dpf:snowmass:vtech

Proposal with separate Budget and Cover Letter
Organizing Committee: Lay Nam Chang, Shunsaku Horiuchi, Patrick Huber (chair), Jonathan Link, Camillo Mariani, Djordje Minic, Thomas O'Donnell, Mark Pitt, Ian Shoemaker, Tatsu Takeuchi, Bruce Vogelaar
Venue: VTech Campus in Blacksburg
Housing Options:
Lunch and restaurant options:
Cost: $505,000 or about $500/person
Additional apples-to-apples questions
- Coffee break prices for 1000 people for 10 days: $300,000.
- Banquet and reception cost per person, assuming 500 people. How would that number change if we went up or down by 250 people?
  - For the reception/dinner, what is priced is one of the two options with 250 participants
  - The dinner is $60 per person and that would not change between 250 and 500 participants.

add bullet points with confusions and draft questions. We will collate and ask the organizers

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Probably inexpensive
Facilities are pretty good– I have been there for a couple of 100-200 person meetings, and I think it would probably scale reasonably (KS).
Car probably not needed.

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Somewhat isolated, and the climate is not very friendly during the summer.
There are only 2-3 flights/day from each major hub to Roanoke. Over 1000 people coming in might be problematic. No alternative airports nearby.
No mention of available childcare
airport is 45 min away. It mentions 4 other airports, each 3-4 hours away.

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Mike K:
- Pros: Good facilities, on campus, with dorms nearby. Milder temperatures and drier than most of our sweltering state in July. The organizers did a nice job with the recent Neutrino.
- Cons: Blacksburg is pretty isolated. The airport is indeed Roanoke and there are not many flights. The next closest “big” airports are Charlotte, Richmond and Raleigh, all multi-hour drives. You might even end up wanting to get a car at Roanoke rather than dealing with a shuttle (depends on how long you are staying and where). Not many hotel choices. A rather small town with not so many restaurant choices.
(Bob B) Roanoke-Blacksburg Regional is 41 min by car (Google maps): https://www.flyroa.com but this is a small regional airport. Nearest big airports are several hours away as you said. Does this work for ~1K people coming/leaving in waves? 6 gates for Roanoke means people will be driving to a big airport or waiting forever since flights will be full. I talked to some people who have experience and they said everyone will be going to one of the big airports, which requires car rental. And people don't all come and go at the same time, so there will be problems from beginning/end pulses, and then if you need to leave/come back that will be complicated. Their committee, who has experience getting in/out, should comment. They must have worked this out.