But what if people sometimes know what they're talking about?

[nancylebov]

A while ago, there was a study which turned up that the difference between very good chess players and other chess players is that the very good players think about what happens if their preferred move doesn't work.

Here is a rant with about not getting accurate information about food allergens followed by a shocking number of comments about people who slip allergens to the allergic because "the allergy is all in their heads". While I'd heard of this happening, it was done by an especially malevolant person--I had no idea it was common behavior.

Aside from going into "I hate people" mode, is there any conceivable way to teach people to ask themselves, "But what if it doesn't work?"?

++++++++

Lunacon was at a new hotel this year, and as is commonly the case, the management didn't believe anything the committee said about how much the attendees would be using the restaurant, elevators, or anything else. Is this a matter of people just don't believe what they're told and/or that if you have a business, people will tell you how to run it, and the accuracy level isn't especially high? Could it be worthwhile for fans to put together an educational packet for new hotels with pictures of crowded restaurants, numbers from past conventions, and quotes from con-experienced hotel managements?

Comments

[redbird]

I suspect part of the con hotel problem is that, if a hotel is used to doing other sorts of conferences and not science fiction conventions, they've seen a pattern of "what conference attendees do" and don't quite believe that we're different. Because everyone thinks they're special. An educational packet with numbers and references might be useful: the trick would be getting it looked at.

On the "but what if it doesn't work?" I wonder whether it would work to say "Maybe some allergies are like that, but not all of them. Look at it this way: if you're right, this person has gotten a tasty meal. If you're wrong, the least that happens is that you're cleaning up bits of used scone from the kitchen floor. At worst, they could die. Is that sense of satisfaction worth having to clean up vomit from the floor of your nice business? Is even your grandmother's best recipe worth dying for? Worth going to prison on manslaughter charges for?"

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

There are a whole bunch of "but what if it doesn't work?" questions for people who are thinking about doing an involuntary single-blind allergen test to ask themselves. What I'm curious about is whether there's a way to teach the habit of asking oneself the question.

[pnh.livejournal.com]

Thing is, the hotel industry already has detailed dossiers on science fiction conventions; our demographics and habits are perfectly well known and documented in industry publications such as Meeting News. Any hotel manager with an ounce of sense can find out everything they need to know about us in minutes. There's a limit to what any concom can do when hotel management decides to simply be stupid.

I do wonder why Lunacon moved from that wonderful hotel in Rye to the godforsaken Meadowlands. Granted, it did simplify matters by eliminating that uncertain few weeks I often experience in February and early March wondering whether I would actually go to Lunacon this year.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Oh.

Insert stored rant about how (contrary to what might be implied by various libertarians and marxists) people in business are generally not efficient profit-maximizers.

I treasure a bit from an early New York Review of Science Fiction about The Conservation of Thought. A lot can be explained if you assume that people generally don't think more than they have to.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Was it because there was no way you'd go to the Meadowlands?

"When I came here, they said I was mad to hold a con in a swamp. So I held one, just to show them. It sank into the swamp."

[pnh.livejournal.com]

"Was it because there was no way you'd go to the Meadowlands?"

Oh, I shouldn't be so definite about it, but yes, I think a lot of NY old-timers, fan and pro, have felt for a while that the best thing about Lunacon was that very comfortable hotel in Rye with the unusually pleasant restaurant and bar. I've been to several hotels in the Meadowlands for sales conferences and the like, and they've all been unimpressive.

Lunacon is a convention that for forty years has had the chance to take advantage of its unique position as the New York City regional, and make itself into a can't-miss convention focussed on the business and practice of written SF--the industry of which is, after all, headquartered in New York. Instead, for forty years, Lunacon has chosen to be a not-especially-distinguished all-things-to-all-fans regional hardly different from conventions in Knoxville or Phoenix or Spokane. Hey, it's their con and their choice. But that's my view of Lunacon.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I will further note that the layout of the Ryetown Hilton is so weird that it's literally fabled in song and story, and I don't use literally as an intensifier.

There are at least two novels set in hotels very much like the Hilton--Diana Wynne Jones' _Deep Secret_ and one of Rosemary Edghill's--I think it's _Night of Cloak and Daggers_.

There are at least three filk songs about it--"Fourth Above and Sixth Below", "Hotel Escher Hilton" (to the tune of "Hotel California", and one about _Deep Secret_.

