Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2006 21:37:08 -0500
To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>,
   WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>
From: "Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: A DC hotels question
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

At 10/29/2006 06:03 PM, Keith F. Lynch wrote:
>"Mike B." <omni at omniphile.com> wrote:
>
> > "Likely"??  Weren't there Disclaves with attendance in the ~2000
> > range once upon a time?
>
>WSFA doesn't seem to have the numbers for all Disclaves, but the
>largest number recorded was 1485, in 1979.

Thanks.  That would have been at the Sheraton Park I think, and they always
ran another convention at the same time.  The time it was a Barbershop
Quartet convention was "interesting"....

>That was when the con
>had been in the same hotel on the same weekend for eight years.
>For whatever reason, that sort of thing tends to attract people.

Few "unknowns", and ability to plan ahead?  The "my friend told me how much
fun it was the last three years, and it's the same this year!"  Rather
than, well, it's a new hotel in a new area on a new weekend...oh drat!  I
told my family that weekend was clear for the reunion!  Oh well, who knows
what the parking would be like anyway, and since it's their first time, the
management will probably have fits over the room parties...I'll just wait
and hear how it went and maybe think about it for next year..."

>The best estimate for how many people will go to a NASFiC is how many
>people have been to other recent NASFiCs.  How many go to other cons
>in the same region is less relevant, especially if you're looking at
>numbers from nearly 30 years ago.  It could be more or fewer.

Obviously, yes...but that wasn't the point.  The point I was making was
that if you can run a regional con of ~2000 people in those hotels (or one
of ~1400 at the same time as another which is nearly as large), you
shouldn't have any problem with a NASFiC that's only a few hundred
larger.  The Sheraton Park also tended to schedule the large ballroom for
yet another group Friday and/or Saturday night (D.C. High School Prom one
year, the National Symphony Ball another, etc.).  They've torn down and
rebuilt a bit since then, and I don't know what that's done to the function
space, but 2500 back then wouldn't have been difficult or cramped at all.

-- Mike B.
--
Sometimes when it's very quiet, you can hear the brain cells die.