I was going for a mild positive and a mild negative, which I'd like to keep, rather than just a neutral in the middle.

In this case, I'd rather see it in plain English (or numbers, even) than euphemisms. I'd hate to see the vote go one way rather than another based on varying interpretations of "spiffy."

From the Seattle column of the Pimpage Page:

A range of Audio Visual equipment is available at a small charge. Ballroom Rental/Set Up: $750 per day. (They will drop the price of the ballroom to $500 if we spend $600 on food. A bartender will cost $50 for the evening for an open bar).

• Do we need to use the hotel's A/V equipment or can we bring our own? What exactly does "small charge" mean? IME, hotel A/V rental fees are way more than market prices. We should get A/V info from the SF Holiday Inn as well.

• We've never had an open bar. Is that a typo?

I can call them and check the AV prices/policies. What exactly would I be asking for?

I didn't mean to put open bar, it would be a cash bar. Oops.

Guys, I'm going to be a bit scattershot in here today - JZ's coming over for lunch and kitten worship.

If there's any information I've omitted from the SF bid, please to let me know, here and/or in profile email? That way, I can get back to Sheila and get responses.

I don't remember whether I mentioned it in the SF Pimpage or not, but the HICC is fine with us bringing in our own AV equipment, both for suite (if needed) and for Prom.

Out the door.

What exactly would I be asking for?

A four-channel mixer, and powered speakers (or regular speakers and an amp to drive them). The speakers should be big enough for the room. They should know how big that is.

We would be supplying the things we want to run into the mixer. Namely, a laptop, a microphone and a theremin.

Actually, they should be able to throw in a mic at little or no charge. Find out about that.

You gots it, Johnny Theremin. I should be able to post the info some time tomorrow.

I can do it without the euphemisms, then. Sometimes people get skiddish around technical-sounding stuff wrt polling was my thinking.

• Strong Positive
• Mild Positive
• Mild Negative
• Strong Negative/No

then?

We've never had an open bar.

We did in N.O.

Mild Negative

My problem with this is that it doesn't tell us whether the person will/probably will come or not. Would anyone else find it more helpful to say

Definitley come
Probably come
Probably won't come
Definitely won't come

or something along those lines?

But that's not really enough. If someone'd definately come, either way, but would prefer one, that isn't reflected at all.

I suppose Question 3 might be enough to deal with that.