roux wrote:
If you're talking about rooms, you'll need to
look at past Wikimania
events (preferably those within North America, as there will be
similar numbers), specifically for how many room nights were booked.
Most properties have a 12-18 month horizon beyond which they will not
guarantee room cost, and will provide estimates only. Usage of meeting
room facilities will often be gratis based on food & beverage minimums
being met, which can be very high--but trust me when I say it's
simpler to feed a thousand people at a single breakfast buffet than to
send them out into the wilds of Toronto. Half would just order room
service anyway.
The 2005 Wikimania housed delegates in Harvard's dorms. Light buffet
breakfasts should be included in room costs. For evening meals
Wikimaniacs have a habit of congregating in the lobby and going out
together for a dinner. Hiding in one's room and ordering room service
is not a usual practice. In the U of T area there used to be any number
of interesting restaurants along College and Bloor Streets. Are they no
longer there?
Looking at the past Wikimanias, I think we could
ballpark between
500-750pax attending, at 2 or 4 to a room that means about 180-300
rooms. That is a *lot* of rooms for a single hotel. We should look at
the Delta Chelsea (if aiming for downtown), or possibly the Doubletree
(if staying near the airport, which I'd advise against--it's in the
middle of nowhere). The Chelsea has function rooms but the maximum
capacity is 550pax in reception format--not sure if that would work
for Wikimania (and smaller capacities for other room formats--seminar,
etc). The Doubletree does have the convenience of being across from
the Toronto Congress Centre, which has approximately eleventybillion
square feet of space--that would, of course, be an added cost.
The hotels that you mentioned are not exactly names that I would
associate with modest prices. To keep things in perspective, in Buenos
Aires we paid US$25.00 per night for hotel rooms. Remember that many of
those who attend are students who receive scholarships to attend. We
want more people from poor countries.
We should look also at group rates for air. We can
probably bank on
blocks of people arriving from a few major cities--if we can get bulk
rates on airfare, or make such rates available, that would help people
a lot.
Based on past experience, I could see this as a possibility from
Frankfurt or San Francisco, but how much tourism some want to do before
or after the conference could affect this. Those who attend are a very
diverse group from many countries.
Ec