Millennium Hotel & SteelRadio.com

DeWitt Scott · From: St. Louis, Missouri, USA * R.I.P.

This is Scotty here… I have read most all of the complaints about the Millennium hotel and also about Steelradio.com and now I am ready to address both subjects.

The Millennium Hotel. The best way to address this topic is with the cooperation of the Millennium and their General Manager. Here is the reply from the General Manager…

Dear Scotty,

Let me first begin by apologizing for the problems some of your attendee’s experienced at this year’s convention. We greatly appreciate your business and more importantly value the relationship we have enjoyed over these many years. You have my personal assurance that every effort will be made to ensure these problems do not occur in the future.

After reviewing the comments on the website this is what I found:

Mr. Bob Drawbaugh was relocated to the Adam’s Mark on Friday 8/3-/02, we paid for his room. He returned to the hotel on Saturday 9/3/02 and stayed through Monday 9/2/02 at $40.00 per night. At last count he had made 12 comments on your website.

Mr. Richard Cochran enjoyed the show but complained of slow elevators and the restaurant.

Mr. Jim Vogan commented on the service in the Park Café.

Mr. Craig A. Davidson complained of being charged $89.00 a night for his room and the service in the Park Café, our records show he was charged $79.00 per night.

Mr. Tony Palmer was relocated to the Adam’s Mark for one night, we paid for the room. He returned the next day and stayed through Monday. He also complained of slow elevators and the service in the Park Café.

Mr. Ron Page commented on slow elevators.

Mr. Frank Estes commented on check-in taking 5 minutes and the cost of local phone calls.

Mr. Dennis Detweiler stated he had made reservations for 3 rooms, we can only find a confirmation for one room, and we did give him an additional room.

Mr. Jerry Overstreet at check-in was asked if he would relocate to the Adam’s Mark at our expense, refused and stayed two nights.

Mr. Tony Prior states he should have received a $69.00 rate, his confirmed reservations was at $79.00.

Mr. Bill Plemmons commented on slow service in the Park Café.

Mr. Keith Hilton commented on the smell of cigarette smoke in his room.

Mr. Kirk P. Dighton experienced no problems with his reservation but felt the service was substandard.

Mr. Mark Durante arrived at the hotel on Saturday 8/31/02, his reservation was for Wednesday 8/28/02, we found him accommodations at another hotel.

Mr. Gary Glisson was registered into an occupied room.

Scotty, 18 of the comments on the site were from people who did not stay in the hotel or attend the convention.

One complain is one to many; I will personally follow up with an apology letter to each these guests. Please let me know if you would like me to do anything else for these people. Again we greatly appreciate our past relationship and will everything to ensure we avoid these concerns in the future.

Sincerely,
Keith Gundlefinger
General Manager

In defense of the hotel, in the opening statement the General Manager did offer his apologies and is dedicated to see that the problems we experienced this year will not happen again. In reality, he could have ended it right there but chose to comment further.

Everyone that had a room problem that came to me for help I was able to help. This did take me away from my main purpose of being on stage helping with the MC work. A special thanks to Stony Stonecipher for subbing for me many, many times while I went to the registration desk to help to help someone get his room. For those that made the statement, “I’ll never be back to the convention” please don’t lose track of why we are there in the first place. To hear the steel players and actually kind of pay homage to them for what they have contributed to the steel guitar world and in essence, are our hero’s. And to check to see what might be new in the industry by visiting the booths that set up in and outside of the main ballroom. This is what the Convention is all about. True, the hotel can be a thorn in our side but let’s accept what is and “roll with the flow”. For those of you that have never been to the convention to say, “After reading some of the problems people had I don’t think I will ever attend the Convention in St. Louis”, let me say that the positive responses have far outweighed the negative responses. And in due respect, the complaints were all about the hotel. Not me or the players or the distributors. If you choose not attend then you just might be missing what I have said all along, the International Steel Guitar Convention is a “Steel Guitar Paradise”. You might consider the number of complaints, and many of the complaints came from the same persons or from people that were not here at all, think of the couple of thousand others that have no complaints. Then the trip to St. Louis may not be so bad after all.

DeWitt “Scotty” Scott, Sr.
International Steel Guitar Convention
President

STEELRADIO.COM

I’m not going into all the work and expense it took to air the Convention live over the Internet. Nor the hours upon hours it took to prepare for the broadcast and the hours actually spent over the four days of the Convention. Check your television networks. When they air a special event of some kind they force you pay extra for that event. We charged nothing!

Tim Wallis, Rich Mounce, Davie Lee, (the voices of SteelRadio.com) and Michael Scott set everything up and at their own expense. Bill Ferguson provided all the sound from the Peavey recording board and the cable wire it took to air the Feral Swing Kats from the Jefferson rooms. Charlie Alper provided us with remote microphones that allowed us to air concerts from various distributors rooms that had music almost around the clock. And allowed us to have live interviews direct from booths such as Tommy White, Goodrich Sound and others.

