Consideration for a Thursday start (4th day)

Old_Man_Monkey · Post by **Old_Man_Monkey** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 2:16 am

Because of the interest in all manner of events, side tournaments, painting and possible mixes of competitions, I would like to gauge the interest in having the World Cup actually begin on Thursday, October 18th.

This would mean however an extra hotel day for most out of towners and we are quite sensitive to the costs to individual coaches. We are currently negotiating with several hotels near to GW-UK and are trying to get the per night cost per coach to under 30 GBP. There are certainly cheaper places available but none particularly nearby and none of any size.

We could of course abandon each coach and team to their own resources; however there will be a central gathering point at one hotel which will serve as HQ for the entire event....

Thoughts, please.

OMM

(posted also on the NAF site)

Hangus · Post by **Hangus** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 9:23 am

If a thursday is added then i feel it should be side games only so player who have trouble taking time off, for example Darkson can still take part in the main events without being behind in points or games.

I'd be up for it.

Podfrey · Post by **Podfrey** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:17 pm

Under Â£30 per person per night? As a DEAL?

Sorry old bean, but I could get Â£27.50 pppn (assuming standard 2 people per room) as a regular member of the public and book now without any incentive to the hotel. Heck, if I was prepared to travel 5 miles to the hotel I could get it for Â£7.50 pppn - https://www.travelodge.co.uk/make_a_boo ... &x=96&y=12). Hmm, might just do that now.....

There are several standard PremierHolidayTravelLodgeInn-type places only 1 or 2 miles from GW and none of them are shy a room or two

. If I were negotiating I'd personally be aiming for sub-Â£25 pppn as a deal as a minimum, and really Â£20 pppn.

http://www.travelodge.co.uk/find_a_hote ... mRiverside

http://www.travelodge.co.uk/find_a_hote ... hamCentral

https://www.travelodge.co.uk/group_booking/

http://www.premiertravelinn.com/pti/hot ... elId=23913

http://www.premiertravelinn.com/pti/hot ... elId=24073

http://www.ichotelsgroup.com/h/d/hi/1/e ... rchresults

Old_Man_Monkey · Post by **Old_Man_Monkey** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 5:30 pm

lucifer wrote:There are several standard PremierHolidayTravelLodgeInn-type places only 1 or 2 miles from GW and none of them are shy a room or two . If I were negotiating I'd personally be aiming for sub-Â£25 pppn as a deal as a minimum, and really Â£20 pppn.

Thanks for the help GP - the quoted prices of 34 to 40 GBP per person were from the Holiday Inns you mention and the Premiere Inn has only 8 beds they were willing to put into a group contract.

I agree that better deals will be found no matter what the contract price becomes (the Igloo Hostel has offered 30 beds for 12 GBP each - the idea will still be to form a central location if possible at the best possible price. It may be that we will not get involved with setting up a hotel contract but it won't be for lack of trying...

I could use some help with this rather than doing this long distance... PM me if you're interested.... and thanks again!

Podfrey · Post by **Podfrey** » Sun Nov 26, 2006 11:38 pm

Old_Man_Monkey wrote:...the idea will still be to form a central location if possible at the best possible price...

From my experience of Eurobowl this is the best idea if you wish to bring the coaches together outside of the games. However there are three considerations to be made with regards GW HQ:
1) even the smallest concentration of hotels are at least 1.5 miles from GW meaning the social side is considerably divorced from the event (increasing group fragmentation)
2) Bugmans boots out at 11pm, offering no chance for a "social" gathering/drink later than that
3) you can't even drink during the day at the table/in the hall

I really think you're shooting yourself in the foot over the insistence that it HAS to be GW HQ. Imagine a "standard" European travelling from, say, Germany. For a 3 day tournament you have to set off realistically mid Thursday, flight to London, then either hire a car or get the (expensive) train taking about 3 to 4 hours to get to Nottingham. On Sunday there's no hope of a late Sunday flight, so travel back Monday, probably needing a mid-day flight too. So that's the best part of Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun & Mon for a 3 day event, flights and then car hire + petrol or train. THEN you have to add accommodation, food and drink. It's going to be bloomin' expensive.

