Venue Budget, Location, Connectivity, Manpower, Excursion possibility, Wifi accessibility (across rooms, etc. - some country didn't have in some rooms) Budget - Reduce cost for participants because travel to India is costly.
Connectivity - Prioritize connectivity from Europe.
Manpower - Consider reliability over quantity.
Excursion - Consider possibilities of using the venue creatively - e.g. Prize distribution in Caves in Hungary


Competition Hall Distance from venue, size of hall, Furniture, Projector, Miscellanous Distance - Croatia and China had 'hotel' away from competition hall, but walking in cold weather is different, so we would probably need Hall in same building as hotel rooms.
Size - Need enough dimensions to fit 150 solvers at least (in conference format with a stage at the front). Added would be nice if we plan to include Indian Juniors like China did at WJSC
Furniture - Make sure Tables/Chairs are of good quality - seems like small issue but some top players complain a lot about these things.
Miscellanous - Arrangements for mic, refreshments, Bar at close proximity (Solvers love getting a drink after every 2-3 rounds, its habitual and so will be noticeable if they can't), inquiry about electricity reliability (Amit told me Goa had a power cut).

Rooms Single/Double sharing options Big area to look for discounts.

Meals Veg + NonVeg both + Participants preferences + Pastries!

Prasnna, Deb and I visited four hotels this weekend and here is the status of the four

Orchid- Rejected as they do not have a conference hall big enough for our requirements
Ramada - Rejected as they do not have a conference hall big enough for our requirements

Chancery Pavillion - Possible backup option, see details in separate post.
Taj Vivanta Yashwantpura - Satisfies all our requirements, price might be a concern, details in separate post.

Chancery Pavillion

Conference Hall - 5880 sq ft with appropriate aspect ratio, hall is in the basement of the hotel.
It has a prefunction area.

Hotel has total of 224 rooms.
They have a safety locker.

Costs (Inclusive of room breakfast, lunch and dinner)
7.5 K for double room
6K for single room

Facilities
Gym, Swimming Pool
Free WiFi

Power backup is available

Airport transit not included
Audio- visual systems not included.

Dining area might be a problem - Make shift area near swimming pool can be arranged for. Problem could be due to rains as it is open air.

Taj Vivanta Yashwantpura

Conference Hall - 6500 sq ft with appropriate aspect ratio, hall is in the basement of the hotel.
They have multiple lighting options, the hall is bright enough for an exmination.
It has a prefunction area, where we can setup stalls (puzzles/books/sponsors/etc.)

Hotel has total of 327 rooms.
Rooms are very comfortable. They also have nice tables ideal for solving puzzles/sudoku. international sockets etc.
Also have a safety locker.

Costs are not known as yet. they will send proposal today.

Facilities
Gym, Swimming Pool
Free WiFi only for 2 devices per room.

5kV power backup is available, which takes 7 secs to come back live. Their representative mentioned that instant backup is also possible up to a certain limit.

Airport transit not included
Audio- visual systems not included. They have one approved vendor.

They will not allow to paste stuff in the hotel, we can use standees though.

Dining area might be a bit congested. Make shift area can be arranged in a third part of the hall / courtyard (rains?)

Based on our first round of searching last week and some online research these are the possible options for hotels that we should be looking at next)

Possible options (Rates from tripadvisor)
chancery pavillion - 4.5K
clarks exotica -6K - Airport
Mac - 5.5K - Old Airport Road
holiday village - 2-3K - Kanakapura Road
Le Meridien - 7K - Golf Course
lalit ashok -7K - Golf Course
Davanam Sarovar Portico - 6K - Koramangala (Hall size 4700 sq ft)
Fortune JP Cosmos (4K) - cunningham road
Shangrila

(Options - but high price)
taj yaswantpura - 8-11K
sheraton - 11-13K
itc gardenia -12K
oberoi - 10K
taj mg - 7.5 -8K (Hall details not available online)
marriott -8.5K
Park plaza -9K
taj whitefield - 8K

