Saddened
Posted by fethbone nascragman

nascragman wrote:
I think the point here may be that an airport hotel that has free parking, plus Uber/Lyft is comparable cost-wise to downtown plus paid parking.  It might even be cheaper.
A downtown hotel is a deal-breaker for hardcore cosplay, people running games that involve serious amounts of material that needs to be transported, and differently abled folks.
It is definitely cheaper. Ex: the Candlewood by the airport still has rooms for $133/night (pre-paid rate), while the Holiday Inn Express downtown (same parent company and similar hotel tier) starts at $210/night for the in-block rate, plus $20/day for parking if you bring a vehicle. Before tax and assuming a Wed-Sun stay, that's already a pre-parking, pre-tax savings of $308. I have never had a one-way Lyft ride (including tip) cost more than $15, and even a conventional cab has never cost me more than $25. You would have to do A LOT of Lyfting to get anywhere near that $300+ difference.

And I'm sure you could find even cheaper places than the Candlewood out there as well if you were willing to look....The South Indy Super 8 is listed as low as $102/night.

Posted by kidlidar

My wife's first gen con we stayed with friends in a downtown room.  This was great for her as she was in a wheelchair at the time.  We have been going with our family ever since and we stay well outside downtown.  (We stayed at the quality inn east for 3 years) room rates have been steadily increasing though.

We run LARPS so a downtown room would be very convenient as we wouldn't have to carry materials from the Gate 10 lots to whichever space has our game.  Also, being able to go back up to the room for a spell is helpful also.

I respectfully disagree with the poster that says it's not a different experience.  It was for us. 

Posted by raidkillsbugsded kidlidar

kidlidar wrote:
My wife's first gen con we stayed with friends in a downtown room.  This was great for her as she was in a wheelchair at the time.  We have been going with our family ever since and we stay well outside downtown.  (We stayed at the quality inn east for 3 years) room rates have been steadily increasing though.

There were hotels away from downtown in block with rates higher than out of block rates by 20-40 per night...

Posted by mikeptas

I consistently book outside of the blocks.  I have found a Super 8 that works well.  Cheap.  Waffle House right beside it.  Steak & Shake a block away. Just use Uber.  Basically, my dream location.  (OK.  Maybe I have simple dreams.)

Even with the Uber, it is still cheaper.  And with how some of the drivers drive, it's almost like riding a roller coaster/thrill ride each morning & night. I arrive on Tuesday and stay until the following Tuesday.  With really long gaming days at the Con.  Really makes the travel easier.  Of course, I go alone so what works for me might not work for others.

The hotel is $79 per night for the 7 days (Expedia).  It is less than 10 miles out (Apple maps puts it at 9.3 miles & 13 minutes.)  So a bargain.  Plus, Waffle House.

Posted by dwe113

ok so its been pointed out here several times that just as mikeptas says above everyone has different criteria for their hotel room. To many people the location of the room is not important and they are going to enjoy the con no matter what. Others either require a downtown/connected room or at the least prefer it to the point where it is important enough that the con just isn't enjoyable without one. Obviously neither view is wrong in any way. With the sheer number of people who go to GenCon and the small amount of downtown hotel rooms it is simply impossible to accommodate everyone. There is no system that will change this fact. The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Posted by brotherbock dwe113

dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

Posted by nascragman brotherbock

brotherbock wrote:
dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

The new system is more fair by far.  but the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.

Posted by austicke nascragman

nascragman wrote:the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.

Nah, there are too many variables, like hotel, room types, dates, cost, etc. You'd have to rank thousands of variables to have the same options as doing it live at a specified time.

_____________________________________
Alec Usticke, Fans of Gen Con Facebook Group

Posted by quarex

And if you tried to simplify it by having an option like "any downtown room" it would further reinforce the idea that only the downtown rooms were worth getting!

Perhaps if everyone could just be polite and only get a downtown room if they truly needed one.  What is that?  Everyone is laughing at me now?  Hmm, fair enough.

Posted by cmegus quarex

quarex wrote:
And if you tried to simplify it by having an option like "any downtown room" it would further reinforce the idea that only the downtown rooms were worth getting!
Perhaps if everyone could just be polite and only get a downtown room if they truly needed one.  What is that?  Everyone is laughing at me now?  Hmm, fair enough.

Everyone’s definition of “truly needed one” is different...

