On Wednesday 21 April 2004 23:46, Troy C. Belding wrote: > I'm actually all for nixing the smoking con suite - it seemed to be too > much of a "I'm going to sit in here and noone will come in because I'm > going to stink up the place". I had to track John Ringo down in there > because that's where he was camping out - and I'm allergic to tobacco > (it was my own choice, I wasn't driven in).
People who smoke love the concept of the smoking con suite. People who don't smoke (myself included) hate it. That said, I'm in favor of having it just so nobody tries to smoke in the normal con suite. Find somebody who smokes to run it, give 'em a budget and space, leave them to it, Not My Problem... > Note, that doesn't mean we can't have an indoor smoking area - I'm just > against making it a full 'lounge around' area - why encourage people to > refuse to mix. They _do_ mix. With other smokers. If they're not in a smoking area they go OUTSIDE and smoke and lounge around there. Wherever it is, if they're smokers they're going to smoke. They will be in an area you don't want to go. Trying to put them in an area that YOU want them to go is not going to work, because if you force them to stay there they'll either go outside to smoke or disregard the signs and light up anyway, and then the non-smoking con suite becomes a smoking con suite with angry non-smokers in it. All you do by not giving the smokers a place to smoke is make both the smokers and the non-smokers unhappy. I don't like it any more than you do, but ask Stu on this one. > Okay - I'll float it now, since we're getting to that stage anyway. > With the sheer amount of beverages gone through by Penguicon (Rob - can > you find out how much they spent?) (I'm guessing that it was on the > order of 4-5k ), if we can get the hotel to not throw a fit about it, > I'm all for renting one or more soda fountains from Coca-Cola (or Pepsi, > but I prefer coke), and use either boxes of syrup (which require a water > source), or charged cans of pre-mixed. Lisa knows how to handle both > types, and I know how to handle the cans. That would bring the cost > WAYYYY down, would probably be less hassle than the "dig around in the > bathtub/other tub looking for the drink you want" method at most cons, Fountain plus cans in the tub for other kinds of soda sounds good to me. I'll try to ask how much con suite spent at the post-game concom meeting. > and we'd just have to supply ice and cups (cups were provided at > Penguicon, ice was in short supply.) They needed more ice, they needed more diet coke, they needed... > It would also help reduce what Rob > and I both went through - "Okay, where the HECK is the Diet Coke this > time. No, not the decaffinated crap..." They realised their mistake and had it fixed on sunday, but... It _is_ only the second year. First year, they had way too much mountain dew (luckily sams took it back). They're sort of iteratively closing in on the mix people want. I think the atkins diet took them by suprise. (Also, diet pepsi is NOT a subsitute for diet coke...) > I don't know if I can arrange for an icemaker or not, but we can work > something out. (I have a customer who is an ice seller, but he's > Houston local only. However, I could possibly rent a trailer from him > full of ice or something) If the ice machines in the hotel had worked, it wouldn't have been much of a problem. (The one on the fourth floor actually generated more ice during the con. The one on the second floor didn't. We should test the ice machines...) > I guess I'll call the hotel tomorrow and find out about renting a suite > for myself. I want a bit more elbow room than a standard room - > however, I'm willing to loan it out for a private green room during the > day for the panelists to work without having volunteers, staff, and > guests wandering around constantly. > > Troy Sounds cool. (Green room is important. If green room runs from 9 am to maybe half an hour after midnight, we're probably covered...) Rob
