Re: Registration open for IETF 114

[John C Klensin <[e-mail]>]

--On Monday, May 9, 2022 09:59 -0500 Behcet Sarikaya
<[e-mail]> wrote:

> On Thu, May 5, 2022 at 2:43 PM Ross Finlayson
> <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> > On May 5, 2022, at 9:57 AM, IETF Executive Director <
>> [e-mail]> wrote:
>> > 
>> > The IETF 114 meeting venue is at the Sheraton Philadelphia
>> > Downtown.  As
>> explained in the FAQ, you will need to register before you
>> can reserve a guest room at the venue.
>> 
>> Strictly speaking, this does not appear to be correct.  The
>> link that I was sent to me (after I registered for the IETF)
>> to reserve a guest room was not specific to my IETF
>> registration.  While it gave me the IETF-discounted room
>> rate, it would have worked for anyone, even if they hadn't
>> registered for the IETF.
>> 
>> For other on-site IETF meetings (before Covid), the link to
>> reserve a hotel guest room (at the IETF-discounted room rate)
>> was included in the IETF "Registration open" email.  This
>> allowed people to reserve an IETF-hotel room (often a scarce
>> resource) early, while deferring actually registering for the
>> IETF.
>> 
>> Not including the hotel room link in the "Registration
>> open" email appears to be an (understandable) ploy to get
>> as many paid IETF registrations as early as possible.

> Last time early registration carried a much bigger  discount
> than this time. That is my only real concern.

I'd add one.  With online meetings prior to the pandemic, the
meeting page(s) listed alternate hotels and similar facilities
in the vicinity of the venue, ones that had been at least
minimally checked out in venue site visits.  Apparently, this
time, not only is the main hotel not heavily discounted, but
people looking for other options are apparently completely on
their own.  I can guess at some of the reasons for the former,
starting with lower and more uncertain attendee numbers but less
so for the latter.

   john