I say let Vortex loose on them so long as we keep in mind that these people may make the Prom not a lot of fun for us if we get a bad rep as a group. Not that that's fair, but it is possible. But honestly, I don't think that saying, "Our room block was contingent on getting the event space; we may need to look into other hotels altogether if you can't work it out" is out of line in the least. Not sure if it will work and it's a bit of an empty threat, but who knows.

I don't think a Friday night Prom is doable since a lot of people can't even catch a flight until that night, and the prices at the other place seem steep, so it will depend on how much money we can raise in the next six weeks. It's good that it's just across the parking lot, but it sounds like the venue itself isn't really a good place for dancing...? Or am I misunderstanding?

No, Friday's are a bad night. Too many late flights and folks who can't even make it in until Saturday because of work.

The Great Dane is on the other end of a parking lot from the Candlewood, Kristin. Think of it as a strip mall with the Quality Inn on the south end and the Candlewood on the north end. The Great Dane is near the end of the strip closest to the Quality Inn. There's also a cute little Russian restaurant! Maybe we should invade it for prom.

Sorry Sail, I went back and read and then changed my post. Didn't mean to make you look crazy!

Given everything, I think it's worth a call from Vortex to see if there's any chance.

So to be a total PITA, if we switch to the Great Dane, can we switch our room block to the Quality Inn?

I've only been in this Great Dane a couple of times. It's a huge place with two floors and a covered garden patio. I've only been there at lunch time, so I didn't even know they had a dance floor until the event manager mentioned it. He did say if we didn't want to go for a private room, they could set part of the dance floor seating aside for us early in the evening, but as the night wore on and other folks wanted to dance, they couldn't guarantee us reserved seating anymore. That, of course, wouldn't cost us anything, but it's not really even close to private.

eta: ND, I thought the same thing! Hee. We should.

If I understand right for 4 hours of Prom time we'd be looking at $1100. If we have them do some catered food for us, we can subtract the amount that we pay for the catered food from the $1100. This is about the same deal we had in New Orleans. We ended up spending the money on having an open bar and some food and it worked out great.

That's for the half room, right? Sail, do you know if it is sectioned off from the rest of that room? I assume we don't have more than 40 people going?

That's what I was wondering ND. I always throw into the pot for the F2F, but I don't care about the total, usually. I leave that up to the people running the show. Oh, that's me this time. So, what is the average budget? Maybe the Great Dane wouldn't break the bank anymore than any other F2F has. And seriously, if the weather is good (and mid June should be good), the garden patio would be awesome.

Kristin, it sounds like the room gets sectioned off:

Our Private Dining room seats up to a maximum of 80 people. Half of the room would accommodate a maximum of 40 people

Very true. I just checked out the site, and it looks great! Would it be possible for you to go down to check the private rooms out to see if half vs. whole would work?

And yes, if it's only $275/hour minus catering, that's a steal for the space. I love that there's billiards right there, too. If it's the full $550, that's when fundraising is going to come in.