Magenta Griffith’s excellent instructions on how to get to the hotel are available on the website; folks may also comment with more info on that post or here on livejournal.

The Lay of the Land

Registration will probably be at a table in the hallway outside of the Courtyard rooms on the first floor. Programming will take place on the first floor in Courtyard rooms 1-4 (which will be merged into one big room); the dealers’ room will be in Courtyard rooms 5 & 6 also on the first floor. The consuite will be in two adjoining suites on the second floor (rooms 226 & 227) which are above the Courtyard rooms; the smoking consuite will be in a room elsewhere on the second floor, and the brunch will be held in the Terrace Room on the second floor.

Confused yet? Have a look at a map of the first floor and a map of the second floor.

Registration

Registration will probably be located on the first floor at a table in the space outside of the Courtyard rooms (where programming & dealers’ room are); if it’s not there, there should be a sign telling you where it is.

Beth Friedman, our head of registration says:

Registration will open around 2 pm on Friday and 9 am on Saturday. Length of hours will depend on amount of business — I reserve the right to close up shop and leave a sign that says “to register, find me in programming or grab me after the panel is over” if things are slow.

Yes, we’re aware that the consuite and dealers’ room are opening at Noon on Friday so will be open before registration is open. Dealers can pick up their badges from Daniel “Stitch” Mohr in the Dealers’ Room. Folks will be able to pick up their badges on Thursday night at the work party/playreading, though we can’t guarantee all the other registration materials will be available then.

If you don’t have a badge or haven’t yet purchased a membership and show up on Friday before Beth gets there to open registration, you’re welcome to check out the Dealers’ Room (once it’s open) or help the folks in the consuite with setting things up (anytime after 10am or so).

Programming

The programming schedule is online and now includes program item descriptions.

Most programming will take place in Courtyard rooms 1-4. The Brunch will be in the Terrace room on the second floor.

• Friday: 3pm ’til 10pm or later with a dinner break from 6pm ’til 7:30pm.
• Saturday: 10am ’til 8:30pm with a lunch break from 12:15pm ’til 1:30pm and a dinner break from 6pm ’til 7:30pm.
• Sunday: 10am ’til 5pm. The Brunch, which is included in your membership, will take place between 11am and 1pm in the Terrace Room.

Dealers’ Room

The Dealers’ Room will be located in Courtyard rooms 5 & 6 on the first floor next to the programming room.

Hours:

• Friday: 12:00pm - 6:00pm
• Saturday: 10:00am - 7:00pm
• Sunday: 10:00am - 6:00pm

A consignment service for book sales is available on a first come, first served basis– check out the Dealers’ Room page for more info.

A Fan’s Gotta Eat

A restaurant guide is now available on the website. Thanks to Kit Gordon for putting this together!

The Sunday Brunch is included in your membership and will run from 11am ’til 1pm on Sunday; the brunch will be located in the Terrace room on the second floor.

Stay Connected

We’ve contracted with the hotel to have wireless internet access for our members in the programming and dealers’ rooms (Courtyard rooms 1-6) from Friday morning ’til 9pm Sunday.

There’s free wireless internet access available at the hotel. Hotel wrangler Jenett says:

The hotel provides free wireless to everyone in the public spaces: the front lobby, a large atrium (including the pool area) outside where programming will be. I’ve gotten access in the hotel restaurant and bar, but I don’t know how far inside that space it goes. I’ve picked it up several times: it seems to be slightly slow, but quite functional. It does not include the consuite. (We figured people that desperate for ‘Net can walk out into the atrium area…)

Weather & Traffic

• Weather: MNWeatherCenter.org | National Weather Service | KARE | startribune.com | WCCO | weather.com | Weather Underground
• Traffic: MNDot Traffic Map | traffic.startribune.com | Road Construction News | MNDot List of Road Construction | MNDot | Metro Traffic Cams

Fourth Street Elsewhere Online

Members (and folks who wish they were at the con) will surely be posting about the convention in the Fourth Street Livejournal Community. Fourth Street also has an event page on Facebook. I (your humble webmaster Laurel Krahn) may tweet about the convention as @4thSt; if you have useful info or interesting observations you’d like me to post to our twitter account, just let me know. I may retweet some things other congoers are saying, as well. If you post pictures of the con or con-related activities to Flickr, please tag them “fourth street fantasy” so they’re easy for us to find.