The hotel was built in stages on a large hilly lot, so the floor plan is rather spiderish, with floors one through four in a wing that's higher than five through eight(?). There's a long hallway known as the Transdimensional Corridor which connects something to something else, and there are three staircases which meet at odd angles at a landing and have a genuinely Escherish effect.

The filking Saturday night was excellent, including what I think was the first filk performance of the Animaniacs song in Latin.

As in my comment about people in business not being efficient profit maximizers, it didn't occur to me that I should bring "Fourth Above and Sixth Below, in memoriam" buttons to Lunzcon, but I'll bring them to Icon, or they can be ordered from my website.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Any chance you'll bring a spare RASSEFARIAN button since we never hooked up at Worldcon?

[suecochran.livejournal.com]

The description I heard awhile back as regards what hotels know about us is "Eat at all hours, bring their own women, little breakage".

[deor.livejournal.com]

I was hoping to make LunaCon this year but wasn't able to in the end. Aside from the "newbie hotel with no clue about sf cons" thing, how was the hotel?

(Oh, and the long sequence of plus signs in your posts breaks my browser view. Could you please shorten such things in the future, or just use a regular HTML horizonal rule (hr) divider instead? Thanks.)

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

I liked the hotel because I could navigate in it. I don't get the impression anyone else liked it much. Aside from the hotel itself, it isn't accessible by mass transit and it isn't handy to restaurants. I've heard that there *was* a bus, but it was cancelled between the signing of the contract and the convention.

Apologies for the +'s--I had a feeling there was probably something like the horizontal rule, but didn't feel quite energetic enough to look for it.

Which browser do you use?

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I heard that they had a shuttle, which was not particularly reliable.

As for the hotel, in and of itself it might have been okay, but I disapprove, on principle, of having cons in hotels where you need a car to reach any food source other than the hotel restaurant.

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

The hotel was far away from anything walkable and not particularly accessible if you drove. There was NO mass transit. Service in the restaurant was spotty at best, the elevators were broken (of course) for a period of time, the lobby bar closed at 10 on Saturday and the sports bar closed at 12 or 12:30 on Saturday night. Check-in was a nightmare, every singple person had problems with the hotel not being able to find reservations or people's names (and this is the first time I've ever been asked for picture ID on check-in) and during peak periods on Friday evening and Sunday morning, the desk was staffed by trainees. Oh, and if you were paying by cash or check, you had to wait for the one cash drawer that was usable.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

The hotel was far away from anything walkable and not particularly accessible if you drove.

To be fair, the hotel was *very* easy to reach if your route it was the New Jersey Turnpike and you had driven up from parts south. I learned from an acquaintance that it was confusing to get to if you drove south to the convention from the north.

Also, the hotel had no problem finding my name. (Maybe that was because I didn't reserve my room until 5 days before the con...)

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Where you sharing with anyone?

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Only with my husband, but what probably is more germane to your question is that the room was in my name and on my American Express card.

[ckd]

I'm reminded of the stories from the 1994 Worldcon, where Northwest had the only jet service from the US to Winnipeg, and didn't believe that the usual overbooking percentages wouldn't work....

[sraun]

{grin}

You have reminded me of a story from my second job. I worked for a pair of motels in Duluth, MN when I was in High School. Radisson Corporate had a Policy on overbooking - if you were a Radisson Hotel, you had to overbook by x%. The fact that the no-show rate for guaranteed reservations for Duluth for most of the year, and especially for the ski season, was near 0% was ... an ignorable inconvenience. So, the Radisson regularly overbooked. And would regularly be forced to call around trying to find a room for a guest with a guaranteed reservation. It got to the point where the motels I worked for would lie to them, because if the Radisson staff found our empty room, the guest came and would be mad at us too. But if the guest found our empty room (with a voucher from the Radisson), then they would be grateful to us, and were more likely to be repeat business to us.

[cellio]

Please tell me that at the very least hotels apply different overbooking percentages for conventions versus random days?

There's one convention I no longer go to because the hotel routinely overbooks (and is rude about it when you try to claim the room that doesn't exist) and the backup hotels they use aren't within reasonable walking distance. The hotel, of course, doesn't give a damn because they're full without me. (Mind, there are other reasons I've drifted away from that con, but the hotel definitely helped push me.)

[sraun]

Um, maybe?

I think that's part of what started this whole thread - as pnh said earlier in this discussion, the industry knows about SF cons, but individual hotels don't necessarily pay attention.