Do I truly need to get up at 7am instead of 6am to make an 8am start? No. BUT this year I will and I am ok with the extra $80 a night. :)

G
 

Posted by traveller nascragman

nascragman wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

The new system is more fair by far.  but the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.
And if your choices dont' come up, what then, or if you prefer a king but a double is available...

Posted by mikeboozer nascragman

nascragman wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

The new system is more fair by far.  but the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.

Yikes!

Where do I start....I'm stunned beyond the point of words to articulate thoughts on this.

Mike Boozer 
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Posted by brotherbock mikeboozer

mikeboozer wrote:
nascragman wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

The new system is more fair by far.  but the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.

Yikes!Where do I start....I'm stunned beyond the point of words to articulate thoughts on this.
Mike Boozer 
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Start with "Do you want a hotel?", a yes or no question.
Then just a couple more questions and we'll have it.

;)

Posted by mikeboozer brotherbock

brotherbock wrote:
mikeboozer wrote:
nascragman wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

The new system is more fair by far.  but the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.

Yikes!Where do I start....I'm stunned beyond the point of words to articulate thoughts on this.
Mike Boozer 
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Start with "Do you want a hotel?", a yes or no question.
Then just a couple more questions and we'll have it.;)

Yeah..a couple more...

Posted by nascragman mikeboozer

mikeboozer wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
mikeboozer wrote:
nascragman wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

The new system is more fair by far.  but the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.

Yikes!Where do I start....I'm stunned beyond the point of words to articulate thoughts on this.
Mike Boozer 
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Start with "Do you want a hotel?", a yes or no question.
Then just a couple more questions and we'll have it.;)

Yeah..a couple more...

Please don't just mock me.  With all due respect, this doesn't seem that complicated, but perhaps I'm missing something.

You have a page listing all the available hotels.  In the weeks leading up to the lottery, people would need to access the page and set their preferences.

The page should have two sort options - distance and price.
You rank your hotel of preference from 1 to whatever. 

You enter your


  • arrival and departure dates,
  • number of people in the room,
  • preferred bed configuration (can be ranked or any)
  • and your credit card info.

The night of the lottery, you're assigned a random processing position and you're batched through.
This isn't sophisticated code.  You might need a confirmation step after assignment, but put a one week limit on that.

If you feel you need the discretion to choose between a King at the Hyatt or a double-double at the Marriott, let me note that most folks end up taking what they can get anyway.  And you could have a preference box to weight bed configuration above hotel.  Or a tweak that lets you process through any downtown hotel configuration before giving up an dropping down to airport locations.

I get it if you enjoy the scrum of lottery day.  That's a legitimate preference, but don't tell me it couldn't be automated.
 

Posted by brotherbock nascragman

nascragman wrote:
Please don't just mock me.  With all due respect, this doesn't seem that complicated, but perhaps I'm missing something.You have a page listing all the available hotels.  The page should have two sort options - distance and price.
You rank your hotel of preference from 1 to whatever. 
You enter your

  • arrival and departure dates,
  • number of people in the room,
  • preferred bed configuration (can be ranked or any)
  • and your credit card info.

The night of the lottery, you're assigned a random processing position and you're batched through.
This isn't sophisticated code.  You might need a confirmation step after assignment, but put a one week limit on that.
If you feel you need the discretion to choose between a King at the Hyatt or a double-double at the Marriott, let me note that most folks end up taking what they can get anyway.  And you could have a preference box to weight bed configuration above hotel.  Or a tweak that lets you process through any downtown hotel configuration before giving up an dropping down to airport locations.I get it if you enjoy the scrum of lottery day.  That's a legitimate preference, but don't tell me it couldn't be automated.

 
For my part I wasn't trying to mock you, just have a little joke. I apologize if it seemed mean, and on reflection it was pretty likely to seem mean. So I'm sorry for that.

I think the difficulty people are looking at is this--with the current system, I can not only prioritize hotels, but I could for example prioritize a Hyatt double-double over a Marriott King, but a Marriott double-double over anything else--except a Hilton suite. But other Hilton rooms would be at the bottom.

It's true that with the current system a lot of people just have to take whatever is available. But many people--thousands, based on the number of downtown rooms that get grabbed--are able to prioritize in these really complex ways. And they do, or at least I have in the past, and I don't think I'm alone in this. Changing to a much less nuanced priority system, while still keeping a random lottery, would

a) prevent anyone from prioritizing in ways that weren't coded into the system, while
b) only benefiting people who are unable to login during their time.

