Sasquan, the 2015 Worldcon, started taking hotel bookings today and a friend of mine trying to get into the Doubletree, closest to the convention center, found it is already unavailable. Anecdotal evidence is that the Doubletree filled almost immediately.
Update 09/16/2014: See Kevin Standlee’s comment. It is possible to reserve the Doubletree August 20-22. He suggests doing so, then requesting the Housing Bureau to add the earlier and later nights you want. I have gotten as far as successfully reserving the middle nights online.
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Actually, what I think seems to have happened was that there were not enough “shoulder nights” in the room block (which seems to happen a lot) so that people trying to book rooms that included the nights before and after the con were told “no room at the inn.” But if you try (as of this afternoon) to book only the center three nights (Aug 20-22), there’s availability showing, which is a sure sign of the hotel not having yet released enough “shoulder” nights to the convention. Again as of this afternoon, the convention is recommending that people book the nights that they can and write to the housing bureau (link to be found on the Sasquan Hotels page) so that they can extend your reservation once the shoulders broaden.
This isn’t the first Worldcon I’ve seen where the housing bureau has under-estimated the demand for people to come early and stay late, and it probably won’t be the last, particularly inasmuch as attrition for unsold nights becomes more and more a risk to convention committees.
(Not speaking for Sasquan. My knowledge is limited to public statements and instructions posted both privately to the convention staff list and to public forums, and therefore isn’t “inside information” in any meaningful sense.)
Thanks Kevin. I gave it a try just now and was able to reserve a room in the Doubletree for the Aug. 20-22 nights. Hopefully it will work out in the end.
While this may work, it is really annoying to have to do on many levels.
1) You are gambling you can get those shoulder nights at the same hotel, rather than booking your entire stay at another hotel which may fill up by the time you find out the first cannot accommodate you.
2) It is a multi-step, non-automated process when it should be a one-step, automated process.
3) You may not hear through the grapevine that you should be doing this weird thing anyway.
Evelyn: It has been known to happen that a fan would have a reservation in more than one Worldcon hotel, and cancel or transfer the one(s) he doesn’t need.
“Through the grapevine?” It says right on the Sasquan Hotels web page to do this.
Trust me, Sasquan isn’t doing this to be annoying. They’re doing the best that cann to deal with a hotel that is unaccountably reluctant to release hotel rooms. It’s not even as though there’s an event before or after Worldcon that’s eating up rooms. Nobody on the Sasquan committee with whom I’ve discussed this can come up with a logical reason for the hotel’s behavior. The committee is doing the best they can to deal with it, and so far it seems to have worked for everyone.
Also, if by some chance all of the existing rooms in all of the blocked hotels were to fill up (which seems unlikely), there are several other hotels (including three that are clearly closer to the convention center — Google Is Your Friend) that would be available for expansion of room blocks. But with Attrition looming like a financial Sword of Damocles over all modern North American Worldcons, Sasquan isn’t in a position to say, “Just block every room in Spokane; there’s no risk to us.”
I found the rates were cheaper using the AAA rate on the hotel websites, rather than using the Sasquan housing block. For example, $134 single with AAA instead of $141 as per the Sasquan rate at the Davenport. Plus I was able to directly book the shoulder dates and a suite that way.