I belong to another board poltical in nature and we’re thinking about hosting a convention. How does one run it, start it, choose a location (we’re thinking DC), book rooms, etc? (I know, big questions with subjective answers, but I’m hoping there’s some doper experience out there for this).
As someone who has planned conferences, and hated every minute of it, here are some of the things I’ve done:
Once you get a city down, start calling around to hotels in the city. As about how much sleeping rooms will be and how much meeting space will be. They hotel will want to know how many people will be coming, whether or not they will be paying on their own or if your organization will pay, how many meals and meeting breaks you will want during the day, etc.
Once you find a good hotel that has reasonable room rates and reasonable prices for space rental, then you sign a contract and let your folks know so they can start booking rooms. Then the fun of planning the convention begins.
As someone who’s run conventions, the above advice is generally good – find a hotel and see what they are willing to charge. Since this is your first convention and you have no track record, they’re not going to cut much slack for you.
The big thing is room-nights. You can usually get a better deal (and more space) by guaranteeing a set number of room-nights booked in the hotel. In our case, with about 300 people, we get about 80 room-nights (people double or triple up, or commute). We were only able to get off the ground in the beginning because the hotel gave us the function space free if we met the room-night quota. The hotel will set aside a block of rooms for you, but they need to be booked before the convention or they’re released.
If you just want the space and no rooms, be prepared to pay dearly (especially in DC). One out is to think of food. Most hotels will give space to you free if you order food. It’s much better to order $3000 of food, then spend $3K just for the space – that way you get the space and the food. Also, you can get better deals if you have some sort of food service (snacks, a banquet, etc.).
Also, read your contract carefully. There are sometimes extra expenses if you don’t meet your room block, etc. Hotels are often sloppy on the details, so have someone go over it and memorize everything.
If you want more details, email me.
How large a convention are you planning to have? Is it going to be just a “daycon” where people will be coming in during the day to attend conferences then going home at night, or a full blown two or three day convention with both day and night functions? You will need many volunteers(try to recruit those who have worked conventions of any type before, whenever possible). You will need a contract negotiator, a treasurer, registration people, someone experenced with advertising and promotion, and a few other positions. If you don’t have someone who has done hotel contract negotiations before, I strongly suggest you get a lawyer who is experienced in that area.