On 6 feb 2008, at 21:53, Eliot Lear wrote: >> I sometimes wonder how cheap and convenient IETF meetings would be >> if the fee reflected just the meeting costs, the hotel room fees >> wouldn't be used to subsidize the venue price and venue selection >> only considered price and convenience for the IETF goers and not a >> host.
> Those aren't the only criteria. Try finding a place in Europe that > can fit our plenary and ALSO house the number of WG meetings we > have. That ain't easy. Well, a few years I thought I had found just such a place: a convention center with 500 hotel rooms within five minutes walking distance and many more a little further away. However, even simple questions as to how many hotel rooms were required these days were never answered. Comments from others who spent considerable effort trying to find a European location for an IETF meeting tell me there was significant room for improvement in the venue selection process some years ago. I hope this improvement has since happened. > It's Ray's job to make the call. It's the IAOC's job to see that he > does his job well. I think Ray has at least earned the benefit of > the doubt. Perhaps this is best viewed retrospectively since > contracts are signed? I think the most helpful approach at this point is to find hotels and restaurants close to the venue for those of us who don't want to be in the meeting hotel for 4.5 days straight, and then see what transportation options are available. I remember much shorter bus trips in Dublin taking a long time: the streets are narrow and can be busy. Commuting from the city center is probably not a reasonable option. Maybe Ray can arrange for IETF'ers on a budget to pitch tents on the edge of the golf course and forage from the surrounding country. :-) I did this in 2005 in the Irish countryside (well, maybe not the foraging part) and it was a lot of fun: http://www.flickr.com/photos/technokitten/sets/1393969/ _______________________________________________ Ietf mailing list Ietf@ietf.org http://www.ietf.org/mailman/listinfo/ietf
