CanJam '08 - Head-Fi International Meet Florida Edition
The Third Annual Head-Fi International Meet is now official, and is officially in……….Florida! I know. Many of you are thinking someone’s head needs to roll over this one. Sure, Florida throws a damn decent party, but a meet like this requires responsible individuals like immtbiker or Voltron. I mean this is Florida after all—home of the infamous West Coast meets, home of the dubious East Coast meets, home of the hanging chad! I am here to tell you to put those thoughts to rest. If there’s a possibility of a humongous headphone meet along with a raucous good time, Team Florida will rally and rise to the occasion! The torch has been passed, and without any misgivings, we’ve gone ahead and planned one hell of a weekend we hope will only improve on the great events that came before. So, without further delay, I am pleased to put all rumors at bay and officially announce:
CanJam '08!
May 3 – 4, 2008
Ft. Lauderdale, FL
The location will be the
Embassy Suites in Fort Lauderdale on 17th Street. The main meet room will be larger than the one in San Jose, and the rooms used by the manufacturers will be a whole lot bigger. As we were able to secure a number of meeting rooms this year, there will be no hotel rooms used for gear, so there will be plenty of space for everyone to enjoy everything!
For those who might actually want to sleep, I’ve arranged for a block of rooms that are all suites, each able to accommodate three people comfortably with two twin beds and a pull out couch, though there’s an option for a single king-sized bed as well. The rooms are newly renovated, and are actually quite beautiful. Unfortunately, Sleestack doesn't own this hotel, so the cost per room will be more than it was in San Jose, but at $149 per night, rooms are cheaper than most hotels in the area. On the good side, the price includes a cook-to-order breakfast (omelets, pancakes, eggs, etc.) and a nightly reception with free booze for one hour! Free wifi will also be available for anyone registered at the hotel with our event. A taxi ride from the Fort Lauderdale Airport is under $15, and the hotel provides a free shuttle for the return trip. There are also many restaurants, bars and stores within walking distance from the hotel. Please check out the hotel’s website.
The cut off for reserving a room at the meet rate is 4/9/08. After that, you might be able to get the rate if a room is available. I have 70 rooms reserved for each night. If those go, I can try to get more. The early I request the easier to get the additional rooms. I will have a link in the original thread that the hotel will set up in about a week that will allow you to reserve rooms online for the event. Otherwise you can call 1 800 Emabassy.
The Embassy Suites was also chosen for its location near the
Ft. Lauderdale Airport (FLL) and the two-mile distance from the ocean and the beach. For those who want to make a vacation out of the trip, or just want to bring the family along, the
Air & Sea Show/Fleet Week will be taking place the same weekend. You can geek out at the meet while your family hangs at the beach for another great event.
As far as the actual meet goes, it will be similar to previous ones, but we’ll be doing a few things a little bit differently. Gear? Check. Vendors? Check. Panel discussion? Hmmmm. Headphones and amps have been done before, so we’re shining this year’s spotlight on DIY enthusiasts with a Two-shot Minimum DIY Panel! Make of that what you will. All we know is that we’ll be there. There will also be a dinner on Saturday night, and after, a kick ass blues act we managed to book, someone we never miss when he comes to town. Like San Jose, we also have a special guest speaker—no, it's not Steve Hoffman—but he’s got a similar background with interesting things to say. We’re also working on a local jazz trio to play on Sunday for those that need a break from listening to gear. That's right! As the saying goes, "It's all about the music," so we're bringing live music to your ears, man! Being the bunch of peace loving hippies we are in Florida, we're just going to kick back and enjoy the tunes and forget about recalibrating our gear for a while.
As for admission costs, and also the price for the dinner and music, we’re working at getting those as low as possible. Reality dictates that prices decrease as registration numbers go higher. At this time, admission prices are planned at $10 for students and $20 for everyone else. The cost for Saturday’s dinner and entertainment will be announced when we get a better take on how many people will attend.
There will be more announcements to come in terms of vendor participation and entertainment. So far, Headroom, Todd The Vinyl Junkie, Ray Samuels Audio, Headamp, ALO Audio, Woo Audio, Shure, and a local favorite, Let There Be Sound (Oz, for those who have been to a South Florida Meet), have committed to attending. With Todd and Oz, there will be some nice speaker rigs in attendance (in separate rooms). There will be many more to come, and we are working on this as I type.
The sign up system will be set up soon and I will link it to this thread. We will also start a "Share A Room" thread so people can make room-sharing arrangements. As soon as we know more, more info will be given.
By the way, I've used the term "we" a lot. I probably should let you know who is working on this with me. My co-organizers are, in no particular order: agile_one, NightWoundsTime, boomana, wmcmanus, jp11801, and Guss2.
We CanJam. Can you?
Hotel Information Update:
Here is a link for us to use to make reservations for this event at the discounted price. Click on this
Embassy Suites. If it asks for a Group or User Name use "Head-Fi International Meet". The Password is "HFI". If anyone has any trouble report it to me.
Table Layout:
Here is the table layout. I want to make sure that anyone relying upon this for picking out tables (vendors and members) that the final floor plan and specific table locations may vary from this layout due to fire codes, space requirements, etc. If a table is eliminated or moved, we will try to keep everyone in the same general area (as close as possible) as the table they picked. I wanted to thank Matt (NightWoundsTime who put this together. It is pretty much to scale except the doors have been left out. We have the ability to add another room (this chart shows 4 of 6 rooms we have available) if we need it. I will start a seperate thread for members to pick tables. For now tables 1 through 22 are for members. Tables 123 through 126 are reserved for vendors for now. These may be released for members if necessary:
