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11.01.03 (4:04 pm EST) – “GPWA
Retreat” at the Mohegan Sun a fiasco?
Online 15 (Fifteen) attendees. That’s the lowest turnout for any gaming event EVER.Cynthia Carley, the organizer of this event, reportedly couldn’t afford the banquet bill at the Mohegan Sun and bolted out of the hotel without paying the remainder of the bill. Rumors were that she called numerous affiliate managers who owed her money (for her account), begging them to Neteller funds to her so she can
pay the banquet bill. The hotel will go after her for payment and likely put a lien on any property or assets that she might have. She also took some of the hotel towels with her.Article taken from http://www.gambling911.com
Yes, I wrote my usual gossip collumn on bet2gamble about that yesterday.
It really is sad, it had such potential!
As I understand 4 programs, Wager Profits, Money Mechanics (new kid on the block), Betmax (Steve’s program) and Casino Blasters made it to the event, along with 12 affiliates.
So it was either 15 or 16 attendees?
Oh, well. I advised against doing the retreat a month or so ago.
I just as rather I had not been right.Just got up from a Nap and saw this. :whoa:
Not sure what to think, lets not get carried away. I have moved this to free for all area.
Guys, Cindy just admitted there was a shortfall due to her over booking rooms. She committed to 60 rooms, but the high cancellations caused problems. Apparently GPWA are taking up a collection too.
She is promising to clear up debt though, so I hope this all works out and I dont think we should throw too many stones over this.
It’s a shame this happened, but I think it was bad timing due to the current events in the industry, plus a less then optimal location.
I remember I was concerned before the event took place and had advised postponing it or moving to Vegas to capitalize on everyone who was in town for G2E.
Like they say, hindsight is 20/20
Professor,
Nice and professional response.
With the current going on’s the numbers were set against her from the start, and for everyone else who was running a gaming conference.
The only thing I hope and I know is that we all learn from this and the pieces are picked up quickly.
In the future it is worth noting anyone who plans to oganise a conference needs to understand that networks and affiliates need exact information as well as the exact dates of the conference.
What’s the news Professor ?
… enquiring minds want to know :rolleyes:
Hey Professor,
I have just recieved a e-mail of a post made by Cindy at the GPWA.First, before I tell you all this, I’m not pointing fingers at anyone.
I’m pretty disappointed with the low turnout we had, considering it was
free to our members. And I was disappointed that of the 20 that I made
reservations for (with spouses/SO’s), only 15 showed up; but I realize
shit happens, and a couple of confirmed members were prevented from
coming by circumstances beyond their control.
I didn’t want to tell anyone (except the TL’s) about this before the
Retreat started because I didn’t want any attendees worrying while they
were there, but had already planned on telling everyone when I got
back. Unfortunately, Dom got a “bit” of the info – most likely from an
Aff Mgr – and twisted it to make us look bad. Big surprise, huh??
I’ve never done anything like this before so I made some mistakes, and
unfortunately had a sales rep at the hotel who was incompetent and
didn’t bother explaining MANY things to me, even tho I told them all up
front I’d never done this before.
In the end we had 7 sponsors, 6 of whom attended. Justine from Sky
Affiliates sponsored, but couldn’t come, so please go out of your way
to be nice to her. I lost a couple of other late ones that were
interested – Vegas Partners & Tradal – because we lost so many
attendees.
1. I planned all this, and signed a contract, based on the headcounts I
got in June and July, which were 25 definites and 20+ “likelys”, plus
making room for the Aff Mgrs, and anyone else we picked up. Clearly, I
overestimated. But in August, I signed a modification dropping my
guarantee to just 60 rooms, which I was led to believe would drop my
performance penalty – not so.
2. Room costs were $252 per night, and food costs per person were about
$140. Hey, at this point you guys should all know I don’t do anything
“half-assed”. Below are pics of *just* our dessert tables at the final
dinner buffet, which featured salmon, prime rib, and stuffed chicken
breasts.
3. I didn’t get food menus and costs until mid-September, and *never*
got an itemized cost estimate. The Sunday night a week before the
Retreat, I got a group “resume” where they wanted a deposit of $49,000.
When I had a heart attack, they told me they were charging me a
“performance penalty” of $44,200. They wanted to me to sign this
thing, but I refused until I talked to my sales rep about the
performance penalty, which was based on the original contract. My sales
rep, Steve, either didn’t call or didn’t have the info he needed all
week, until Thursday night. I told him I’d cancel it, no prob (but I
couldn’t really do that), and he told me he’d call me back on Friday
morning which he did – around noon.
4. Noon on Friday, I told him we’d go ahead and do it, but then he sent
me a letter about 2 hours later telling me the total costs were around
$17-19,000. Up until that point, I thought I’d had it all covered – I’d
made a HUGE error in the rooms cost, and no one had caught it until
then. At that point, I had only collected $12K from our sponsors – 1
had wire transferred late and their money wasn’t in yet. I also had to
send him a deposit that day, for Saturday delivery. (when I asked the
fucker earlier in the week if I could wire transfer, he told me no;
then on Friday, told me he’d never asked accounting about that – did I
want to him to do it now? Cost for Saturday delivery – $40)
5. At 4:30 on Friday afternoon, after letting him know I’d sent the
deposit, he wrote back telling me they expected the actual costs of the
event to paid in full by Monday at noon, or they’d cancel it – and they
were fulling planning on charging me the performance penalty
afterwards. I went into a total panic; I make good money, but I’m not a
saver, so I didn’t have the extra cash we needed.
