Carpooler’s Raffle
We all love the environment, right? Well, here’s one way that helps the environment, but also helps the convention!
It was important to me that attendees not have to pay to park downtown. Paying to park for an event is a pet peeve of mine. To that end, the convention is covering self-parking at the hotel garage. But that’s still a cost for the convention, and a somewhat unknown cost at that. So to help keep it in control, I’m running the Carpooler’s Raffle.
It will be a special door prize drawing, but the only way to get in will be by helping bring those parking costs down. So if you carpool, everyone in the car will be entered. If you walk, bike, rollerblade, skateboard, or pogo stick to the convention instead of driving and parking, you’ll be entered. If you take a Capital Metro bus, you’ll be entered. If you take a taxi, you’ll be entered. If you’d rather just pay for your own parking, you can be entered.
We’ll be doing one of these drawings each night, and to enter, either bring your carpooling party up to the front desk when you validate your parking, or come by and say that you don’t need a validation and you’ll get entered in.
Help the environment, help the convention, and help yourself! This is a co-op game where everyone wins!
Posted on July 15, 2012, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 8 Comments.
Excellent! I’m so glad you’re doing this. Parking in downtown Austin can be an expensive hassle, and I appreciate anything to make it easier. FWIW, I’m going to look at train schedules; I’ll let people know what I find. I’m mainly thinking about how late the trains run on Friday and Saturday. I think they stop at midnight, which would be a bit of a bummer, but I’ll confirm that.
Great idea! I forgot all about the light rail system. I think the main rooms also have some nice, large white boards in them. If so, maybe I can use those to facilitate rides for folks.
But I’d like to reiterate that if you can’t or just don’t want to carpool, that it’s all good. The reason the con is paying for parking is because downtown is such a pain and you shouldn’t have to pay to park to attend a convention.
I just checked the schedules. The train will help, but won’t be perfect. The last train from downtown on Friday night leaves at 12:25 am. The first one on Saturday gets downtown about 8:00 AM. The last one Saturday leaves at 12:03 am. There is no rail service on Sunday.
So, if you’re not planning on being an overnight gamer, it might work. Otherwise, carpooling is the way to go!
Update to my post on rail times: on Saturday, the first rail doesn’t arrive downtown until 4:30 pm. There are buses that leave bright and early Saturday morning, depending on which part of the area you live in.
According to the hotel web site, there is no self parking, only valet. I hope that site is wrong, but…
That is definitely inaccurate. I’ve self parked myself there before, and have discussed parking extensively with our sales guy. I don’t know if it’s something they just don’t like to advertise or what, but it’s definitely an option.
My experience was that overnight guests were forced to use Valet parking (I did not appreciate not having direct access to my vehicle) but that daytime attendees could use the personal parking.
That should not have been the case. All attendees should have gotten the convention-paid parking. I’m glad you gave me this feedback, because I’m discussing the situation with the hotel. Which night were you told this? Feel free to e-mail me at info@boardgamebash.com with details. If you got boned for parking, let me know. I may be able to get you a refund.