So I'm the President of an Anime Club...

[kagenoshibou]

I'd like to know if there's anything I should really be looking out for since i'm trying to get roughly 20 people to fanime and into hotel rooms.
We have 500 dollars in our funds, and i've been hearing here and there that old prices were around 200 at the hilton for the weekend (this sounds underpriced). Anyways, my group is fundraising and if anyone can tell me if there are better places maybe than the hilton, or maybe hotels that give discounts for large groups for the weekend. Basically can you tell me anything of importance about moving a large group of people?

[LightandDarkSoul]

I'd like to know if there's anything I should really be looking out for since i'm trying to get roughly 20 people to fanime and into hotel rooms.
We have 500 dollars in our funds, and i've been hearing here and there that old prices were around 200 at the hilton for the weekend (this sounds underpriced). Anyways, my group is fundraising and if anyone can tell me if there are better places maybe than the hilton, or maybe hotels that give discounts for large groups for the weekend. Basically can you tell me anything of importance about moving a large group of people?

You're an Anime Club president? So am I~! Am I to assume that this is your first time taking a group to Fanime?
Anyway, If you're going to take 20 people to Fanime, you need at least 5 rooms or 2-3 suites. But you have to wait until the hotel info is posted on the main site to get definite prices. That won't be for a while.
My anime club is large but only 8 people have the "clear" to go. We're still working on getting funds for hotel rooms. I estimated  $1500 for the whole weekend for two rooms in the marriott. The hilton I'm not sure of. I tried and got $2300 o_o

[Nyxyin]

In previous years, I think I remember the cheapest rooms being around $100-ish/night/room since there were taxes and stuff on top of the advertised rates.

[Hakaru_chan]

hello! i seem to know how you're feeling about planning all this stuff. stressful no? i was president of my jpc (japanese pop culture) club in 2007 as a senior and even when i graduated, i still come and help plan out these kind of things with the presidents after me and the members as well. (since they don't have a credit card and i can tell you why having a credit card helps in a bit)

first and foremost, for that many people coming, i suggest that you get them organized by having to sign papers out. i write out permission slips even if its not a school based function just so that their parents know whats going on and whats going to happen. in the end, you don't want to have an upset parent getting mad at you for the money or accidents that can happen over there.

just like what Nyxyin said, the cheapest rooms were about 100 to 110 a night with taxes and things included. that was the hotel across the street from the convention and for the rooms and price they were a good deal for us. i dunno if it will be the same prices again for that hotel. another problem is that, because you're taking a large amount of people, a hotel not connected to the convention could be a problem. it was somewhat of a problem for me because some of my club members had to walk on the streets and if you're taking minors well yea... more issues with that come along.

like what LightandDarkSoul said. it would be a good bargain to get suites in any of the hotels as well. if you divide the cost of the suites by the number of people in that room, your saving money and space. again you have wait till the info for those come up and also you might be in competition for those because alot of people get the suites to save money. i know i will with my group ( i roughly have about 40 people going lol.) ohh and this is where the credit card comes in. in order to get these rooms you must use a credit card or HAVE one in a sense. booking rooms with credit cards is the only way you can reserve them.

I'd like to know if there's anything I should really be looking out for since i'm trying to get roughly 20 people to fanime and into hotel rooms.
We have 500 dollars in our funds, and i've been hearing here and there that old prices were around 200 at the hilton for the weekend (this sounds underpriced). Anyways, my group is fundraising and if anyone can tell me if there are better places maybe than the hilton, or maybe hotels that give discounts for large groups for the weekend. Basically can you tell me anything of importance about moving a large group of people?

You're an Anime Club president? So am I~! Am I to assume that this is your first time taking a group to Fanime?
Anyway, If you're going to take 20 people to Fanime, you need at least 5 rooms or 2-3 suites. But you have to wait until the hotel info is posted on the main site to get definite prices. That won't be for a while.
My anime club is large but only 8 people have the "clear" to go. We're still working on getting funds for hotel rooms. I estimated  $1500 for the whole weekend for two rooms in the marriott. The hilton I'm not sure of. I tried and got $2300 o_o

umm im not sure how your getting your numbers there... can you break it down to me? i roughly estimate that much as well since this is a group of 20 (more or less) people going but again, its up to how you want to break down the number of people in rooms.

ohh and for transportation, i would recommend to you what i do with my group. my group and i rents a charterbus out to pick us up, take our luggage, drop us off and pick us up again. we divide the costs of the charter bus by the number of people (seats) so transportation for each of my members is roughly 20 bucks each. we save money, gas, its safe for a large amount of people and its convient as well.  ;D

i hope this helps, if you have any other questions about all this planning let me know!

