Greetings Attendees far and near!

I just wanted to give a general status update on behalf of RMFC in regards to the hotel that we have chosen this year. As most of you know, we posted the link to reserve a room on Friday. Many rooms were sold out that very night, which caused quite a few folks to send us reasonably concerned feedback about the current hotel, and what it means for them.

There were also a number of technical issues with the website that prevented people from getting a room. These concerns have been forwarded through the proper channels, and we will investigate whether or not they can be rectified. So I want to boil down exactly where we are coming from since we found out that the Marriott would be undergoing renovations in 2016.

The process begins with budgetary concerns. Many venues that had both enough space and rooms (including downtown options like the Hyatt) would have doubled our cost for space rental. Guest rooms also would have been double what our attendees were used to paying in years-past. We did not think that such an unexpected cost increase to our attendees would have been fair.

Other options we looked at had plenty of guest rooms but not nearly enough convention space to meet our needs. Lastly, other venues we looked at had plenty of space, but already had rooms and events blocked out, so we could not possibly allocate enough space for our attendees. This, in addition to the time crunch, left us with very few exceptionally good options.

The little time we were given to act put us in a position where we were also in competition with at least six other conventions our size for space near the same time period. All of these factors left us with a very limited pool to choose from. In the end, we chose Crowne Plaza DIA because they are within our budget, they have the convention space that we require, and they are willing to work with us for this one year.

Our previous room and growth were factored into the decision. It’s worth noting that while the Marriott did have 600+ rooms, RMFC occupied just a little over 200 of those rooms for 3 nights. This leads our numbers to show that the separations between the room availability at the Crowne Plaza and what we used at the Marriott was not very significant even with growth. Now, I know this isn’t comforting to those of you who do not yet have rooms, but this will bring me to my last point.

Our priority right now is to expand the current room block. That being said, we do have other options down the line. The other benefit to this hotel is that there are quite a few others in the vicinity to support the awesome convention space offered by the Crowne Plaza.

We have been working on the possibility of overflow long before we announced the opening of the current block. Once again, this process will take a little bit more time, but once we have secured terms that benefit all of our attendees, you will be the first to know.

Every year that we have launched the room block, it has sold out in very short time. As with all previous years, we are working with the hotel to see if we can expand that block even further. This process takes time, and requires more negotiating, so patience is needed from all parties. Don’t Panic. We have issues with hotels every single year, and like all years past, we will work through this problem too, and we will host a fantastic convention for all to enjoy.

In patience and solidarity,

Sorin Katt
Chairman, Rocky Mountain Fur Con