[me 2007-05-19] Emailed the Mt. Cootha Lookout about booking the Summmit restaurant http://www.brisbanelookout.com/pages/bookings.html for the Professional Networking session. Waiting for reply.
[rs 2007-05-17] Culinart responded re Maritime Museum. Price is approx $75 per person in total for catering and the museum hire.
[rs 2007-05-15] Enticeme replied pronto re Maritime Museum. Price is approx $60 per person in total for catering and the museum hire.
[rs 2007-05-15] Catering people didn't respond to quote for Maritime Museum. Sent off two more requests for quotes on catering.
[rs 2007-05-10] Got a very prompt response from the Maritime Museum to my request for clarifications. Nice! Emailed one of the catering organisations they listed asking for a quote.
[rs 2007-05-10] Got a reply from the Queensland Maritime Museum. Asked for a few clarifications. We will have to organise our own catering.
[rs 2007-05-09] Sent an email to the Queensland Maritime Museum.
[rs 2007-05-09] Sent a web form query to the Mt Coot-tha lookout.
[rs 2007-04-30] Gabba replied with additional details. Costing were right, except they require us to hire guards at approx $150 per hour, and it turns out we can not hire the room during match days.
[rs 2007-04-27] The gabba responded with this brochure. Looks to be around $60 per head for 2 hours food and 3 hours beverages. Plus if we are lucky there may be a cricket game on, but we don't know that for sure until May 2008 when the 2009 schedule comes out. I sent this query asking them to confirm the prices I had calculated.
[rs 2007-04-24] GregLehmann suggested the Gabba as a venue. From their web site the Gabba does have rooms big enough, so I sent this query via their web form.
[rs 2007-04-19] The Botanical Gardens replied, suggesting that I ring them. In short: there is an area that caters the numbers we are anticipating (called "The Stage"). It has a power, etc. All that is required is us to send the curator a letter reserving the area, and provide proof we have insurance to cover the event. The venue is free. The downside is if I remember correctly it is outside, thus subject to the heat.
[rs 2007-04-17] Emailed the Mt Coot-tha botanical gardens to see if they had anything suitable.
- [rs 2007-04-17] Rang Queensland Museum to follow up on query. They can cater for up to 200 maximum.
[rs 2007-04-13] Sent an enquiry to the Queensland Museum.
Being we do not have year by year attendance figures for LCA, including number of professionals, it seems we'll have to make rough estimates for this event until we can get exact numbers from LA. Last LCA (2007) the number of delegates in total was around the 800 mark with about 50% being professional. Roughly speaking growth, with the exception of Dunedin 2006 has been around 200 delegates per year. Using those figures it would seem that by 2009 there would be around 1200 delegates or more attending the conference, half those being professional.
With that in mind, we would need a venue capable of housing, not necessarily seating around 600 professional delegates. Some possible venues are on http://stuart.id.au/lcawiki/Venues. Of those, the following would be quite suitable for this event:
- City Hall
- Mount Coot-tha Lookout [Will contact venue for pricing etc.]