Local Fannish Conundrum

[sraun]

For those who haven't already heard, and might be interested - Minicon 40 (the Minicon in 2005) has a dilemma.

The Millennium Hotel (where we were last year, and will be this year) is not available Easter weekend of 2005. They have offered us the same deal we're getting this year for the weekend after Easter in 2005.

We probably can't get a downtown hotel for Easter weekend for the next five years - reasonably reliable (in my opinion) rumor has it that Eckankar has all the major downtown hotels booked for Easter weekend for five years.

So, we have a variety of possibilities:

1. Take the Millennium for the post-Easter weekend 2005, and plan on finding something else for Easter weekend 2006


2. Find something outside of downtown Minneapolis for Easter weekend 2005


3. Take the Millennium for the post-Easter weekend 2005, and plan on not being on Easter weekend for an indefinite period of time.

So, questions for those that care to express an opinion - are you more or less likely to attend Minicon under any of these scenarios? How likely is that? Ignoring whether or not you're coming, which one would you choose, and why?

For what it's worth, it looks like there has been a Minicon every Easter weekend going back to 1969. Some of my colleagues in Minn-StF say that some other than numbers 1, 5, and 9 were not on Easter weekend, but haven't been able to tell me which ones yet.

Comments

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I really like the Millennium. For me at least not being on Easter is not an issue since I don't get gratis days off from my job. I've no idea how common it is to get an Easter holiday.

Being outside downtown sounds... eh. Well I don't know. But it was really nifty to be able to walk to good restaurants. And I don't know what public transit or walking would be like elsewhere in your town. Being from out of town I'm highly dependent upon those and the good will of fans so being near the nexus of transit works out well.

I would take the weekend after and try to work it out.

Third option

[rvrjoe775.livejournal.com]

Since I will likely be missing Minicon this year because it's on Easter weekend and conflicting with another con, I don't at all mind the thought of abandoning the tradition. We have plenty of east-coast friends that have expressed interest in Minicon, but only a couple of times have we convinced them to give up their local/regional cons that also fall on Easter weekend.

I personally have mixed feelings about being downtown for a con, but I do think it gives Minicon a different feel from the other local cons, and it's worth staying downtown for that. Unless we can verify a real drop in attendance in 2005 by not being on Easter, I'll take door #3.

[michaellee.livejournal.com]

I like the Millennium Hotel for Minicon more than I like Minicon on Easter at a hotel-to-be-named-later.

[daedala.livejournal.com]

Door Number 3!

I like downtown, I like the hotel, and I could care less about Easter. It may enable more Brit friends to visit, too. Also, the angst of a hotel search seems so not fun now.

[nellorat.livejournal.com]

I like Minicon despite the fact that it's on Easter weekend, so my preferences should be obvious. A week or two after Easter would be so wonderful for me!

[dlacey.livejournal.com]

I like the Millenium as well and I like being downtown. That would be my preference. Although it's a little easier to get there Easter weekend as a grad student, getting time off at other weekends is not a large obstacle and besides I only expect to be a grad student for another year or so. After that I'll be forced to rejoin the real world in any case, so that's not really an issue.

All in all, I'd pretty much crawl over broken glass dipped in vinegar to attend Minicon so you can expect me there whatever the final decision turns out to be.

Can we Quote you in the Program book?

[mizzlaurajean.livejournal.com]

"I'd pretty much crawl over broken glass dipped in vinegar to attend Minicon."

Re: Can we Quote you in the Program book?

[dlacey.livejournal.com]

By all means, be my guest.

[trolleypup.livejournal.com]

Not that I am going, but I'd prefer a downtown hotel over Easter weekend.

[sraun]

And you are one of the class of people I was hoping to get an opinion from! Someone who did not consistently (if at all) attend Minicon, rather than the rabid Minicon attendees who will show up no matter where or when it is. The latter probably describes a third to a half of my "Friend of" list - I'm really interested in the opinions of the rest of you!

[pmat.livejournal.com]

Well, in that case... Minneapolis is a bit far for us in any case, but when Balticon was on Easter weekend we normally went in spite of that, not because of it. The advantages (kids out of school Thurs and Fri, no teaching for me on Thurs night) were outweighed by the conflicts with other things going on.