Winter Road Trip Day 17: Walking the Walk in Tonopah
Today's trip was far shorter than those we've been taking since we left Albuquerque: a mere 3 km / 2 mi round-trip walk from the Mizpah Hotel to the Tonopah Station Hotel after I finished up the Day Jobbe stuff, where we had breakfast, introduced ourselves to the manager of the Tonopah Station, and cleared up some details about Westercon 74. I really wish the Station was closer to the convention center, as we'd love to be able to use the space they have as well; however, I expect that some of our members will want to stay here, either in their hotel rooms or in their RV park. In addition, they have a 24-hour self-service laundry on the ground floor, open to everyone, not just hotel guests.
On the way back from the Tonopah Station, we stopped by Whitney's Bookshelf, a classic used bookstore on Main Street. Note how close it is to the Belvada. (The Convention Center is on the far side of the Belvada.)
They seem intrigued by our convention. I wish I'd had flyers to drop here. We'll have to dig through the boxes of stuff we brought with us and see if there any flyers left before we leave tomorrow.
Back at the Mizpah, we said hi to Rae Graham at the front desk, thanked her again for the interview she and her wife did with us while we were bidding, and told her how much we're looking forward to the convention here. We then met with Chambrea Fowles, the new hotel sales manager. We'd not yet met with her since we won the bid, so we brought her up to speed on our current plans. The Mizpah's general manager also stopped by and said that everyone at the Mizpah is excited about hosting us in 2021.
Our Main Event today was to go to the Tonopah Convention Center, where we spent a couple of hours poking around, measuring space, confirming that we could connect to the wi-fi, and how the A/V connections work in the rooms.
This is the Buckboard Room, which is separated from the main hall by air walls. We expect this area (not set like this of course) has a generous amount of space for dealers tables,...
...while using one end for convention operations. Yes, this is the rear bar, but we don't expect to serve from it, but instead to use it as part of the Ops room. The main hall bar will be sufficient for serving.
All rooms have AV ports in the walls and projectors mounted from the ceiling. The convention center has both HDMI and VGA plus 3.5 mm audio cables and remote controls to operate the projectors.
I confirmed that the AV worked by connecting one of my computers to it, and that the wi-fi worked by playing Westercon 74's "opening title" animation. We've been told that they're in the process of upgrading the wi-fi, so sometime next year they will have faster connections. On a future visit I will test the speed of the connection and report on it.
The TCC management was bemused by our attention to detail. I explained that the volunteers organizing this event need to know fairly good measurements in order to make their plans to work within the available space and with the available equipment. Lisa worked on measuring it to the millimeter.
After taking our stuff back to the Mizpah, we needed to get dinner. It is our goal to try most of Tonopah's restaurants, and tonight we checked a new one off the list.
Hometown Pizza is only a couple of blocks south of the Mizpah-Belvada Hotels. As I've mentioned elsewhere, all of downtown Tonopah could fit inside the building that hosted the 2014 Worldcon. This pizza restaurant is a comparable distance from the TCC as some of the dining options in the ExCel were from Loncon's Dealers Room.
Kuma Bear turned up his nose at our sausage-and-mushroom pizza. We told him that we've never seen salmon pizza.
I'm not going to go through all of the photos we took of the Tonopah Convention Center. (There are more than sixty of them.) You can click through and see them for yourself. Lisa took even more, which I'll post later. Suffice it to say that now that we have more detailed measurements and photos, we're even more enthusiastic about Westercon 74 in Tonopah than we were before.
I wish I had more time to write, but I'm dead on my feet. This is our final night on the road. Tomorrow morning, I do not have to get up before dawn to work and can get a little bit more sleep. Tomorrow night we expect to be home.
On the way back from the Tonopah Station, we stopped by Whitney's Bookshelf, a classic used bookstore on Main Street. Note how close it is to the Belvada. (The Convention Center is on the far side of the Belvada.)
They seem intrigued by our convention. I wish I'd had flyers to drop here. We'll have to dig through the boxes of stuff we brought with us and see if there any flyers left before we leave tomorrow.
Back at the Mizpah, we said hi to Rae Graham at the front desk, thanked her again for the interview she and her wife did with us while we were bidding, and told her how much we're looking forward to the convention here. We then met with Chambrea Fowles, the new hotel sales manager. We'd not yet met with her since we won the bid, so we brought her up to speed on our current plans. The Mizpah's general manager also stopped by and said that everyone at the Mizpah is excited about hosting us in 2021.
Our Main Event today was to go to the Tonopah Convention Center, where we spent a couple of hours poking around, measuring space, confirming that we could connect to the wi-fi, and how the A/V connections work in the rooms.
This is the Buckboard Room, which is separated from the main hall by air walls. We expect this area (not set like this of course) has a generous amount of space for dealers tables,...
...while using one end for convention operations. Yes, this is the rear bar, but we don't expect to serve from it, but instead to use it as part of the Ops room. The main hall bar will be sufficient for serving.
All rooms have AV ports in the walls and projectors mounted from the ceiling. The convention center has both HDMI and VGA plus 3.5 mm audio cables and remote controls to operate the projectors.
I confirmed that the AV worked by connecting one of my computers to it, and that the wi-fi worked by playing Westercon 74's "opening title" animation. We've been told that they're in the process of upgrading the wi-fi, so sometime next year they will have faster connections. On a future visit I will test the speed of the connection and report on it.
The TCC management was bemused by our attention to detail. I explained that the volunteers organizing this event need to know fairly good measurements in order to make their plans to work within the available space and with the available equipment. Lisa worked on measuring it to the millimeter.
After taking our stuff back to the Mizpah, we needed to get dinner. It is our goal to try most of Tonopah's restaurants, and tonight we checked a new one off the list.
Hometown Pizza is only a couple of blocks south of the Mizpah-Belvada Hotels. As I've mentioned elsewhere, all of downtown Tonopah could fit inside the building that hosted the 2014 Worldcon. This pizza restaurant is a comparable distance from the TCC as some of the dining options in the ExCel were from Loncon's Dealers Room.
Kuma Bear turned up his nose at our sausage-and-mushroom pizza. We told him that we've never seen salmon pizza.
I'm not going to go through all of the photos we took of the Tonopah Convention Center. (There are more than sixty of them.) You can click through and see them for yourself. Lisa took even more, which I'll post later. Suffice it to say that now that we have more detailed measurements and photos, we're even more enthusiastic about Westercon 74 in Tonopah than we were before.
I wish I had more time to write, but I'm dead on my feet. This is our final night on the road. Tomorrow morning, I do not have to get up before dawn to work and can get a little bit more sleep. Tomorrow night we expect to be home.