I suspect you'll have a lot more people upset by taking away their in-the-moment choice than you'll make happy by automating.

Posted by selene314

You're asking every participant to rank every room in the system. That's a ton of work and will be prone to mistakes.

Your scheme also ignores the fact that my priorities change as soon as someone else in my group gets a room. My preference is something like "two of these seven people get downtown rooms, at least one of which has two beds."

IIRC, the first year they did a lottery those times weren't assigned until noon Sunday. THAT was a waste of an afternoon. The current system of getting a time assigned Friday night means you only have to log in at your time.

Posted by mikeboozer nascragman

nascragman wrote:
mikeboozer wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
mikeboozer wrote:
nascragman wrote:
brotherbock wrote:
dwe113 wrote:
The way that the lottery is done now is at least arguably as fair as any other and in my opinion people who advocate for a "more fair" system are generally describing one that is more fair for themselves

Indeed. I never hear anyone complaining that they get downtown rooms more often in this new system, and therefore it must be unfair to others :) The downtown rooms still get filled, and it's telling that, to judge by what a lot of people say when they complain, those rooms in the past were apparently always filled with the same people ("I always got a downtown room before!") So if some people always got them before, but those rooms are still being filled now--how is this new system less fair?

The new system is more fair by far.  but the requirement that you need to log on at a certain time is pointless.  Allow people to rank their hotel preferences beforehand and run the lottery in Batch Mode.  Save everyone an afternoon.

Yikes!Where do I start....I'm stunned beyond the point of words to articulate thoughts on this.
Mike Boozer 
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Start with "Do you want a hotel?", a yes or no question.
Then just a couple more questions and we'll have it.;)

Yeah..a couple more...

Please don't just mock me.  With all due respect, this doesn't seem that complicated, but perhaps I'm missing something.You have a page listing all the available hotels.  In the weeks leading up to the lottery, people would need to access the page and set their preferences.
The page should have two sort options - distance and price.
You rank your hotel of preference from 1 to whatever. 
You enter your

  • arrival and departure dates,
  • number of people in the room,
  • preferred bed configuration (can be ranked or any)
  • and your credit card info.

The night of the lottery, you're assigned a random processing position and you're batched through.
This isn't sophisticated code.  You might need a confirmation step after assignment, but put a one week limit on that.If you feel you need the discretion to choose between a King at the Hyatt or a double-double at the Marriott, let me note that most folks end up taking what they can get anyway.  And you could have a preference box to weight bed configuration above hotel.  Or a tweak that lets you process through any downtown hotel configuration before giving up an dropping down to airport locations.
I get it if you enjoy the scrum of lottery day.  That's a legitimate preference, but don't tell me it couldn't be automated.


Also not trying to mock and apologize if you felt that way for my part, however this is a lot more complicated then what you have proposed here and the potential for mishap and issues goes up. Which is exactly what we do not want. 

Taking away peoples variables on room choices is not a viable solution as well. There is a lot of information that people would want to enter but could not.
Not saying it could not be automated, just saying it would not be a good choice.

Finally the code is not a matter of sophistication, its time and resources. We have other initiatives that have priorities. The current system works. I suspect that we would get more people upset if we changed to the system as proposed. 

Mike Boozer
Customer Service & Event Team Manager
Gen Con LLC

Posted by elvinlord

Is it really that big a inconvenience to log in 5 minutes before your assigned time and pick a hotel?  You would definitely have more upset people if the system "picked" a hotel for you.  I can just imagine the gnashing of teeth when someone logs in a finds a the system picked a king in the third ring when they wanted a double at the Westin.

Posted by tinabear81

Then that would lead to a secondary “after assignment” trading system between attendees who got assigned something insufficient (1 king bed without a sleeper sofa) when they needed a double double with a sleeper sofa), or unnecessary (1 person in that double double), or the wrong hotel chain to earn rewards, or...

At which point GenCon and Qrooms have to rescind the no-room-trade /transfer policy, or open it back up. I have a feeling there’s a really good reason why that rule was put in place. 

As frustrating as getting a later lottery time is, automating the system based on a limited number of coded priorities  will cause far more chaos than the lottery.

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