glowbug said:
Because projecting an unrealistic attendance number influences the planning and conceivably costs someone money, that's why.
If the folks in charge assume 2,000 BLers will show up, or even 200 to give a more realistic number, they might be influenced to put a fairly sizeable deposit down on renting a venue and lining up sound. And then when the majority of the bandwagon pie-in-the-skyers flake as they invariably do and only a handful show up, the ones putting up the money lose their shirts.
I'd have thought you would have a good grasp of that.
You have a very good point. I think it's solveable, however. Like so:
1. we decide on the city, and start planning
2. we take expressions of interest from BLers to get an initial idea of numbers
3. we sound out a few possible venues, and make tentative bookings
4. about 3 months before D-Day, we have a cut off. Everyone who has definitely confirmed by then is in, and we make arrangements for the party based on that number of people. I think this works, because most os would be travelling internationally, or at least long distance. So if someone hasn't got their airfares booked by then, they probably haven't got it together to come. We base the estimates for the number attending on the number of people who have booked travel. Some of 'em might flake, and we might get a few more coming, but it should work out roughly OK.
I mean, c'mon people! This could be huge! Not just
a meetup, but
the meetup. Of all fucking time! Plan to commit now, start saving $10/week, and you'll be fine. If we get to Feb 2009 and you realise you can't come, or you hate BL, or whatever, you've still got $1500 saved to spend on a sound system, or coke, or travel somewhere else. You can't lose!