If the event HAS to be in the UK then it should either be in London or Manchester/Liverpool as both locations have cheap flights and little travel cost/time involved once landed, offering late Thursday arrival and possibility of late Sunday return flight/ferry meaning 3 days away from home, not 5. I'm sure both can offer accommodation at a similar price to Nottinham and hall hire costs are likely to be negligeable (if amortised across all entrants). Some hotels will even offer free conference rooms if you take a certain number of rooms.

Sorry to sound negative but, primarily because of location, I honestly don't see this being the success you think it will. Even living about 100 miles from GW HQ it's about the same time/cost for me to go to a tournie in Amsterdam as it is Nottingham.

Old_Man_Monkey wrote: It may be that we will not get involved with setting up a hotel contract but it won't be for lack of trying...

I could use some help with this rather than doing this long distance... PM me if you're interested.... and thanks again!

TravelLodge looks the most ameniable to offering a huge group discount, though I still believe that it shouldn't be Nottingham.

hoomin_erra · Post by **hoomin_erra** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 7:30 am

He's persistant when he has a bug under his collar, isn't he?

Post by **voyagers_uk** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 11:58 am

thought you'd gone!

hoomin_erra · Post by **hoomin_erra** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 12:19 pm

Round the end of this week sometime. So you still have the pleasure of my company for this week.

Enjoy it, you'll miss me when i'm gone.

Darkson · Post by **Darkson** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 12:30 pm

Who said that?

kewan · Post by **kewan** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 1:54 pm

I don't know if someone has proposed this, I'm not able to read all the topic, but if we do a 4 days tournament, we can use Thursday and Friday for the teams tournament and the weekend for an individual tournament, open for everybody. I think that's the best think we can do.

And the thursday/Friday, you can do beach BB tourney, BB7 tourney, painting contest, streetbowl tourney... for people that don't play the teams tourney.

grotuk · Post by **grotuk** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 2:36 pm

kewan wrote:I don't know if someone has proposed this, I'm not able to read all the topic, but if we do a 4 days tournament, we can use Thursday and Friday for the teams tournament and the weekend for an individual tournament, open for everybody. I think that's the best think we can do.

And the thursday/Friday, you can do beach BB tourney, BB7 tourney, painting contest, streetbowl tourney... for people that don't play the teams tourney.

I think this was the first idea when the WC idea cames out with the 4 day schedule.

For me, this is the plan, and if the thursday playing is an option...we need to do this way. Also, gives the chance to european people that actually cant (for whatever reason) attend all days...play in the individual tournament.

But also, if you are not in your national team you can pass some way the first 2 days.

The 4 days option is the best one for my taste. And for future editions...i'll happilly cross the pond to play this way without beeing in the national team.

Valen · Post by **Valen** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 2:40 pm

Yeah 4 days is the wayto go with seperate tornis on so you can attend all 4 days or just part of the torni is agood idea, not sure how this would affect ticket sales though

Evil Git · Post by **Evil Git** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 6:53 pm

easiest way around that gav is to sell day tickets. you want all 4 days then it's this price. for 3 you take a quarter of the price off, that sort of thing.

then on entrance everyone get's a wristband (like they have at festivals) a different colour for each day. that way people can tell at a glance how many days your ticket is

Longshot · Post by **Longshot** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 8:31 pm

if the cheapest place to sleep and socialise is not close to the GW place... i dont mind..
5km or more to have a good place for us all (and cheaper) will be surely nice to eveybody.

Evil Git · Post by **Evil Git** » Mon Nov 27, 2006 8:34 pm

lso if it is a fair distance away say like the 5km that yohann has suggested just as an idea, what would the chances of getting some coaches lined up to take us to the venue if public transport is a problem?