All the above names and activities were under my orders. They had absolutely no control as to how much of the Convention would be broadcast. I made that decision. A couple of thousand people had paid hard earned money to make the trip to St. Louis and attend the convention. I also wanted people that could not make the Convention to be able to hear what was happening, and at no cost to them. I also felt I should not allow the radio staff to air the entire Convention. I also made the decision that when the crew would be doing interviews with the players that it would be OK to air the player that was on stage at that time as well. But keep the volume low and use the music as a background to the interview.

I did not get to hear any portion of the broadcast. When a dropout or buffering occurred, I am told that it is due mostly to the connection that was being used by the listener. We had such a huge audience that we overloaded seven servers. We had topped 500,000 hits on Friday night alone! As the servers could only give us numbers up to 500,000 I am assuming that we had the same amount listening to the convention each day. I know of several people who commented that they had many people sitting around the computer with them. We must have gone over a million listeners during the entire Convention. We also had a simulcast on US Country.com and we have no knowledge of how many hits they had. This figure is staggering in anyone’s book!

Judging from the comments I read on the forum I have three choices for next year.

1. Charge for the service of allowing the Convention to come into your homes.
2. Leave things like they are and ignore all the complaints.
3. Do not broadcast anymore.

As the negative comments far outweighed the positive comments I am leaning toward #3.

Replies have now been made on both the hotel and SteelRadio.com. I sincerely hope that my comments have been to your satisfaction.

Sincerely,

DeWitt “Scotty” Scott, Sr.
International Steel Guitar Convention
St. Louis, MO

Rick Garrett · From: Tyler, Texas

Hello Scotty and I want to let you know that my bride and I had a wonderful time at the St. Louis Convention and we plan on attending next year as well. I cannot imagine all the work and effort necesary to put something like this together. Although we stayed at a different hotel and took the train downtown, I found the service at the resturaunts to be ok given the amount of hungry folks they were trying to feed. Shoot man some folks would gripe if you hung them with a brand new rope. Keep up the good work and it is appreciated!! Take care and God Bless.

Rick Garrett

Gene Jones · From: Oklahoma City, OK USA, (deceased)

Wow Scotty!......don't you sometimes long to return to the "peace and tranquility" of the beautiful western sky over Yukon, Oklahoma?

www.genejones.com

Donny Hinson · From: Glen Burnie, Md. U.S.A.

Scotty, we all certainly appreciate your conventions.

They give us the opportunity to see and hear many players in person that we just ordinarily couldn't. And, respectfully, though I didn't try to attend...it does not mean that I (or anyone else, for that matter) am not entitled to express an opinion.

Please ask Mr. Gundlefinger (or someone else, perhaps) WHY hotels "overbook" in the first place???

Since ALL reservations must be secured with a credit card, it would seem totally unnecessary (unscrupulous?) to do this sort of thing nowadays. Hotel management should be made to realize that...even if they pay for the "alternate accomodations", they still have NOT given the customer what they promised.

A "guaranteed reservation" should be just that...unless the damn place burns down!

On the matter of the free web-cast you provided, I think it is a good service despite the problems which were experienced by some listeners.

[This message was edited by Donny Hinson on 24 September 2002 at 07:33 AM.]

Doug Rolfe · From: Indianapolis, IN

Scotty, I am known in this format as a "lurker" meaning I rarely post but just read what others say and I think in many cases it is justified because of these two series of posts.
Let me say first of all, that you and your whole family do an absolutely fabulous job of taking care of as many convention goers and distributors as possible. Since we have been coming to St. Louis since 1985 and have a booth, I must say a great big thank you for the way you always take care of us and are continually coming by to see if we need anything and to see if we are ok.
Also since I too promote a small show, I can only understand just a little of the mega effort that is required to put on a convention of this size. You have my deepest gratitude.
My experience has been that the complainers will loudly cry out and those that who are not, remain silent. I have remained silent too long regarding the attacks on your efforts to provide us with the very best in steel guitar music in such a setting. The older I get the more I don't understand why we can't be more tolerant of one another and realize that not everything is going to be "just" the way we want it.
I am not affected by the steel radio issue since we are at the convention, but am quite aware of many who really appreciated the opportunity to hear the great music via the "net" since they couldn't be there live. I am personally asking you to reconsider doing away with it and simply ignore those who "make a living" at complaining. IMHO, there are many who benefit by the efforts and expense of those who put this venue on the internet. I hope that steelradio.com will be there next year in spite of the naysayers.
"LET THE FLAMES BEGIN"

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Doug
Dekley 12U 4k & 7p
2-Nash 400 & Quadraverb

[This message was edited by Doug Rolfe on 24 September 2002 at 07:13 AM.]

Mike Perlowin · From: Los Angeles CA

First, WELCOME TO THE FORUM SCOTTY. We are honored by your presence.

I was not at the convention this year, but in previous years I've seen a small fraction of the things you have to do to make the convention happen, and I've also seen those who know absolutely nothing about it complain.

