Midwest Furfest 2012

[atara]

Another year gone, and we're back home from Midwest Furfest 2012.

The Good

• Travel. Again, this went very smoothly this year. We had just gotten through security in Winnipeg and were waiting in the International lounge when we heard about the massive computer issues that United were having. However, our plane arrived at the gate ahead of schedule

Comments

[plonq]

When we first arrived at the brunch the room was empty, and we assumed that we had either arrived early, or that word had not got out to the other sponsors. One of the hotel staff spotted us, and immediately steered us to the back left room. It was jammed to the rafters with people, which explained why the main room was so empty. We spotted perhaps a half dozen free seats in the room, none of them together.

Rather than trying to claim a spot at any of those tables, we went back to the buffet and filled our plates, then cut across to the right side of the room to see if that room was in any better shape.

Again, the room was jammed pretty full, with the tables pushed close enough together to make the whole room uncomfortably intimate. We hovered by the door, trying to find two spots together. Twice the hotel staff member tried to seat us in spots that were quite clearly already occupied (with dirty place settings, and half-filled coffee cups).

We finally took the last two adjacent seats we could find, tucked away in the most undesirable, inaccessible corner.

I don't entirely blame the hotel for trying to fill those rooms first, since they are not the most desirable dining space. At the same time, they were very insistent about shoehorning people in there uncomfortably, and in many ways punished the early arrivals by doing so.

Part of me wonders if they were concerned over trying to fit 200 people into the dining space. That is a lot of people to try and feed in a space that size.

Other than the slightly non-diplomatic way they handled the seating, and the difficulty in getting refills, the brunch was otherwise splendid. I would not go so far as to call it a bad experience, just a slightly marred good experience.

[mwakolion]

I was also not aware until well into the Sponsor Brunch that they were pushing people into the corner rooms first. We definitely appreciate the feedback from both of you on this, since it allows us to work with the hotel to make adjustments for next year.

[plonq]

I don't blame the hotel for wanting to shepherd us; I will be the first to admit that the moment we walked in the door, we made a beeline for the first empty table we saw.

That said...

They just could have been a bit more diplomatic about it, and perhaps a tad less aggressive in their goal of ensuring that every empty space in the back rooms was stuffed before they started letting people spill out.

Actually, if they had just removed one table from each of the back rooms it would not have been so bad. They were jammed in there pretty tight. I don't remember them being so close together last year, which is what makes me wonder if they were concerned about seating for all 200 sponsors.

At the rate we are growing this is not an issue that is going to go away.

A couple of unpalatable suggestions that pop to mind are to 1) expand the seating to two floors (it would not hurt a lardass like me to mix some stair climbing in with his brunch), or 2) have two staggered start times for the sponsors brunch. Most people seem to get in and out of there in about 30 minutes, so it would not be totally unworkable.

[mwalimu]

I was going to bring up some of the same things that have already come up in this thread. I'm not real picky who I sit with and enjoyed the company, but it did feel a lot like I was being given an assigned seat and not allowed much latitude about deciding who I might want to sit with. Also, I seem to recall that last year they had coffee, tea, hot chocolate, and several different juices available for self-serve, which I thought was a much better arrangement than this year where they had only coffee and orange juice being served by wait staff, which as was pointed out could take a while to get their attention.