[LightandDarkSoul]

How I got those large numbers is from the hotel prices currently and did the math. Price x Number of Nights spent x 2 rooms That's why they are huge. But like I said,  we have to wait for official info on hotel prices from the Fanime main site.

My group doesn't really have to worry about travel payments. Few of the Officer's parents, including my dad, decided to give a lift to San Jose on the condition that we'll pay for the gas: about $20 per car used  (we used only 2 cars holding up to 4 each; only 8 out of 10 people went[my club is small]) And we didn't need to pay for the ride back. Don't forget to say, "Thanks for the ride!" We live in San Leandro so it's only a half hour ride or so. I guess my club is lucky to be so close. It would be better if we we're closer. :P

[FanFicGuru]

Well, depending on your school, if you try to access money from the student body to help pay for the trip, when you tell them that overnight stays are involved and that it's a club function they'll typically go "Uhhh, no." This is because of the liability that's involved if you attend a convention as a college "Club", thus being representatives and virtually extensions of your school.

Getting the school to pay for your badges, however, is usually way easier. If you break it down by person, if you put 4 people to a room that would be 5 rooms. Each of those 4 people would be paying about 75-100 dollars. If the school offsets the badge price, which is about $50, then the members can put that towards their own hotel rooms. Then you'll only need to raise about 25-50$ per person, or about 500-1000 dollars total between now and May. Or just ask your members to supply it.

I would check with your college though, sometimes they aren't as cautious about the whole hotel room thing. Some schools have waivers and other processes to go through.

Oh, and if you are in a high school club then chances are the student body definitely WOULD NOT pay for your hotel, unless you had faculty/staff supervision. Think about it: would a high school really pay for a bunch of (possibly) co-ed teenagers to stay in a hotel? lol

[Hakaru_chan]

How I got those large numbers is from the hotel prices currently and did the math. Price x Number of Nights spent x 2 rooms That's why they are huge. But like I said,  we have to wait for official info on hotel prices from the Fanime main site.

My group doesn't really have to worry about travel payments. Few of the Officer's parents, including my dad, decided to give a lift to San Jose on the condition that we'll pay for the gas: about $20 per car used  (we used only 2 cars holding up to 4 each; only 8 out of 10 people went[my club is small]) And we didn't need to pay for the ride back. Don't forget to say, "Thanks for the ride!" We live in San Leandro so it's only a half hour ride or so. I guess my club is lucky to be so close. It would be better if we we're closer. :P

hmm i c. you guys are lucky. we live far away. (i consider a good hour a long wayz away)

Well, depending on your school, if you try to access money from the student body to help pay for the trip, when you tell them that overnight stays are involved and that it's a club function they'll typically go "Uhhh, no." This is because of the liability that's involved if you attend a convention as a college "Club", thus being representatives and virtually extensions of your school.

Getting the school to pay for your badges, however, is usually way easier. If you break it down by person, if you put 4 people to a room that would be 5 rooms. Each of those 4 people would be paying about 75-100 dollars. If the school offsets the badge price, which is about $50, then the members can put that towards their own hotel rooms. Then you'll only need to raise about 25-50$ per person, or about 500-1000 dollars total between now and May. Or just ask your members to supply it.

I would check with your college though, sometimes they aren't as cautious about the whole hotel room thing. Some schools have waivers and other processes to go through.

Oh, and if you are in a high school club then chances are the student body definitely WOULD NOT pay for your hotel, unless you had faculty/staff supervision. Think about it: would a high school really pay for a bunch of (possibly) co-ed teenagers to stay in a hotel? lol

yea in my case, they wouldn't give any of our club money that we fundraised because its not a school function per say.

