89$ per night is steep for a convention, and our registration has ALWAYS been steep. Could we try something like telling people we'll give a rebate of $X if we hit some target of attendees? Gte them to talk their buddies into going too? Or what about giving people who register before a certain date a certain amount of "convention bucks" that they can spend at the auction? I suspect it wouldn't cut down the profit from the auction much. People will spend the "real" cash they have available too, but might bid higher for items if it felt like "free money". If people are concerned about the AGA having to pay money out to vendors, we could even have the "convention bucks" only good on certain pre-designated (probably donated) items. Just thinking off the top of my head here, but I think if we could come up with some really fun incentive(s), it might help. I suspect that even at $89/$69, the die-hards will come, and there will be enough people to more than break even. We'll probably also have a number of people local enough to just come for the day, and not stay in the hotel at all. Could they try to negotiate the room rates down for those who stay 3 or more nights? That would make it a lot more attractive for those who are comin from a distance. Oh, another thing that you should suggest to the committee is that they should contact Ray Lucas and Lee Finley ASAP about being vendors. Both are within driving distance (albeit long driving distance<g>) of this one. In fact, they could use Lee for a fun focus group too if they wanted. He has a nice talk he put together for us on historical aquatic plant literature. Karen ----- Original Message ----- From: "S. Hieber" <shieber@yahoo.com> To: <aga-sc@thekrib.com> Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 8:21 PM Subject: RE The really big issue with AGA2K4 > Okay folks, > > Here's the thing. It looks like the best deal formthe > hotels is going to be $89/night. Rick is gong into battle > with these folks day after next. > > Let's suppose the hotel is $89 -- what do you think is a > reasonable registration fee? > > The proposal says $69 and shows a pretty good net return > with 100 paid regs. At $69 the breakeven is about 65-70 > paid regs. At $59, the breakeven is about 70-75. At $49 > it's about 80-85. > > $69 is a good number, it seems, like a conservative pricing > -- if we don't have a total disaster -- 10 feet of snow, > bombs, etc., we don't need a high number of people to break > even. But without disasters, we should be able to draw 100 > easy with Amano, don't you think? > > I haven't been to enough of these things to know how > sensistive folks are going to be to $89 for a hotel room > and a registration fee of $49, $59, $69. > > Do any of you have a sense about the demand? It seems to > me, if the Hotel is going to cost $89/night, we need a > lower reg fee than $69. Rick is wondering if we have any > input to offer re this. > > Before I crunch these numbers again, I'd be happy to hear > any thoughts you folks have about the pricing -- any at > all. > > sh > > ===== > S. Hieber > > __________________________________ > Do you Yahoo!? > Find out what made the Top Yahoo! Searches of 2003 > http://search.yahoo.com/top2003 > ------------------ > To unsubscribe from this list, e-mail majordomo@thekrib.com > with "unsubscribe aga-sc" in the body of the message. > Old messages are available at http://lists.thekrib.com/aga-sc > When asked, log in as username is "aga-sc", and password "incorp". > > ------------------ To unsubscribe from this list, e-mail majordomo@thekrib.com with "unsubscribe aga-sc" in the body of the message. Old messages are available at http://lists.thekrib.com/aga-sc When asked, log in as username is "aga-sc", and password "incorp".