PSA - No Shows at Offlines

Event Planner - Online or Offline
21

He goes to my church - should I get him on here?

22

Yes, and send him after all those no shows last Friday [pillow-fight.gif]

23

YOU go to church?

[snort.gif]

24

Driving up and dropping people off and then picking them up later obviously counts. neener

25

We had 3 no-shows at our offline in PDX last night. Fortunately, it didn’t drive costs up substantially for those who came as we said we would. I think this is the first time we’ve had that many fail to show up for an offline.

26

Out them.

In order to prevent no-shows, I’d suggest PM’ing the folks that signed up (at least 1 week prior) to remind them about the O/L. Sadly, this is a problem with events on all bulletin boards. [wink.gif]

27

“Larry Parker got me 2.1 million dollars.”

28

As one of the “no shows” for the PDX offline, I can say that coordination of confirmations and level of commitment is something I assumed would be SOP. I apologize for my part in the communication break down. I hope to meet the folks from PDX at a get together soon to see what I missed!
Ed

29

I’d go further. Get peoples’ email addresses and use evite, Pingg or similar to manage the invites. I’ve not kept up with Evite (I use Pingg) but most of these will let you see at a glance the status of invites (who’s replied, who’s not, etc) and will automate the sending of reminders. The board is a great way to get interest etc, but once you have a list an invite service will be much better.

Ed - once someone’s accepted, I always assume it’s THIER responsibility to note it on their calendar and come. The invite service I use does an automated reminder, but I don’t chase people. If you’ve said “Yes” it’s up to you to manage your calendar.

30

What is SOP?

31

I’d assume he means Standard Operating Procedure.

Beyond financial issues, no-shows (without appropriate warning) can hurt a tasting/offline in other ways. I organized a vertical of Gruaud-L a few years ago, we had covered every major (and many middling) vintages from '66-2001. As I was leaving office # 5 PM to get on the train a participant emailed me to say “oh, I’m actually out of state, can’t make it.” He was supposed to be bringing the 1985, which several of us owned, but no one could retrieve on such notice.

32

Oh, SOP.

Ed,
I was a partial host for this last OL. I have put together many OL through different boards, along with Steven. Saying that, I have never reconfirmed with anyone if they were coming or not. It never has been an issue or implied resonsibility. If someone says they are coming, I wouldn’t assume otherwise. Obviously in this case, it just lowered the attendance. Though if there would have been a waiting list, I probably would have different thoughts. I don’t think that Shane or I had any lapse in communication. In the future, if you change your mind or don’t want to go you just have to post it. There aren’t ever hard feelings, I have even had to cancel before after putting one together.

33

Travis, I understand your point and I’m in general agreement. My failure to communicate effectively in my post #99 and my belief that there was a waiting list (post #100 & others) resulted in my volunteering to be a “no-show” to make room for someone else. My post was not interpreted by the group as I intended. Thinking I had communicated my change, I never gave “de-listing” or the off-line another thought. Due to the drawbacks of e-communications and the failings of folks like me, I find that confirmations of some type work best. That was my motivation for the comment.
I hope to make it another time.
Regards, Ed
Angel Vine

34

I work it a little differently. Since the restaurant has given me the privilege of BYOB when it isn’t legal here in most cases, I try harder to match my reservation. There is no problem when I reserve for 12 and four drop out WITH NOTIFICATION, I just adjust the number attending BEFORE THE EVENT. I do feel badly if the table is set for eight and only five show up though. SO! I keep in touch with those attending more frequently though the boards and by e-mail in some cases.