AC 2011 - Aussie Furs first time

Greetings, Akemi!

While it is an excellent idea to choose a period allowing you time to see Pittsburgh and surroundings - you have chosen good dates - I hope that you have not already made room reservations?

When a large organised event such as a convention meets in a city, it is often the practice for the host organisation to make special arrangements for room rates, which are usually discounted somewhat from the normal regular rates which the hotels would normally charge. This is good for the convention attendees, because they save a little money. It's good for the hotels, because then they are assured a certain level of committed occupancy (makes planning labor and services easier for them). And it's especially good for the host organisation - in this case, AnthroCon - because if they can fill those blocks of rooms at that rate, they get a good discount on what they have to pay in turn for use of the event space and banquette services.

...On the other hand - if the event should fail to fill the room blocks to a certain minimum cutoff level, then the event space discounts disappear - and the event itself might not be able to be held...so it is vital that people coming to AnthroCon attend the convention hotels and fill the room blocks at the convention discounted rate.

As it stands, the rates and room blocks for the upcoming convention have not been announced yet - but when they are (watch this webpage!), they will be posted along with a date when the hotels will accept our reservations at the group rate, and then you can make your hotel room reservations!

When will the group rate become available? Again - watch this website for details, but I think that it shall be sometime in late January or early February of 2011. It will first be emblazoned across the top of this page (well - below the page title and header, anyway), and then after will be accessable by going over to the sidebar on the left of this screen, and clicking on "Hotels" under the category of "Information".

I do not believe that you will be able to convert your existing reservation into part of our group, so I would suggest cancelling your current reservations for now, and wait to make a new reservation when the group rate becomes available.

This only applies to the hotel situation; if you have already made travel (flight) arrangements, then that is fine, as AnthroCon has no influence nor is in any way dependent on that, you may arrange for that at any time and in any manner that you wish - only avoid "package vacation" deals, which bundle air fares with room rates, as I don't believe that they take into account our group rate or room block occupancy needs.

Good Luck!