To be sure, the service at the hotel, and the food in particular, has always been less than perfect. But life itself is also less than perfect. We put up with the inconvenience because the overall experience of the convention is so positive. (And I usually do a little shopping before the show starts and keep some fresh fruit and other edibles in my room)

The bottom line is that the convention is a wonderful thing, and I can truthfully say that some of the best moments of my life have been spent there. And I'm not alone. You have brought more happiness to more people than any other individual I can think of.

Some people have legitimate gripes about the hotel, and the hotel management really opught to address those issues. BUT YOU ARE NOT RESPONBSIBLE FOR THAT. Those who have had problems with the hotel, should take it up with the folks who run the place. Not you.

As for the steel radio.com, which I did not listen to, might I suggest another possibility? An actual broadcast, perhaps on NPR. Or perhaps a commercial station or network. I could be mistaken, but it seems that with radio's perpetual search for ratings, some station would jump at the chance to have a million listeners tuned in for 3 days. I'm sure some stations would be interested.

One of our members here, Nick Reed, owns a small radio station. Perhaps he can help set something up.

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My gear: a piece of wood with some wires attached to it.

Frank Estes · From: Huntsville, AL

Does this mean we get a free room next year???

I realize it could have been worse--I could have got on one of those elevators with ol' "RetCop" or right after him!

Thank you, Scotty! You and your staff are First Class!

As for SteelRadio, I think you should consider trying to charge for the Live Radio broadcast next year and see how that works out. I believe many who cannot attend the show will be willing to pay a small fee in order to hear it.

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Frank Estes - 1978 Emmons D-10 8+7 #2441D

John Cadeau · From: Surrey,B.C. Canada

Scotty:
Although I was unable to attend the convention, I was thrilled at being able to listen to some of it on steelradio.com. I know there is an immense amount of work involved in making this event happen, and also an immense amount of work involved in brosdcasting the convention. The folks involved in broadcasting the convention on steelradio.com, in my opinion did a great job. I believe we all owe you a great big thank you. Keep up the great work. The steel guitar community should be extremely greatful to you, I know I am.
John

Dave Birkett · From: Oxnard, CA, USA

I enjoyed the radio broadcast. I would GLADLY PAY for a password to get access to listen to it next year. If the figures about hits on the website were accurate (a half million?), I'm sure there would be enough other people with similar sentiments to offset some of the costs.

Herb Steiner · From: Spicewood TX 78669

Scotty
First, my friend, congratulations on possibly the best ISGC I've attended. Each year I see more and more work going into the production of this event. Wonderful.

As to the Steelradio complaints, I'd like to offer that a complaint is simply that: a complaint, not a MANDATE. Complaints have to be judged on their own merit as well as the overall scope of the project. There will always be a few who will complain because, rather than see and appreciate the benefits they do get, they look at what they feel they're NOT getting.

Specifically, I heard the complaint that performances were interrupted by the announcers doing other on-air type stuff. So someone complains because they only heard 15 minutes of Tommy White? While sitting at home on their butts in front of the computer? While other fans spent thousands of dollars to attend the event? They're incredibly fortunate that they got to hear ANY of Tommy White!

I didn't get to hear much of the radio broadcast because I was experiencing the event first hand. I didn't just listen to the guys onstage; I went around to booths, saw new products and talked to distributors, talked with other players, saw old friends, etc. That is as much of the experience of the ISGC as is the performances, IMHO. From what I saw going on with the announcers, and what I was told was broadcast, the show was a fairly good cross-section of what someone attending the event might experience.

The big thing for me is that the broadcast was free. If someone is paying for complete performances, he should receive complete performances. But otherwise... not necessarily. It's up to the producer of the broadcast to make those decisions.

I hope you don't think me presumptuous, but I urge Choice #2.

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Herb's Steel Guitar Pages
Texas Steel Guitar Association

[This message was edited by Herb Steiner on 24 September 2002 at 10:59 AM.]

Dennis Detweiler · From: Solon, Iowa, US

I'll won't quit coming to the convention because of the hotel's lack of organization. If the desk workers could be linked to OSB or they all came down with Hep C and Small Pox, I'd still be there...with a charcoal filtered mask.
The manager said the records have me down for one room. He's wrong again. I had 3 rooms with 3 confirmation numbers. One room in my name, one in my dad's name and one in my brother in law's name. All 3 rooms were held with my credit card. He's seeing only my name on one room in his records. I replied with the 3 confirmation numbers (one for each room) and they said the records show only two? It's still confusing. So....I don't know what they did? As it turned out, I only needed two rooms and cancelled the 3rd two days prior to the convention. Doesn't matter at this point. Maybe I'll get lucky and book it with a brighter bulb at the reservation desk next time.

Best way to combat slow restraunt service and the high cost is to tote a cooler. Warm a burger under your arm, etc.
We'll hang in there with you Scotty. You started this convention...so, see what kind of mess you got yourself into now??

Dennis

[This message was edited by Dennis Detweiler on 24 September 2002 at 11:28 AM.]

Joey Ace · From: Hamilton, Ontario, Canada

Thanks for your efforts Scotty!

I enjoy the ISGC very much.

I'm moving this to "Event and Announcements".

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