[Conferences-discuss] Santa Fe

[Andrew Dalke]

Independent of the other discussions, let me make a plug
here for my home town of Santa Fe, New Mexico.

I think this would be a great place for a Python conference/
workshop/ meeting.  We do have the space for meetings
the size of the last few conferences.  The venue I've been
to the most is the Eldorado, at http://www.eldoradohotel.com .

The largest room can hold 550 in "theatre" seating (no tables),
and the next largest is 350.  There are smaller rooms for
the seperate tracks and spaces can be broken down as needed.
(There's a floorplan online.)  This means we should be able to
hold 325 to 500 people "comfortably."

I've known people who ran conferences there.  The meeting space
is free if enough people stay at the hotel.  The cheapest
standard room is during Jan. and early Feb., and is $159, plus
about $17 in tax.  There are about 200 rooms in that hotel,
which means there should be enough people.  There are many other
hotels within easy walking distance, with a good range of prices.
The ones I know of are:
  Alexander's Inn B&B (5 blocks)
  Hilton of Santa Fe (1 block)
  Hotel St. Francis (3 blocks)
  Inn of the Anasazi (3 blocks)
  Inn of the Govenors (2 blocks)
  La Fonda (4 blocks)
  The Raddison (20 minute walk, but free shuttle service)
  Santa Fe Motel Inn (4 blocks)
(actually, here's a list http://www.sfaol.com/hotels/hotels.html 
but some of those are ten minutes drive or more away.)

There is also a lot of good restaurants, bars, galleries, shops,
and museums in that area, so people don't need to feel like they
are stuck at the hotel.

I'm told the catered breakfast and lunch goes for about $25 for each
meal.  If we want to save on the costs, it should be easy for 300
people to find food near the conference.  Here's the restaurants I
know of within a few blocks of the place:
 Carlos's Gosp'l Cafe, Catamount Bar & Grille, Cowgirl Hall of Fame,
 El Paseo Bar & Grill, Garden Bar, La Casa Sena, La Plazuela,
 Noon Whistle, Manana, Ore House, Plaza Restaurant, Tia Sophia's,
 San Francisco Bar and Grill, Burrito Co. (yech), Atomic Grill,
 Cafe Pasqual's, French Pastry Shop, Blue Corn, Burt's Burger Bowl,
 The O'Keeffe Cafe, India Palace, Il Vicino, Il Piatto, Shohko-Cafe,
 Whistling Moon, Evangelo's, Pink Adobe, Coyote Cafe, The Shed,
 The Bull Ring,

combined with the dozen or more I'm missing, then that's under 10
people per restaurant, which is an easy load.  (I can't find a web
list of only the downtown restaurants.)  Typical entree is about $7,
though you can get a fajita from the fajita cart off the plaza for
$3.50, and there are four food stores within a ten minute walk.

Anyway, Santa Fe is a tourist town, which means there's plenty of
space and food when it's the off season.  Feb. is after the main ski
season, though the slopes (which are 40 minutes away) are still
open.  It also isn't the legislative season, which is why the rates
are the cheapest.  Don't try to have a conference here in the
summer!  :)

Eldorado has a T1 line and I believe will rent out the needed A/V
equipment.  If this last conference was any indication, then setting
up a few wireless base stations and a small wired room for hookups
should be all that's needed.

We don't need to have the reception at the hotel.  Santa Fe has
something like 200 art galleries in the city, some of which are willing
to rent out their space for a reception.  I don't think any of
the ones close by are big enough for 300, but there's one about
1/2 a mile away which I think is.  (There was a large conference
last year which did that, and provided bus service for those who
didn't want the 10 minute walk.)  This could be cheaper because
it wouldn't need to be catered by the hotel.  I think I know a few
places that can provide the catering.

As to the bars close by, there's the dozen or so hotel bars and
there's also: Evangelo's, Atomic, Catamount, Manana, Cowgirl,
Pink Adobe, Coyote Cafe, and a least five others I can think of
but whose names I've forgotten.

And for those interested in dancing, there's Paramount,
 http://www.theparamountnightclub.com/ and Cat's Upstairs has salsa
on Thursdays.

Guesstimating here, I can't see how the conference would cost
more than about $100/day, so under $500 for the whole conference,
or less than half of what Python10 costs.  (This excludes the book
proceedings, since I have no idea how much that costs.)  The higher
overall cost is because I think speakers should get some sort of
discount.

Downsides

There are almost no direct flights to Santa Fe, unless you start
from Denver, Albuquerque, or Phoenix.  The flight from those cities
to Santa Fe costs about $300, so most people will fly into Albuquerque
(ABQ).  From experience, I know there are direct flights to ABQ from
Tampa, Oakland, LA, DC, Cleveland, and Minneapolis.  ABQ is a big
enough airport that rates are reasonable, esp. for those flying
Southwest.

But ABQ is about an hour from Santa Fe.  There are two bus lines which
shuttle between the downtown hotels (and the Radisson) to ABQ.  They
cost about $40 round trip.  During the day there is up to about a
40 minute wait between busses.  One of the companies is
  http://www.santafeshuttle.com/SFshuttle.htm
and the other is  http://www.sandiashuttle.com/
Santa Fe shuttle has a bus and can carry 50 or so people per trip.
The biggest problem might be the crunch of people leaving at the
end of the main conference.

There are also rental cars.  Enterprise and Alamo are at ABQ and
have a local place for those interested in only renting a car for
the drive but don't want to keep it while here.  Alamo is near the
Eldorado.  And of course there are many others agencies for those
interested in keeping the car during the stay (perhaps to go skiing
or gambling or visit Taos or see the Shidoni foundry or ...)

Eldorado will also pick people up from the train station at Lamy.
There's a daily Amtrack train from Chicago and LA.

Another problem is that I am not the best at negotiating.  I
may not be the right one to negotiate the details with the hotel,
what with the available tradeoffs.  Though I do know what they
will do, so I'm not that bad.  I also don't have a real support
staff I can call on for help with pre-conference organization
(getting the paperwork together, setting up the network, etc.)
There are a few local Python people I might be able to pester,
which might include some of the LANL people.

The weather here is a bit broader than DC.  Today's high was 46F,
and low 19F (+7C/-7C).  By comparison, DC today was 44/21 .. but
we had blue, sunny skies.  We do get some snow showers, but not like
the blizzard in DC two years ago.  We are above 3,000m (7000ft)
elevation, which affects some people, though mostly only those who
extert themselves.  (The bottom of the ski area is at 10,200 ft,
with the top above 12,000ft.  "But the air's so thin and dry you
don't feel the cold."  :)

Anyway, that's my plug.

                    Andrew Dalke
                    dalke@dalkescientific.com