Well, I certainly hope someone's head rolled for THAT little debacle!! I understand hotel rooms being overbooked...it's the same as flights being overbooked on an airline...people cancel at the last minute and the hotel can't be left with empty rooms.....but when you book something as large as these Fests seems to be....wouldn't you think SOMEONE would have the ultimate responsibility NOT to let a screw up like that occur? And wouldn't it be reasonable to assume they wouldn't keep their job if they didn't?
You would think that, Rainey but look all around and see what kind of things are allowed to happen even when it's life threatening yet it still happens and under the watch of intelligent and supposedly capable people. So conference rooms getting booked twice by busy hotel staff members for the same date is nothing in comparison.
I don't know if anyone was fired over the incident or not; I only know it was a major hassle for us and I know such things have happened to other people.
In THIS case, you have to ask who in the organization didn't make sure that all the invited celebrities were available before the dates were booked. That's not a minor detail, and it's not like they've never done this before!!!
See, I would not make the assumption that's what happened. If there was a history of the dates being set and announced and then changed, I would wonder who was dozing at the switch, but to my knowledge this has not happened before. That makes me think indeed something unforseen happened. Maybe there really is a new and big guest coming to the festival and his/her plans fell through - that on top of maybe one or two of the bigger draw actors had to bow out after their initial commitment. Remember, Rainey, several of the actors who were in DS and do come to the Festival are still working actors . . . and if not acting, they still work at something. The festival has always stated that guests will appear pending professional commitments. The actors are asked about the dates months and months ahead of time and between the time they agree and even a few months down the road, they have been offered a job or have some other professional (or personal) commitment. It used to be, and maybe it still is, the DS actors are not paid to be at the festivals. Their expenses are covered, etc. but even if they got some kind of stipend, they are not about to turn down a job to attend the festival. And those jobs come up at the last minute. This is unusual that more than one conflict arose for the attending actors. I know there have been instances where two big name draws said they could not attend the festival even after the dates were announced and the convention was not rescheduled as a result.
Since the actors are a key draw for fans attending the festival, the absence of them for whatever reason would be the one thing to make the festival be rescheduled. If the projector at the festival broke down and there was not any video as a result, the fest would go on and people would have a good time. But the reality is the actors are the key draw to these events. If more than just a few and/or a big pending "surprise guest" had sudden schedule conflicts, the festival could not simply discount that.
If they went ahead and scheduled the convention and were down several key draws and a potentially a fantastic first-time guest all because they didn't want to change the dates, they would be criticized for making that decision and on top of it have a small turn out of attendees.
Nancy
