Oh to have foresight….
In any case, I just want to reassure anyone who is interested that yes, we’re still working on it. In fact, we’ve been working on it since January! Can I just tell you that it is not nearly as easy as it might seem? I’ve mentioned before that I’d worked on a fan convention for DD, and I have to say, aside from a few minor bumps, that convention fell together fairly easily. I don’t remember major issues with booking a hotel, coming up with a deposit, or much of anything. I suppose my memory could just be overly kind, but I really don’t remember pulling my hair out much. We were all concerned about the event going over well, but that goes along with the territory, right? Well, live and learn.
This time, I just thought we’d call some hotels, get some rates, sign a contract and be done. At first, that’s exactly what it felt like, too! The trouble started when we realized that we weren’t getting a lot of hotels to call us back or contact us. Those that did contact us and seemed like they had reasonable prices wanted nothing short of Amanda’s signature, in blood, along with promises of her first born and next of kin would be owed to the hotel. I don’t mind sharing that most hotels no longer offer reasonable cancellation policies. Once you sign on the dotted line (in the aforementioned blood), you are on the hook for 80-90% of the total anticipated revenue. Yes my friends, that means sleeping rooms as well as the agreed food/beverage minimum. I can do the math for you, but we’re talking about many MANY Duran Duran tours worth of savings should the convention fall-apart along the way. Not just a couple thousand dollars, but tens of thousands. That’s not just a small risk, it’s suicidal for a couple of bloggers! We’ve been asked to provide insurance policies of at least a million dollars in the event of an accident…and some other very crazy, yet necessary assurances. I keep reminding myself that we’re not a company, just a couple of fans who are trying to have a really big party!
So we’ve been working very diligently since January 2nd to find a place, and our team of convention planners have been doing such an amazing job trying to find a place. It isn’t just Amanda and I working on this – we have six other people in on this deal with us, and we don’t know what we’d do without every single one of them. There have been many hours of blood, sweat tears going into this, and we’ve barely just begun. We are so determined to make this work and yet there have been times when Amanda and I have had to give ourselves pep talks, and read pep talks from the rest of the team, to keep going. Where there is a will, there is a way.
That brings us to today, where we finally are at a point that we’ve been at before but not with nearly as much certainty – where I think we might actually have a hotel and all of the details (such as cost, city, place and date!) to share early next week. I can’t give you that information today purely because there are a few different dates we’ve looked at, depending on the hotel and I don’t want to say one thing here and end up needing to do another next week. I can promise you that this will be a great time that no one should miss. The other thing I can tell you is that the band had better not decide to tour or do dates in the US during Autumn, or else!
I’m looking at all of you: Nick, Simon, John, Roger & Dom. I didn’t think I’d ever say this – but don’t you DARE think of doing a show during Autumn!
With that in mind, I have some numbers to crunch. We want to give everyone the best bang for their buck and pick the nicest hotel that we think most people can still afford. Conventions are not cheap, and we are trying to do right by everyone. This is going to be a weekend of fun, laughter and even a little pampering. It will likely be one of the only, if not the only weekend that we can all get together for a Duran event for the next year since the band isn’t touring – and we want to do it up right.
-R
First off, all of my support for the organization and the setting up of the Fan Convention: it’s a huge project: my advice would be to advance by “baby steps”, I mean every day you should try to achieve to realize small things, possibly. Never give up if any of the things you got in mind to do gets wrong: I don’t wish it could happen ever, but try to stay cool and to think positively.
I thought about the behind-the-scene of similar huge events like the Oscars, the Music Awards, the Grammies…: yes, the organizers can count on teams of people, but I admire the both of your determination, bravery, passion.