the best we can, and we're sorry that it didn't work out this time for some of those who want to arrive on Thursday.
