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OverClocked ReTreat


Geoffrey Taucer
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So after this past MAGFest, I was left feeling like we need a different focal point for an annual community meeting. A chance for people of the OCR tribe to get together and hang/game/rock the fuck out, without being hampered by an inability to get hotel rooms at the Gaylord. The overall impression I got from talking to other people is that I would not be the only one interested in such a thing.

SO

If, hypothetically, I were to rent a bigass mansion (say, something like this) for a weekend in the summer (say, July 6-8), and distribute the cost among participants, how many people would realistically be likely to sign up? The goal would be to keep the cost under $250/room for the weekend.

 

Keeping a list of people interested, just so I can keep count:
Taucer + S
Bahamut
Nabeel Ansari
Earth Kid
Dyne
zyko
Theory of N +1
Sixto
Shaggy
Hemo
Arrow
Gario
Prophetik
Phonetic Hero
Liontamer
Mazedude
JohnStacy
Garpocalypse
DA + OA
Flexstyle
DarkeSword
Rama



EDIT:
IF SOMEBODY ELSE CAN STEP IN AND TAKE LEAD, I THINK THIS WILL HAPPEN. IF NOT, IT WON'T. 
I don't have the time or organizational skills to run this, and I don't have the money to make the up front deposit. I can provide contact info for what looks like a great place to hold it, if somebody else wants to step in and take over.

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I'd be down - I anticipated that the MAGFest experience would be completely different with the hotel room issue, and was super frustrated by the hotel booking process/expense (it's bad that 6 nights in central London was cheaper than 3 nights at the Gaylord...), so I rage quit going essentially...plus getting a lot of pile on vitriol by MAGFest staffers when I tried to suggest options to improve the process based on basically every other event I participate/attempt to participate in that have the exact same issues but solve them in a reasonable fashion several months before the atrocious booking process was announced.

IMO such a meetup shouldn't be tethered to a con, and should probably rotate locations so as to give a better chance of others in the community to join in, as well as give fresh sights/stuff to do. I also recommend being flexible with dates since ideally we could pick dates that work best for the community/aren't as expensive to travel on.

I'd definitely be up for helping out covering some costs & would be willing to fly out to such an event.

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48 minutes ago, JohnStacy said:

Going to follow this to see what the cost situation will be.

Depending on interest, I'll research other possible locations to try to keep the price down. It would be a bit difficult, because I don't know how many people will share rooms and how many people will get their own rooms. Goal is to keep it under $100/night/person, but obviously that can't be guaranteed. Depending on numbers and location, it could be cheaper than that -- possibly a LOT cheaper (for example, I found one in Boone NC that -- if we filled every bedroom -- would be about $175/room for the entire weekend).

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Sounds similar to some west coast meet-ups that are organized by a few OCR/former-OCR peeps (most often Las Vegas, oddly enough) except those tend to be hotel meetups and not rent-a-mansions - those turn out to be really fun experiences regardless. I'll keep a tentative ear out on this; if it's a classic East coast meetup I'll probably decline, though. Unfortunately it's very hard to justify that travel cost / lost work time due to travel (same issue as I have every year, when it comes to east coast meetups and conventions).

I'll keep my ear out on this anyway, though - who knows, maybe it'll work out alright after all. On a tangentially related note, Vegas has some good hotel deals at about that time, and MAGWest had plenty of opportunities for more personal experiences (like open jamspaces and such) when I went a few months ago, if anyone is interested in that too...

I may or may not be trying to swing this so that I'd certainly be able to attend, though, so make of my stealth suggestions as you will. :)

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2 hours ago, Geoffrey Taucer said:

So after this past MAGFest, I was left feeling like we need a different focal point for an annual community meeting. A chance for people of the OCR tribe to get together and hang/game/rock the fuck out, without being hampered by an inability to get hotel rooms at the Gaylord. The overall impression I got from talking to other people is that I would not be the only one interested in such a thing.

SO

If, hypothetically, I were to rent a bigass mansion (say, something like this) for a weekend in the summer (say, July 6-8), and distribute the cost among participants (ie, the more people sign up to come, the less it would cost per person, but if we had enough to fill up all 37 rooms it would be something like $264/room for the weekend not counting travel, food, etc) how many people would realistically be likely to sign up?

 

 

Jill and I are potentially interested, but it depends on the final dates because.. uh.. you know why.

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3 hours ago, Geoffrey Taucer said:

THIS IS STILL HYPOTHETICAL, but if there is enough interest then I'll see about reserving a place. I'M TERRIBLE AT ORGANIZING THINGS SO IF ANYBODY ELSE WANTS TO TAKE THIS WHOLE THING OVER LET ME KNOW AND IT'S ALL YOURS


If you're terrible at organizing things, why are you doing it in the first place? Get-togethers like this are challenging even for very good organizers.

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On 1/9/2018 at 2:58 PM, Nabeel Ansari said:

No, they're not.

sounds like you offered to organize! enjoy having a 4k security deposit on your credit card for six months =D

i'd be possibly interested (low chance of it working out). it depends heavily on cost and location. i haven't seen everyone since before my kids were born so it'd be real nice to catch up in person.

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Ok, sent messages to several places requesting details; I won't know for sure until I hear back, but it seems likely that we'll be able to keep the price under $270/person for the weekend (not counting food)

EDIT: I found a 10-bedroom farm in Fayetteville, TX that's uber-cheap; if we manage to fill all 10 rooms, it would come to about $50/room/night. My guess is that's about the best deal we'd be likely to get.

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