Early Arrivals. The good news is that we are getting lots of early registrations for Migration. However, the Gaylord Opryland Resort has sold out of our block of rooms at the Group Rate of $179 for those arriving on Wednesday, September 13 and earlier. A limited number of rooms are available on those early arrival dates at a higher rate. In addition, the Gaylord Inn does have availability for those nights. However, we encourage you to book only the early nights at the Gaylord Inn and to book at the Gaylord Opryland for Thursday-Saturday nights as it is quite a hike each day.
Our apologies for this development. However it is a difficult balancing act to know how many rooms to reserve at a group rate. A block of rooms at a committed group rate requires that we guaranty 80% booking, meaning that if our group actually uses less than 80% of the number of rooms reserved in our group block then we have to pay for the shortfall. With the numbers we are talking about, that could be quite a bit of risk for the organization. The nightly number of bookings we committed to was based on a historical average over the past few years. We re-looked at it about two months ago but shied away from a bigger commitment due to the risk.
Thursday-Saturday Group Rate Availability. We have 212 rooms available Thursday and 242 available Friday and Saturday nights at the Group Rate of $179 (with taxes, fees, etc. the rate grosses up to $226). Registration has been robust to date and we have used 70 of our available rooms for each of those nights. So we encourage early registration as the rate will go up once we use up our block and we cannot guaranty rate or availability once our block is filled up.
**Register Early. **Clearly, if you want to make sure that you can take advantage of the group rate, sign up early. We are discussing an increase in the room block, but the Hotel may not agree, or may (most likely will) require additional consideration in exchange for a larger block. So please register early to assure that you can get the Group Rate.
I just booked my hotel and was able to get 14th-17th at the Gaylord under the group rate, and tried to book the 13th-14th at the Inn. The Inn told me they were also sold out on the group rate for that first night, but then put me on hold for a few minutes and managed to “adjust” something to get me the same rate.
I checked. The rooms are otherwise $300+ per night on Sep 14-17. I don’t 100% know if I’ll be able to attend M15. But I booked rooms anyway. One can cancel three days before. Set yourself a Google Calendar reminder for the week before (to cancel if needed) and you’re golden. There’s no downside.
Am told that a seminar on Capitalism: the Unknown Ideal is being planned for M15, to coincide with the book’s (using the word loosely) upcoming Chinese edition. It will feature known liberal opinion-maker and daredevil (“flew” a UPDT to Aspen despite the widely-shared-on-Whatsapp fact that UPDTs can barely take off at 0 MSL), JimF, and the real-life (not just Facebook) friend of Fox and Friends, RichK.
But will COPA properly advertise itself as theSalon of intellectual discourse in all of PilotLand? Will JohnY run for President on a single-point Abolish the FAA platform? Will Gen. Flynn get the Presidential Medal of Freedom?
One of those things is bound to happen. Why shouldn’t it be COPA? We start with rebranding M16 as Migration - The 16th Ideas Festival for Pilots. (I’m aware that doesn’t fit on a bumper sticker - speaking of which, whatever happened to NeilM? - but hey, what did that pinko Orwell know, really.)
Now, that’s the Sanjay that we’ve come to know and love. And as for me, I have little clue as to what you just said but I will defend to the death, your right to say it.
And as to recasting M16, you are on the committee next year . . . so there!!! Please change the year below to 2018
