In the April issue of “Association Meetings” there is an editorial by Mitchell Beer entitled “Is This the End of the Room Block?” (Association Meetings April 2012, Page 48, web version here) I feel oddly vindicated in my opinions about the “room block.”

My disdain for the “room block” has existed for a number of years. This situation actually begins with Tekkoshocon VI, we had the option of going to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center (DLLCC) for that year but instead settled for the Radison Greentree. Why did we settle? The truth is the Room Block. When Tekkoshocon VI occurred we had the option of going to DLLCC but, we could not get the Westin as the convention hotel; the only option for a hotel was up the road (the name escapes me at the moment, but it is one up by the Civic Arena/Mellon Arena or the now Consol Energy Center), but it was deemed too far for out attendees to walk, thus we searched for another venue. As a point of reference, the Hilton was twice the distance as the potential hotel.

This brings me back to the article and its follow up editorial “End of the Room Block or End of an Era?” I read both of them and came to an interesting point of view. I asked myself who has the real power in booking a room block when using the David L. Lawrence Convention Center? The answer is Tekkoshocon.

The historical point of view:

Our attendees need a place to stay for the convention.

The attendees need the best deal for their rooms.

The attendees need a guaranteed room somewhere.

We need to provide that service so they come to our convention.

The convention needs a guaranteed place to house staff and guests of honor.

The modern reality:

Our attendees are coming to the convention.

Our attendees want a guaranteed room somewhere, but want it really cheap.

Our attendees need a place to stay, but are going to shop for the best price.

We need to provide them with a way to find the best price.

The convention needs a guaranteed place to house staff and guests of honor.

When talking with attendees, reading the forums, and Facebook I realized that our attendees were booking all over the city because they could get a cheaper hotel. A large number of people stayed at the Wyndham Grand Downtown Pittsburgh (Wyndham) because it would help the organization move back to the DLLCC. It was loyalty and love of Tekkoshocon that brought them to the Wyndham as much as the actual location to the convention. While I acknowledge that if the pricing of the Wyndham was cheaper (similar to what you could book outside the block for Tekkoshocon IX) people would have booked happily. I digress.

So, with the necessary changes because of our no longer partnering with the Wyndham, we are in an interesting position. Do we really need a room block? Can we provide our attendees a quality convention without one? Can we provide our attendees with an alternative that will promote growth and satisfied customers?

I believe we can. I know that our attendees will book at the Westin whether or not we have a room block there. That is a foregone conclusion. So, do we really need a room block there? It may be a necessity for staff and guests of honor. If we cannot get the Westin, we can use the Courtyard Marriot again for guests and staff and it is a short walk to the DLLCC. It is a walk that Event Security can easily provide escort for guests. If we had the Westin the main thing we gain is their meeting space. I believe as important financially it is to have; we can make do without it. As I write this, it is still an unknown if they will even truly consider us as customers. So, we have to plan not to have them. I believe that the convention itself will not suffer from not having a specific convention hotel. I may and probably am wrong, but I believe we have to look at things that it will work. I believe if we can partner with a place like www.priceline.com or www.expedia.com or www.bing.com or any other travel website we can provide a better pricing option to our attendees by providing them with more choices. Our attendees booked hotel rooms half an hour away to get a better deal than what they could get downtown for our show. I believe that by giving the attendees more choices; and ones that will not lock them into a single location and a potentially unfavorable price they attendees will be able to better afford Tekkoshocon. This of course, will only work until we become a powerhouse with hotel requirements. I hate to say it, but I believe that because of our time of year and geographical location our attendance is going to plateau shortly and we will become the largest we will become.

Thinking about it, we know the attendees will book at the Westin no matter what we say. The Westin is going to get business from our event. If we have a room block at the Westin, what does it truly by them? A fixed number of rooms sold. What does it buy us? Their meeting space, the potential cost incurred if the room block doesn’t fill, a room commission, and the ability of the Westin to complain about what our attendees have done in the hotel.

Interesting aside, if the Westin truly did not want Tekkoshocon business during our event they would make it so there were no low rates available anywhere. They Wyndham did it for us, making sure we were the cheapest rate for the hotel our weekend. So, do not be mistaken, the Westin wants your business, they just do not want the Tekkoshocon branding associated with their hotel.

It has taken me a while to realize that, and I am amused by it. By realizing it, it returns the power to the customers, and in turn makes it better for all of our attendance.

The question came up recently about why Thursday programming happened and if it would continue when we move to the new venue.
This whole Thursday thing started back with Tekkoshocon VI, and creating a preview day. The preview day was a disaster. What happened there was the tech provider arrived 9 hours late, and we had to improvise on how to make that work. May I say, that was one of the many disasters of Tekkoshocon VI.
For Tekkoshocon VII, we didn’t do a Thursday thing. The cost was just too much, or so we thought. We had a Thursday evening move in and set up. In that past that was a great way to do things. What we didn’t account for was the labor cost increases by setting up in the evening. It is amazing how much you pay for a laborer or electrician at a union shop after 4 pm. I will say we had serious sticker shock over that.
So, it was after Tekkoshocon VII that we, Mary Pam (Hotel Liason), Leah (then Treasurer), Brian (Con Chair), and I, over the course of a couple months decided on doing Thursday as a programming. Here is the logic behind the decision:

Labor is really high setting up Thursday evening.
How do we cut down on labor?
Labor during the day is cheaper.
We have to rent the space during the day though.
How long does it take to set up the show?
Typically about 5 hours for everything but main events.
So, we are paying for an entire day that 80% of it is sitting.
Yes.
So, let’s use that 80% by filling it with programming. It’ll make us more impressive in the long run.
OK, do it! Do it! It’ll be fun!
Plus, it will make up for the awesome joke pulled on them at closing ceremonies of Tekkoshocon VII.

