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Or if I need to post I'll make a filter. I think it's important that people know something about how hotel contracts work because current events could end not only conventions coming up, but the overarching organizations that run fandom cons.
I actually wrote this up a few days ago because con running logistics are still part of my brain. But posting it seemed a bit soon. This morning I am seeing a lot of talk and worry over con cancellations and the assumption that cons have insurance that will cover cancellations. Cons have insurance, but those policies are giant rambling documents that have a lot of things they specifically don't cover. I am a few years out of the loop but I very much doubt insurance policies are going to bail out fandom conventions. There are a lot of things cons aren't and can't get covered for.
Here is how a hotel contract for a convention works, slightly dramatized.
ConCom: Hi. We want to have an event, please give us space for free or for very little. In exchange we promise people will book 100 room nights.
Hotel: Awesome, I will hold you to 70% to 90% of that. This rate you need to hit is called slippage. You will monitor how close you are to slippage allll year long. It will haunt your dreams!
Hotel: Also, since you are committing to the room nights so far out, here is a great price for your attendees!
ConCom: Great. Uh, what happens if we don't hit slippage?
Hotel: Your con rate is $100/night. If you don't book enough rooms to hit slippage, we will charge you ... oh.... $500 to $750 for each room night not booked.
ConCom: Wow, that is a much bigger number.
Hotel: Like I said, slippage will haunt you!
Basically, if a con gets a lot of cancellations, especially last minute, they are screwed. Every 100 bucks they can raise from online T shirt sales, pre-reg for next year, etc to book the room nights themselves saves them a 500 dollar or more fee.
For cons at convention centers, they often still get this deal by promising to book area hotels. The city often owns or in an a complicated business relationship with the convention center and the real profit is from lodging tax, all the other various taxes set up to dip into tourist pockets and support to local businesses. Whether at a hotel or a con center, it's the room night bookings that are covering a lot of the actual cost of the con.
A local con, Gamestorm, nearly went down in flames because they didn't get enough bookings and they didn't think to book the damn rooms themselves. Orycon sailed in and booked the rooms to save the con. Both cons now operate under OFSCI.
If you see an event you care about having a last minute money panic, them raising some funds before the con is massively, massively more effective than after. Kcon once had a contract where our room nights were like $149, but if we didn't hit slippage the fee was about a thousand each. We hit slippage, we sold out the hotel, but the swing between the con rate and the fee can be that much. Multiply that by 10, 20 or 3000 cancelled room nights if Covid19 makes people ditch en mass.
Some hotels are actually going to forgive this debt under the circumstances. They don't want to kill the events that book them every year. It's not in their interest. But in cities *cough*like Portland*cough* where we have a surplus of events and a scarcity of con hotels, they don't care. The one-time payout is worth it. Also if the hotel is having it's own short term issues from multiple cancellations they might start going for the cash. Covid19 is going to hurt the hotel industry and some hotels will be pressured to find some short term cash flows. A con never knows if the hotel might pull the trigger on that fee, but it's damn big one and they do sometimes go for it.
tl:dr If there are events out there you care about, ones important to your community, keep an eye on them. The risks they are facing right now are possibly larger than you realize. Also some cons / events / scholarship funds can be more linked at the organizational level than you realize and if one event gets smashed it could effect or take out others as well.
I actually wrote this up a few days ago because con running logistics are still part of my brain. But posting it seemed a bit soon. This morning I am seeing a lot of talk and worry over con cancellations and the assumption that cons have insurance that will cover cancellations. Cons have insurance, but those policies are giant rambling documents that have a lot of things they specifically don't cover. I am a few years out of the loop but I very much doubt insurance policies are going to bail out fandom conventions. There are a lot of things cons aren't and can't get covered for.
Here is how a hotel contract for a convention works, slightly dramatized.
ConCom: Hi. We want to have an event, please give us space for free or for very little. In exchange we promise people will book 100 room nights.
Hotel: Awesome, I will hold you to 70% to 90% of that. This rate you need to hit is called slippage. You will monitor how close you are to slippage allll year long. It will haunt your dreams!
Hotel: Also, since you are committing to the room nights so far out, here is a great price for your attendees!
ConCom: Great. Uh, what happens if we don't hit slippage?
Hotel: Your con rate is $100/night. If you don't book enough rooms to hit slippage, we will charge you ... oh.... $500 to $750 for each room night not booked.
ConCom: Wow, that is a much bigger number.
Hotel: Like I said, slippage will haunt you!
Basically, if a con gets a lot of cancellations, especially last minute, they are screwed. Every 100 bucks they can raise from online T shirt sales, pre-reg for next year, etc to book the room nights themselves saves them a 500 dollar or more fee.
For cons at convention centers, they often still get this deal by promising to book area hotels. The city often owns or in an a complicated business relationship with the convention center and the real profit is from lodging tax, all the other various taxes set up to dip into tourist pockets and support to local businesses. Whether at a hotel or a con center, it's the room night bookings that are covering a lot of the actual cost of the con.
A local con, Gamestorm, nearly went down in flames because they didn't get enough bookings and they didn't think to book the damn rooms themselves. Orycon sailed in and booked the rooms to save the con. Both cons now operate under OFSCI.
If you see an event you care about having a last minute money panic, them raising some funds before the con is massively, massively more effective than after. Kcon once had a contract where our room nights were like $149, but if we didn't hit slippage the fee was about a thousand each. We hit slippage, we sold out the hotel, but the swing between the con rate and the fee can be that much. Multiply that by 10, 20 or 3000 cancelled room nights if Covid19 makes people ditch en mass.
Some hotels are actually going to forgive this debt under the circumstances. They don't want to kill the events that book them every year. It's not in their interest. But in cities *cough*like Portland*cough* where we have a surplus of events and a scarcity of con hotels, they don't care. The one-time payout is worth it. Also if the hotel is having it's own short term issues from multiple cancellations they might start going for the cash. Covid19 is going to hurt the hotel industry and some hotels will be pressured to find some short term cash flows. A con never knows if the hotel might pull the trigger on that fee, but it's damn big one and they do sometimes go for it.
tl:dr If there are events out there you care about, ones important to your community, keep an eye on them. The risks they are facing right now are possibly larger than you realize. Also some cons / events / scholarship funds can be more linked at the organizational level than you realize and if one event gets smashed it could effect or take out others as well.
