Hi all, Based on the initial positive response, Rich looked into the hotel options around O¹Hare, but apparently that doesn¹t seem feasible. The quote he got at the hotel we have been using for previous events, and which used to be one of the more reasonable ones, was that we would have to buy food for $2500 per day, i.e., we would have to spend $10K for the four days, which is a bit too high (and that didn¹t even count power strips and projectors, yet). With that we are back to the Microsoft downtown option ­ at least we know we have great facilities there, but unfortunately this means there won¹t be any help with hotels this time. I hope this doesn¹t cause any insurmountable problems for anyone - if so, please let me know. Thanks, Martin ________________________________________________________________________ Martin Schulz, [email protected], http://scalability.llnl.gov/ CASC @ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, USA From: Martin Schulz <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2014 at 11:37 AM To: Main mailing list <[email protected]> Subject: Problem with Hotel Logistics for June Forum Meeting Hi all, We are having some problems with the hotels for the June meeting ­ see Rich¹s message below ­ and won¹t be able to get a room block. How many people would be impacted by that, i.e., couldn¹t find a decent hotel under these circumstances? In general, I think we have three options: * We can keep the meeting at Microsoft as usual, but this could mean for some people to potentially commute from further out to the meeting (worst case from O¹Hare) * We can try to have the meeting at an airport hotel where the facilities are less ideal and we have to pay a higher cost from our leftover funds * ANL has previously offered to host, so if this still an option we could consider that as well, but this requires everyone to get rental cars Do people have preferences? Unless I hear a clear vote for one option, though, I think we should stick with option 1 to avoid confusion and have the least impact on budgets (forum and travelers). Thanks, Martin ________________________________________________________________________ Martin Schulz, [email protected], http://scalability.llnl.gov/ CASC @ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, USA From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, May 6, 2014 at 11:17 AM To: Anh Vo <[email protected]>, Martin Schulz <[email protected]> Subject: RE: hotel for MPI Forum in June We have been looking into it, and l don¹t think we will be able to come up with a hotel. There is some big meeting down town with hotels not having availability at least for blocks of rooms at a discount rate. For the fun of it I checked on gov rate availability in Marriott chains, and same issue (that is the rate we usually get). We could get hotels out towards the airport, but I do not think that is practical. One thing we could consider is having the meeting at the Spring Hill Suites out by the airport ­ not as nice a location, but last time we met there they gave us free meeting rooms for staying with them and for catering. Not sure if there is a room count requirement with it. Martin, what do you think ? Rich