So, with that the Thursday occurred for Tekkoshocon VIII. It was rough as we had to be very efficient in getting things set up. Our biggest failure was the computerized registration, for Tekkoshocon IX we ditched. We also underestimated the turn out for Thursday. We planned for about 100-200 but got ~700. That created some interesting problems and some very pissed off attendees.

With Tekkoshocon IX, The hotel gave us Wednesday for free to move in. This gave us the ability to set up and be ready to run Thursday (we already had to pay for Thursday as a setup day). Originally Thursday was supposed to start around 2-3 with reg opening up around 1. The reality of that changed due to rather, unique, circumstances. Reg opened up around 11 AM and programming started around the same time. The programming was literally thrown together at the last minute… “Here John, take this mike and talk for 2 hours.” We had about 1000 people on site that Thursday.
This leads us to Tekkoshocon X. The biggest complaint about Tekkoshocon IX’s Thursday was that The Dealer’s room wasn’t open. The hotel again agreed to let us move into the hotel Wednesday for free. This actually moved back to Tuesday night drop off of our tech equipment and tech set up. Hotel’s can do that sort of thing as the closer we get to the show the likely hood of the rooms selling drop significantly. Having an agreement about Wednesday months in advance meant we could have a Dealer’s move in then. This agreement meant dealers would be open Thursday. For Tekkoshocon X, ~1500+ were on site by the end of the day. We aren’t going to discuss Wednesday in this post as it is a whole other can of worms.

Now, with the future we have the problem of creating a precedence of Tekkoshocon being a 4 day event, and even worse now that we have a community event on Wednesday. So, how the hell are we planning on making the four day thing continue while moving into a more expensive venue? To be honest it is going to take some serious time and space management. First thing is that we are not going to get any free move in days. That means Wednesday is going to cost money now. We have to pay for labor, which means move in will have to occur during the day time. We are working on how to make it work, and not break our bank. It is just making us think and plan this out significantly more than in the past. To be honest, we are doing what we should have done for Tekkoshocon VII and VIII. I think if we planned move in and move out better we would have saved thousands of dollars in labor, along with staged room breaks. Basically, less rooms on Thursday and Sunday than on Friday and Saturday.

The problem at hand is, appear like we are shrinking by cutting Thursday, or continue to look like the spectacle that we are? Personally, the appeal of Tekkoshocon to people’s that we are larger than life. We are the escape from reality that this town is missing. We give the Otaku of Pittsburgh 4-5 days of escape from reality, where they can be who they want, and feel like they belong and are loved. For most kids today (and a large number of grown up Otaku and Weeaboos) there are not a lot of places like that anymore; especially if you are not into the socially accepted normal activities. I believe we are doing the community a service by running at fourth day. Yes, it is really rough on the staff, but if we made 1 person happy per staffer the i think it was worth it. Now, we need enough happy people to make it profitable to continue. There is the real challenge going forward…

To everyone out there happy Easter.
Spring has arrived and with it new challenges. We are in the process of kicking off our Kennywood ticket sales.
So, from my end of things I am tasked with a very difficult task… I have to plan out space usage and labor usage for Tekkoshocon XI. I must say that it is a miserable task.
Curious as to what has to be done? Here is the short list

1) I need to plan out what day we are moving in down to the half hour
2) figure out how many rooms we will need
3) figure out when we need them
4) write up a plan on how move in and move out will work for Tekkoshocon
5) create a preliminary plan for how artists and dealers will move in and out.
6) figure out total tech requirements for the event
7) estimate , to the nearest hundred dollars (rounded up) labor costs.

I really wish I just had to worry about Sangawa Project or the KuroKiiro Festival.
I need to switch over to KKF and negotiate a site for it. KKF is going to be the most important event f the year. KKF has the potential of bringing in the capitol we need to make XI work.

To top off the excitement, the KuroKiiro Cafe will be traveling to Chiisaicon again this year. I look forward to hearing about all the people the cafe made happy!

Because I am incredibly busy with things, John Prager will be taking over oversight of the cafe. Carolyn is the cafe manager, making operating decisions of the group. She and John will work with me to create a long term vision of where the cafe is going.

Well, happy Easter!

Well, we have wrapped up Tekkoshocon X. It was both an exciting year and an incredibly frustrating one. We came out of the year with 1/3 the staff of Tekkoshocon IX. For the staff we had, I must say they did a hell of a good job. The site was our greatest challenge and for the most part we did a significantly better job than last year. That is completely off the topic at hand, Sangawa Project 2012.

So, we are going into Sangawa Project knowing the following things

• We are at the Best Western Parkway Center Inn (Best Western Greentree)
• The renovations that were supposed to happen haven’t happened, because they are going to be re-branding to a Holiday Inn Express (supposedly)
• We will have the same space as last year
• We are looking for a Guest of Honor. (No, Cid and Golden Saucer Guy do not cut it)

On positive notes, by the time you read this, registration is open and the panels’ application is up. We are going to go approach the pachinko guy again.

Sangawa Project looks to be shaping up very nicely this year. We are always open to guest suggestions.