Rejected (Mostly due to hall size)
pride
golden palms
zuri
lemon tree
Elanza
Windflower
four points
holiday inn
ramada
itc windsor - apparently does not have hall which is big enough (largest is 4.5K sq ft)
goldfinch
hyatt
Angsana
jw marriot
Garden Asia
Liwa
Manpho convention (No residential :))
Marriot Courtyard
Ibis
Windflower Prakruthi (Only 50 rooms)
Royal Orchid Convention Center (Only 55 rooms)
K R Inn (3K) - KRPuram (Not sufficient rooms)
Fortune PArk JP Celestial (4K) (Largest hall is 3800 sq ft) - Majestic
Aloft (5K sq ft 4K) - Belandur / Whitefield
Fortune Select Trinity (4K) - whitefield

Marriott Courtyard: http://www.marriott.com/hotels/hotel-rooms/blrgt-courtyard-bengalur...
Royal Orchit: http://www.royalorchidhotels.com/royal-orchid-hotel-Bangalore/overv...
IBIS: http://www.ibis.com/gb/booking/hotels-list.shtml



Edited by rajeshk 2015-11-12 7:01 PM

Marriot Courtyard does not have a big enough conference hall.
Similar case for Royal Orchid and Ibis.

I will add all these to the rejected list.

Do note that based on our first visit we realized that the size of the conference hall and dining facility is going to be the biggest constraint.
The focus has been to identify places which have halls which are big enough to accomodate 150 people in classroom style seating. (approx 6000 sq.ft)

Planning to visit the following three hotels this weekend:
Clarks Exotica
Royal Orchid Convention Center
Windflower Prakruthi

All of these are near the Bangalore International Airport

I have a friends contact at Clarks Exotica if you want.

We (me, Prasanna, Amit) visited CE today - it satisfies most of our requirements, but we need to revisit in Jan. Amit will post details.

It will be good to use any-and-every contact you have or anyone else has. But let us first get to a stage we have some more meaningful discussion with hotel.

We visited Royal Orchid Convention Center and Clarks Exotica today. We skipped Windflower Prakruthi as it does not have sufficient number of rooms.

In Royal Orchid the convention center is huge and so is the pre-function area, but it surprisingly does not have sufficient rooms.

We then went to Clarkes Exotica which seems to satisfy most of our requirements.
The convention hall is big enough (8K sq ft) and by our estimate can easily accommodate up to 170 participants.
The rooms are quite spacious, beds might be a bit small for the taller people (but they always are)
Rooms have a safety locker.

Free wifi is available in the rooms and convention hall area.

Power backup is available with power being back online in 6 seconds. Major competition requirements like lights, projector, etc will be on UPS and hence will not go offline.

They have a large range of excellent sports facilities (squash, TT, badminton, tennis), 2 swimming pools (one with slides)
Importantly they have a football ground within their campus. (It is ideal for the traditional football match)
They have a spa as well (not included in package)

The room charges are 6.5K + taxes for double room and 5K + taxes for single room. There are a total of 110 rooms which can become available for us.

In its current state there are four issues that we are concerned about:
Lighting in convention hall is not adequate (Additional lighting will be provided for competition purposes)
Dining area is not so great (They are constructing a new restaurant which has a capacity of 220, it will be available in January 2016)
No pre-function area for snacks/stalls etc (They will provide us pandals similar to the ones which they have currently setup in the pool area)
Chairs and tables might be a concern (Need to ensure that they dont cut corners on this )

A big plus is that the airport is about 10km from the resort so transit will be easy.

Of course you guys can do the groundwork... All I was trying to say is if you guys decide to finalize on it maybe I can help you all get something additional off the price. That's all :)

I know it is too early right now but I just wanted to let all know that we do have a contact.

Rishi

Last weekend Prasanna, Rajesh and I visited three hotels in Whitefield, Bellandur area.

Two aloft hotels and Fortune Trinity.
All three hotels did not have a hall big enough to meet our requirements.

Aloft hotels have nice casaual interiors which we could possibly look out for in the hotel that we decide.

This Thursday Deb an I wen to Mac hotel which is right next to my office.
Their hall is just big enough for our requirements. We have not seen the rooms yet as all their 195 rooms were apparently booked.
Major issue with the dining area and huge concerns with the staff not being very co-operative in working out a package for us.

Deb and I also discussed Kochi as an alternative option to Bangalore.
It has good flight connectivity, almost equivalent to Bangalore, especially from the Middle East.
Prices are expected to be much lower than those in Bangalore.
It also has good excursion options (much better than Bangalore)
Couple of drawbacks are the availability of volunteers in Kochi and having to work remotely to get the logistics setup.