Last weekend, we had our first all-staff meeting in the Convention Centre Dublin, which was the culmination of considerable amounts of work, and it went very well.
One of those pieces of work has been the ongoing negotiations with our facilities, including hotels, and it became clear that despite great efforts, our hotels are more expensive than we would like and the booking arrangements are less than we had hoped for.
We have considerable discounts off current Dublin rates, but like one’s airline ticket, one has to pay up early to get the best price. Rates generally also include taxes and a full Irish breakfast, but even so we would have liked to have done better.
This is not the news I want to give, and I am sorry. Yet we agreed that it is important that we are honest and upfront about the situation with all our members as soon as we realised how things stood. Hence, we are using all communication channels, as we hope that fans who are forewarned can plan and find solutions that suit them, and we will work to provide a range of offerings.
We will be publishing our price list in August, and opening general hotel bookings in January, and hope this will allow you to be informed, and make both provision and plan for booking of your accommodation.
We are continuing to work on other offerings, and are pleased with the student accommodation options we have so far, but recognise that the hotel situation in Dublin is not akin to other cities where Worldcon has been hosted.
The convention is not tied to any one hotel by contract. We will have a wide range of contracts, and therefore booking elsewhere yourself independently of the convention is not an issue for us at all.
Most of all, I am sorry we do not have better prices for you all, but we are really working hard on this and hope we can manage it as best we can with you.
We will share our prices in August, so people can plan accordingly. Below is the information we have, that will also be on our website on our hotels and accommodation page.
For those with room-related access needs, you’ll be able to make reservations in December 2018, before general booking opens. In addition, our Access team of Paul and Jen are available at access@dublin2019.com for any queries. For general hotel-related questions, please contact facilities@dublin2019.com.
My very best as ever,
James Bacon
