Quote: SkyeFire wrote:--
>I got into town w/o incident, parked in the Convention Center ($10 for 12hrs), and went roaming. The functions are rather scattered -- all the anime and
a lot of >the films are over at the Sheraton, 6 blocks away. And of course it rained all day. Well, I experimented with the local mass transit -- not bad,
not great.
Pricing in Downtown Denver is just plain goddamned fucking expensive, especially during the working day. This is in part because what little parking there
is, they have firmly ensconced in buildings, or with meters that you have to move after two hours, or other such nonsense. And I hope to never work in
downtown again.
As for putting things in the Sheraton several blocks away, that struck me as being very poorly planned, but it looks like the Hyatt next door is rather
booked too, they might've run across that during the stage of booking the whole thing. And I have the sneaking suspicion that the convention center is
specifically contracted that you *don't* set up something like the con suite so that you're forced to buy the exceedingly overpriced food there. I
mean, my gods, I haven't seen food pricing that bad at a convention in a long time.
>What I had no way of knowing was that, when I got back to the Center just before 10PM, the ENTIRE PLACE was locked up tight as a drum. Say what? My
>*car's* in there. I still have to drive out to my hotel and get checked in -- my *luggage* is in the *car.* And I can't get to it. There's no
signs, no staff presence, >nothing. And I didn't see or hear anything during the afternoon to suggest that people should expect the Center to turn
into Fort Knox at... I dunno, 9PM? 8PM?
>And I'm not the only one -- there were at least a couple dozen congoers wandering around the outside of the Center (in the rain, many without
umbrellas), after >dark, unable to get in. Several of whom I suspect were foreigners with poor-to-nonexistent English skills, judging from some
conversations I overheard.
>I eventually found a security entrance and talked them into letting me in. Whereupon I found myself the only living soul (as far as I could tell) inside
a huge >Convention Center with most of the lights turned off, and all of the elevators and escalators shut down.
My parents had that issue, but more because at 6ish, they closed the elevators closest to where the con is. We were still inside. It'd have been nice to
have had *warning* they were going to do so, my mom has foot and knee and back issues that make climbing that many stairs, even to just the first garage
level, an experiment in sadism.
>My car is parked 5 floors up.
>Yep, that mile-high atmosphere really hurts when you're trying to climb five floors of stairs. I actually had a near fainting spell (again, all alone
in a completely >abandoned Convention Center).
Oh, what fun.
>What cheezes me off about the whole thing is that there was no warning, and no help. If someone had *told* me that the building was locking up at xPM, I
>would have made sure to clear my car out before that. And like I said, I wasn't the only one who didn't get the memo -- why wasn't there any
staff presence, or >at least some SIGNS, to clue in the people wandering lost around the Center in the dark? I mean, COME ON! You've got people in a
strange city, late at night, >locked out of the one building they know much of anything about, their stuff locked *in* the building, and no idea of who to
call or what to do? At least put up >some signs. Put some BIG BOLD WARNINGS in the convention schedule and guide. SOMETHING. Right now, as far as I can
tell, we were just expected to >*know* this somehow and plan around it. *I* had no idea, and I've been doing cons for business and pleasure for quite
a few years now.
Well, to be blunt, this is the first time I've heard of them (Colorado Convention Center) hosting a convention of this nature, where the participants
expect to be able to be around well into the evening hours. They should have at least have pointed out, I believe there is an exterior accessible elevator
between the entrance and the light rail stop out front that can get one into the garage, yet doesn't have an access to the convention spaces. I used it
to get out after seeing my parents off.
>Gah. I'm ranting. I'm exhausted, hungry, and my nerves are *shot.* I won't even go into the way the functions are spread all over, or how the
Sheraton's internal >layout is downright Escherian....
I do not blame you. And I had to get help from one of the people who works at the Sheraton so I could even *find* the con suite. That, and the distance
required, means I'm just gonna say 'sod this' and buy some stuff to pack in my bag for the next few days to munch on for lunches.
"You know how parents tell you everything's going to fine, but you know they're lying to make you feel better? Everything's going to be fine." - The Doctor