Well shoot, since those dates were even on any of the votes or polls I'm booked. I'd blocked most of the possible dates on my calendar just in case, but as a result the non-polled dates got filled.

Should we run this new possible date past the board at large to see what attendance might look like?

We're hoping to make it this year. The current options seem to be 3/24 and 4/14. (With 3/31 out because of Major Event in Town and 4/7 out because of religious holidays.)

Either one works for us.

I can't remember -- what were the dates that were polled?

Here's the locations/date poll:

North, June 8 - 11 (19%)

North, June 15 - 18 (18%)

South, April 6 - April 8 (17%)

North, June 22 - 25 (16%)

South, March 23-25 (14%)

South, March 30-April 1 (14%)

March 30-April 1 the Final 4 is held in Atlanta.

The Highland Inn has a wedding in the ballroom March 24.

April 7 is Easter.

I'm checking with Melissa today if there are any later dates. IIFC correctly, she said there's some major event in town the weekend of the 20th. The last weekend of the month is the Inman Park Festival. She said that the postly get walkups that weekend, so there would probably be room for use. The festival is a lot of fun. The parade is highly whimsical and there's some good music. The downside is that traffic in the area that includes The Highland Inn is insane during the festival. I'm going to check with her today about the first weekend in May, but at that point we're starting to get into college graduations. We have a lot of colleges.

Maybe we want to do another date poll with a wider range into April and May?

I just got an e-mail back from the theatre guy to say that he thought a sing-along would be great. He's looking around to see if there's a film verson available, which is what they'd need.

Oh, rock. That would be so much fun.

The last weekend of the month is the Inman Park Festival. She said that the postly get walkups that weekend, so there would probably be room for use. The festival is a lot of fun.

It is.

Another thought - do we want to consider off-site prom options? I'm just adding up the cost - it's fine if we have good attendance, I think, but for a smaller F2F could be overboard. Finalizing a date would come first, though, before we have a real sense of that. (Though FYI, Melissa said she could knock the ballroom to $900 when I talked to her a month or so ago.)

The only think I can think of is the rooms at Manuel's [link] It's close, but I don't know how much control we could have over our surroundings. The Trolley Barn and some of the places on Ponce that rent rooms for parties start as twice as much as The Highland Inn ballroom.

Ima put up a poll for the 14th so we can have some actual data.

March 30-April 1 the Final 4 is held in Atlanta.

The Highland Inn has a wedding in the ballroom March 24.

April 7 is Easter.

Okay, the Final Four weekend definitely has to be out. Craziness. And Easter, yeah, that's a no-go as well.

But regarding the 24th -- are we already committed to the Highland Inn? (I ask this b/c I can't remember anything about the hotel discussion. My brain is a void on this.) If not, surely there are other hotels available.

I called them because I was familiar with it - I don't think either Ginger or I got any response from the Convention Bureau people. So we can look further afield, but it'll have to be one-by-one.