6. CPA worked with me nearly all night, helping me try to figure this
out and came up with a couple of good ideas. I called the Sales
Director on Saturday morning, who called me back and told me they had
already decided to *forgive* the performance penalty, and hadn’t Steve
told me that? No, he hadn’t. But he also agreed to drop the Monday
noon deadline, and let me settle at the end of it, which is what Steve
had always told me I would do.
7. I worked all weekend trying to find the extra cash, and Sunday
morning before I left, sent out $8400 in advance and sponsor requests.
Eddy from RTG kicked in $800 for BetMax for a breakfast brunch, and
Trish from CPS immediately advanced me the $1300 they owed me at that
point for my commission for October, but no one else came thru. I
believe it was one of these that told Dom we were short money. I left
here giving my Mom instructions for transferring money to my NETeller
debit card, so I could pull it out up there.
8. Total costs came to $17,110 – I actually lucked out a little with
the final no-shows, even tho I still got charged their food fees per
person, and room fees for the first night (except for Magic79, who
called me Monday afternoon to let me know he couldn’t get out of Calif.
because of the fires – thank you! – they dropped your fees entirely.)
I collected a total of $14,800 in sponsor money, and yes, I spent some
money while I was there. I borrowed about $500 from some members and
Jeff/WagerProfits at the last minute, and I still owe Mohegan $1500,
which I’ll pay in the next week or so.
I am NOT asking anyone for any money – these were my mistakes, and I
intend to be responsible for them; I always am. Last week and over the
weekend, I was so sick from stress over this that I literally was
physically sick and couldn’t even eat, and kept saying I would never do
it again.
BUT……. It turned out so great – much better than I expected – that
I’d it again in a heartbeat, just make some changes. I think all our
members *and* the sponsors really enjoyed themselves, and I *know*
Money Mechanic was extremely happy with it. Serah told me at dinner on
Thursday night that “all the GPWA members are sooooo nice!”. Knowing
all that, made all my problems worthwhile.
Next year, tho, if we keep it as a free event for the GPWA members,
people who say they’re coming will be charged any permanent costs up
front as a deposit – if they show up, they get their money back; if
they don’t, they lose it.
I had a GREAT time!! Thank you, all of you who came!!! And special
thanks to Bill, who handled a lot of things for me while we were
there!!
_________________
Liaison for SciFi, Palace of Chance, Portofino/Hampton, Alkemize
http://www.VideoPokerJunkie.com
http://www.GamblingGirl.com
http://www.VideoPoker4.usYou have to stand for something – or you’ll fall for anything.
Organising a smooth running function is not easy. But, anyone planning an event needs to organise every last detail, get the itemised costing and preferably pay up front to avoid this sort of embarrassment.
This is embarrassing to everyone in the industry and should heed a warning to anyone planning similar with no experience.
Practise on a few cookouts for your friends first and if they go like clockwork (ie. you don’t run out of beer and steak) then on to bigger things.
As for towels, always take them from someone else’s room or off the housekeepers linen trolley. :bigsmile:
good tips Deaning … sounds like you have experience … lol
Oh, a couple of years at a Hilton and a few barbies under my belt. I have never messed up a BBQ but did:
Trip up Prince Philip…
Made 3 nuns drink 10 oz of ketchup each…insisting it was tomato juice (well bulk tomato juce cans and bulk tomato sauce cans DO look very alike).
Covered a lady head to toe in whipped cream when the cream fountain jammed on while making an irish coffee…
Spilt gravy on a state leaders head…
Caught a Miss Universe entrant “at it” in a closet…
Got abused by Elton John cos the Royal Suite didn’t have gold spoons…
Passed up a date with Stevie Nicks (no one told me she wanted to go out to see the sights, still kicking myself over that)…
Got free tickets to a Kiss concert for giving back the photo I got of them all without makeup (that wasn’t exactly voluntary as their security guy said tickets or lose your head, back in the days when their identity was still a mystery). Gene Simmons’ tongue IS that long as a bevy of centrefolds will attest (didn’t get those pics)…So, we all make little stuffups now and then.
This is the one interesting point:
I collected a total of $14,800 in sponsor money, and yes, I spent some
I spent some sponsor money? :angry:
I guess the Royal didn’t materialize?
And another:
Aff programs@$150 mo since January in the *fund*.What is the current balance of the *fund*?
Lemme guess…Steve Adkins, step foward and answer the million dollar question?
“Steve, for one million bucks, you have to answer the final question correctly!
Are you ready? OK!
What is worth 20,000 dollars plus but doesn’t have it, nor can prove it ever existed yet spent it all?”“Uh…errr…ummm… Can I phone a friend?”
“No you did that already Steve!”
“OK! I have it! That chick that posts on a lot of boards on the internet….errr shitflame…no…insane…no…errrr…slycin!!!!”
Congratulations Steve! A million bucks is awaiting you upon your release!
Just how ugly is this forum going to get? Warn me now before I commit any more.