[Yunri-Chan]

Hii kagenoshibou, I'm currently a junior & the pres of my school's Anime Club too. :3 I've been running Fanime for my school for three years now (but only two as pres), and I always have 20-30 + flocking to the con, and even with meticulous planning, it can be pretty chaotic.

It's CRITICAL to begin planning early -- Fanime is a tradition for us, and we always mention it every so often to make sure everything is on track and running smoothly. Make sure to have good communication with everyone who's going -- constantly remind them to check their emails. At our first or second meeting, I got a list of the people who were definitely & interested in attending. From then on, I keep stressing for people to pre-reg while the prices are still low and all that. It's also good to send out a permission slip or something like that to make sure that parents know what's going on early on so that you don't seem irresponsible as the con nears. Depending on how many older students you have, you may also need some parents for rides and all that! And sometimes entire families end up coming to the con.

Make sure you have deadlines for people to tell you whether they're going, whether they need a room, ride etc, so that you don't end up getting five extra people a few days before the con.

I'm getting super off-topic though... back to hotels!

I basically do all the hotel arrangements & payment beforehand, and have everyone pay me back after the con. It can get complicated if you're in charge of tons of people, so if you don't like having that kind of responsibility, then you can divide the students into their own room "teams", then have them fend for themselves in booking rooms and all that... but I don't know, that seems kind of iffy. I'm one of those freaks who slave away to make sure everything functions well though, so I do it myself. 8] Most of our treasury $ goes to hotels, and if there somehow isn't enough, then we would have people pay for the extra themselves, or through fundraising. Therefore, if you want people to pay for the rooms, have them pay in full after you you subtract the fundraised/treasury $, or have them pay in full, then pay them with the fundraised $. If that makes sense at all. (I personally have people pay me back after the con, because sometimes room arrangements (and therefore prices) change. I can be a total control freak about that, so people don't get away with not paying. >:3;; )

I start planning the room stuff basically once the rates are out, and literally devote a meeting just to discuss this. Some people may want cheaper rooms and others may want rooms in the Marriott/Hilton for convenience; we usually get rooms in different hotels to compromise.

And since we're cheap high school students, we try to squeeze people into rooms so that each of us pay less. After all, it really adds up especially if you're staying for the majority of the con. :'D;;;; We generally do gender-segregated rooms (ie 2 girl rooms, 1 guy), but this year we actually had an equal number of guys & gals, so we had one co-ed with the older students/alumni.

If you want to be super responsible (or are masochistic like me), get the official list of all of the people staying in the rooms you booked, organize them into their rooms, and calculate how much it'd cost for them. (ie Sam is staying for two nights in a room of four that costs $105 total -- cost=$52.50; Casey is staying for three nights in a room of four that costs $119 total -- cost=$89.25).
I keep a copy for myself, then hand out little slips to everyone like a week before the con, when the fundraised money and all that has been factored in. Having that kind of list makes keeping track of compensation a lot easier since the prices vary between different people.

I think I booked for around twenty people for Fanime 08, and it was more or less around $700? The max that each person paid was around $35 if I remember correctly. We were lucky and got a Marriott suite (two queens) in May; they were around $110, $120 max I think. We also had two rooms in the Crowne Plaza which were around $109. I actually ended up staying in a Fairmont suite (long story); they have enormous rooms, even if you get the non-suite ones, but they're kind of far from the convention center.

G'luck! :] I hope this helps you!

Sorry for making such a LONG post! :<

edit: lol I read your post FanficGuru; thanks for telling me! I've crossed off/edited my post too slightly~ :]]

[FanFicGuru]

Yunri, first let me say that I admire your ability to orchestrate that sort of activity with so many high school students and alumni. However, just to clarify for our friend here, putting more than 4 people in a regular room or 6 people to a suite is a no-no. Sure, lots of people break the rule every year, but it really isn't a good idea to squeeze people into the normal rooms. If you just let everyone know to save ~120 for the hotel room for 3 nights, you can easily put 4 people to a room with those funds.

If the Hotel staff find out that you have too many people in your room, they can cancel your room, and usually they charge you all the nights you've stayed plus the current night, and the deposit money and any additional nights you paid for wouldn't be refunded until after the convention, so it can be a real con-devastator.

Best of luck!