We have a Wiki and encourage you to post info and pictures to it. We’ve had some problems with spammers of late and also had some technical difficulties so had to restart the whole thing (seemed reasonable since there was so little content). If you created an account previously, you’ll need to create a new one. At the moment, Laurel Krahn and Kevin G. Austin are the wiki administrators– if you’re good with Wikis and want to join that team, let us know.

We do still have some at-the-door memberships available. While we call them “at-the-door memberships,” they can be purchased now– you don’t have to wait until you’re actually at the door at the convention. At-the-door memberships are $100. If you get one by June 11th, our registration person Beth Friedman will make sure you have a nice pre-printed badge, and we can make sure there’s room for you at the Sunday brunch.

We will continue offering these $100 at-the-door memberships until we run out of room at the brunch. If you think you’ll be needing one, doing it early will help us make sure we’ve got room for you. Thanks! (They will only be available online through June 11th, after that you’ll have to take your chances at the con.)

(Since Fourth Street Fantasy Convention is a single-track convention with one on-going conversation stretching over the whole weekend, there are no one-day or partial memberships available.)

Still need somewhere to sleep?
The deadline for reservations under our room block is Wednesday, May 27th, 2009. If you plan to reserve a room, and haven’t yet, please help us out, and do so before the deadline!

Already reserved yours?
Thank you! Please help us out by checking the following, too:

• If you booked in any other way than through the hotel website link (which is available from our hotel page), please make sure that Jenett has your name to add to our room block list.
• If you have any questions about your reservation (or whether you’re on our list) please feel free to email to check: jenettsilver@gmail.com.

We’re planning brunch!
As noted, brunch on Sunday is included in our registration costs, and we’re working with the hotel’s chef to provide a wide range of foods and tastes. We’re already planning for vegetarians and vegans (and the chef has rave reviews on the vegan front), but if you have other food needs we should be aware of, please tell us soon! (again, jenettsilver@gmail.com for all your hotel-related needs.)

Dealers’ Room
Our Dealers’ Room page has info about the consignment service we’re offering to authors coming to the convention. It also has the hours of operation for the Dealers’ Room and how to get in touch with Daniel “Stitch” Mohr if you’re interested in having a table in the room or having something at the consignment table.

Hotel
Jenett Silver put together a helpful page with more information about the convention hotel. It tells you what spaces we’re using in the hotel (and where they’re at in relation to each other), plus has information about accessibility, amenities, and all sorts of stuff.

Members
We’ve also added more folks to our list of members and will continue to add people as registrations roll in.

Committee
We’ve added some folks to our committee since anyone last nattered here on the website. Beth Meacham will co-head Programming with Steven Brust. Michael & Jean Mornard have signed on to run the consuite. Kit Gordon volunteered to investigate restaurants near the con hotel. Thanks to everyone who is helping make Fourth Street happen!

We’ve had twitter account since before last year’s convention, but haven’t done too much with it. We hope to post updates to it from time to time before, after, and during the convention. So far Laurel’s been the one updating it.

There are now buttons on the website that link to us on Facebook and Twitter.

Do any of you post photos to Flickr? Did you post photos there from the previous Fourth Street? What tag did you use? What tag should we use going forward? We could link to Flickr and suggest a tag for everyone to use there.

You can subscribe to our website updates as a feed, get the feed via email, or read the feed as well as community postings on Livejournal.

The observant among you may notice that most of the committee hasn’t registered yet. And lots of other folks who’ve indicated they’ll be there haven’t registered yet. While the pre-registration deadline isn’t ’til near the end of May, it would help us a lot if people registered sooner rather than later. (Reserve a room while you’re at it, too.)