What I did was give our IFB to the Las Vegas Convention Minions and they, in turn, give it to all the Convention Arrangers at the hotels.

And to be fair....

We didn't get turned down by Mandalay. I dismissed them. They wanted 199.95/259.95/279.95 Thurs - Fri, respectively. No discounts offered for anything.

I'm pimping for San Francisco because it's the only place I'd be able to go; JavaOne is in SF the previous week, so Tom will be travelling for free, and I'm hopefully going to be meeting up with him to play in SF, and so I'm crossing fingers that the Buffistas will be overrunning the town, instead of the ones that already live there being somewhere else!

So there you go!

weighs hands

Love for Nora, Love for Vegas....

Love for Nora, Love for Vegas....

Vegas always there, Nora ususally in Boston....

yes! what I want to on this thread do is make everyone Prove Their Love For Me!

I did the meeting with Khaled Amr, who is the very sweet events guy at the Ramada. I also brought the HICC bid - the full official package, complete with all the numbers - for him to see.

Result is, they knocked the room price back ten bucks a night, to $109. Not as good as the HICC's $99, and remember that all rooms still have that tax attached to them. The hotel has a few pluses; we'd have our choice of rooms that would be suitable for the hospitality suite, they'd bring a small fridge in, and we could either go with their TV/DVD suppliers (for a cost) or bring in our own without any resentment on their part.

The big plus for the Ramada is the space for Prom. It's HUGE, beautiful, big glass double doors into the hote lobby (and if we went with the lobby hospitality suite, it's literally twenty feet away from the ballroom), and it has a gallery. Their catering manager, Marcello, sat down with me, and we had the conversation about wanting the room comped with a minimum catering/bartending met.

So, Khaled's putting their revised bid together, and I should be getting it in email early next week. Since I'm in San Diego this weekend, I told him there was no huge rush to get it down this week.

I guess I'm in the minority of loving the Luxor. It's totally over the top but I always have fun there.

There's also the Boardwalk Holiday Inn right on the strip. I've stayed there quite a few times too.

ND, I've never even been inside the Luxor. I'm so creeped out by the exterior, I've never wanted to go near it.

Every time we've flown into Vegas at night and seen that Big Giant Eye shooting a spotlight straight up? All I've been able to think is "Don't see the fnords! Don't see the fnords!"

It's just too damned Illuminati for me.

The Excalibur and The Luxor are where I have won the most money on craps.

And I just got feedback from LV Hilton (I asked why so many hotel were turning us down).

She said it was the amount of lead time. As in, too much. Because it's a weekend and we require less than 100 rooms.

shrug.