Quote:
Originally Posted by Cashburn
We were going to pay to exhibit this year, with the change of venue we are no longer interested. I think the move is only going to sink the ship quicker...
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Sink what ship? ...
I guess without a detailed explanation, it's hard to understand all the variables involved concerning a National Convention.
...and I guess if you only attended last year in NJ, finding this year
not in NJ might be a disappointment.
We drove to SAAC-33 last year from NY...it was nice.
The year before, we flew to Utah for SAAC-32
The year before that, we flew to Virginia for SAAC-31
The year before that, we flew to California for SAAC-30
...etc.
Listening to Jeff and Nick, I asked Rick Kopec at SAAC HQ for a personal explanation about the change in venue. He said it was OK to reprint it here:
Quote:
NJMP is a terrific facility but there were a few factors that led us to decide, at the last minute, not to go back there this year.
First of all, it was expensive. With an eye on the present economy, we don't know how that's going to affect convention turn-out. Our guess is that if it doesn't stay the same, it will be smaller. And if that is the case, it would be better that it was at a smaller and less expensive facility.
Second, a lot of the convention surveys we received had comments about conventions getting a little more expensive every year. If we wanted to try to cut costs for attendees, it only makes sense to do that with a less expensive facility. We could be reaching the tipping point for convention costs: $30 per person per day is $90 for all 3 days. Add a wife or girlfriend and that jumps to $180. Last year's dinner was $49. Hotels can cost $150 a night. It all adds up very quickly. Rather than tough it out and then watch attendance fall off because some people just think it's too expensive to go to a SAAC convention, we are going to get ahead of the curve this year. We've set convention registration at $20 per person per day for SAAC-34 and it will be essentially a two-day convention. The HQ hotel is usually $179 a night but we got a special cost of $105 a night. And while we don't have a cost for the dinner yet, we're going to try to bring it in for under $35. You can't do much cost-cutting with a track that charges top dollar.
We are also not sure we want to start a trend of having the convention in the same place each year. While that works for Tulsa, and Bloomington for Corvettes, SAAC's membership is spread out across the country. Announcing that we were having a convention in New Jersey for the next few years would have the affect of turning off members on the west coast as well as other
areas of the country. So we want to move it around. Granted, western PA isn't that far from NJ, but it does make it closer for members from Ohio, Indiana, Kentucky and states near them. And we are looking at locations other than the northeast for 2010 and beyond. We want to go back to
California, and places like Washington state, Arizona, Colorado and Florida are all on the table.
But that's all in the future. Let's get this year's convention under our belt first.
Rick
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