In general, if you're going to a con at a hotel that has experience with SF cons, and are free of stupid corporate policy, then they will overbook appropriately for their prior experience with that con in particular, or SF cons in general (i.e., no to very little overbooking).

If you're going to a hotel that has no prior experience, or is subject to a stupid corporate policy, then they'll probably overbook at their standard percentages. Personally, I would highly recommend checking in as early as possible the first year a con is at a hotel. At the very least, it saves you the hassle, and gets across the point to the hotel.

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

The part of all of this that surprises me is that the best chess player I know distinctly does not think about what will happen if his strategies don't work. (He actually becomes *exceedingly* angry if you do anything unexpected and demands an explanation as to why you did that, this move made more sense for you, etc.)

Perhaps he could be even better.

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Could it be worthwhile for fans to put together an educational packet for new hotels with pictures of crowded restaurants, numbers from past conventions, and quotes from con-experienced hotel managements?

Answer: No. Because even when they have all the information, the hotels won't believe it until they see it. I attended the Lunacon gripe session, and the con comm said they gave the hotel all the relevant data in advance including (most significantly) the fact that there would be 1,200+ fen descending on the hotel. But the hotel wouldn't believe it, largely because it contradicted their experience; in 18 years of operation, they had never had a convention actually *make* its room block...

[filkerdave.livejournal.com]

Sadly, I had to bug out before the Gripe Session, so I didn't get to hear what people said. What else was brought up?

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

I should add that I stayed for 55 minutes, so I didn't see *all* of the Gripe Session, but believe I caught most of it. Let me think.

Over 90% of the comments were negative, and related directly to things the hotel did wrong. The hot topics were (not in order of importance):

Bad service (both in the hotel restaurant and at the front desk; the only hotel staffers who escaped condemnation were the maids).

Problems with check-in and registration.
Dealer problems with unloading merchandise. Apparently, the hotel wanted the dealers to use the hotel loading dock, but the loading dock is usable only via a freight elevator, which was only open to the dealers during certain times. Many dealers were told to bring in goods through the front door--only to be confronted at the door with a sign saying, "Don't unload via the front door."

Problems with the hotel shuttle (i.e., shuttle failing to pick people up despite notification, shuttle not being available late).

Virtually all of the problems raised that could be laid at the feet of the con comm were problems relating to how functions were assigned to rooms. These are the ones I remember:

Gripe Session part 2

[cathyr19355.livejournal.com]

Sorry about that; I hit post prematurely.

Here are the con comm problems:

Too little space available for Gaming--the con comm already promised to add an additional room for next year.

Having the Green Room on the 3d floor while most panels were on the 2d Floor. Some panelists complained that they were late to panels because of this, since the elevators were very very slow and the stairwell was hard to find. The con comm responded that they wanted to put the Green Room on 2, but the only room of a suitable size that was anywhere near the function space *and* had a usable sink in/near it was the room chosen on 3. At least one fan responded that she has run a successful Green Room without a sink nearby.

Having the small (i.e., less than panel-size) workshops all in the same place, since the cross-talk from other workshops was distracting. The con comm said they did this because most of those items were too small to draw as many people as usually attend a panel and they were economizing on space. One of those items (I think it was a writing workshop) did draw a lot of people and the con comm acknowledged that it should have had its own room, and would likely have its own room next year.

There was some discussion of why the con left the Hotel Escher. It appears that the Escher Hilton was about to raise the con's room rate--dramatically (how dramatically wasn't specified). The con comm had been quietly looking for a better deal for several years, and the Sheraton Meadowlands was the best one they had when the Hilton announced its price hike.


There were also several issues raised about the hotel that, IMHO, even the hotel can't really control. They include:

The fact that the stairwells were grubby and hard to find (usually true in most hotels).

The fact that the rooms are fairly small and the doorways narrow, making it hard for fen in wheelchairs to visit room parties.

The elevator problem (perennial). One fan suggested that it might have been better not to have the con suite on the 20th floor in light of the elevator situation. The con comm said they did so because the only suites in the building big enough for the purpose were on the 19th-21st floors.

Does that enlighten you sufficiently? If you have any questions about specific issues you were interested in, just ask; I might be able to recall something I've left out here.

If it doesn't Work

[dmsherwood53.livejournal.com]

In a civilised country such would be taught in kindergarden