Rally Giveaway Feedback

[reiterrocks]

Loved The Rally, Have gone for many years now and learned a lot.
The Giveaway needs to be done another way next year.

I watched many members (including myself) upset because they didn't get a good phone signal in the main ballroom and couldn't participate.
also
Many people didn't have a tweet account and said WTF, it wasn't made clear what they needed. A twitter account and a good phone signal.
also
Batson Guitars told us that we needed to record a video for them in order to be eligible in the giveaway of their guitar, this was not true. I was there for the giveaway and everyone in the main ballroom was eligible (except me, no signal) through twitter.

Please someone look into this for next year.
Needs to be a traditional drawing.

[reiterrocks]

Amazingly
Michael Glaskow himself left me a message asking about this.
I know he is considering this for next year
Very Cool

[peterharper]

I agree, and glad you brought this up. I had the same experience, no signal, couldn't participate. Hoping next year it's just old fashioned raffle tickets

[Russell Landwehr]

A problem with using the raffle tickets is that sometimes Michael has to go through a ton of tickets to get to one held by someone in the room. I was only in the main ballroom for one giveaway, and I remember Michael Laskow reading a ticket number first, then when the ticket holder didn't come forth, he then went to the twitter method. That seemed prtty fair to me.

Do you folks have any suggestions for the giveaways that would not waste TONS of time reading ticket numbers of people NOT in the room?

Russell Landwehr

[reiterrocks]

Maybe give tickets only at each session, during the session, then draw.
This would give a chance to attending members only, or make it so you don't have to be there.

[andygabrys]

I don't have a problem with the Twitter deal actually.

It was noted in the materials that we received in our registration packets, and maybe even in the downloads that you could get before the rally off the TAXI site. I have a Twitter account, but although I rarely use it I was set.

I DO have an issue with the phone reception in the hotel though. The reception on the AT&T LTE network is terrible in most rooms / ballrooms in the hotel. Westin is obviously aware of this and for the low low price of $14.95 per day you can buy wireless access (or if you have a room on the 12 floor in might be "included") in the various ballrooms and in your suite.

So using existing phone data connections without paying for (or being gifted wireless) thins down the pool of available contestants.

As Russell said though - in other years many many numbers were drawn and nobody stood up to claim the prize. That's a total buzzkill and you could feel it in the room.

my 2 cents.

[remmet]

Maybe give tickets only at each session, during the session, then draw.
This would give a chance to attending members only, or make it so you don't have to be there.

The first part of this sounds like a workable solution. Devise a way to give ONE ticket to each attendee as they walk into the ballroom (with a cutoff time prior to beginning the drawing). That should pretty much guarantee the lucky winner(s) being in the room. (And not that anyone would even think of cheating, but maybe require that anyone who leaves the room before the drawing must hand back their ticket. This would prevent people from leaving and returning just to collect more tickets!)

R

[hummingbird]

I just wanted to mention that as someone from out of the States, having a working cellphone that is connected to the internet in LA through some means is not all that easy. Text message, I can manage. Twitter, probably not. I can certainly appreciate that pulling ticket after ticket with no response is also disheartening and annoying (having been there and sat through it in the past). I realize the idea is that you have to have your bum in the chair in the room in order to win. Passing out specific tickets for a one-time draw as people enter is a good idea imo.

[Paulie]

I agree with the idea of giving out tickets before the sessions that have giveaways. It would also be helpful to know which sessions will have giveaways in advance... not sure if that was mentioned in the documentation or not. I lucked out with the Twitter thing, but I have Verizon. The one thing about tickets before each session is that you have to be ready in advance and have different tickets for each session. Blue tickets for the 1pm, yellow tickets for the 2:30pm, etc. It can become a logistical nightmare, something I think Michael would actively try to avoid seeing how immensely busy he is already with this awesome event.

[Casey H]

First, love the giveaways and REALLY appreciate that you do that, Michael!

I didn't care for the Twitter thing either for the reasons mentioned. Here's a simple suggestion: Have everyone drop a business card in a box as they enter. Then draw the winner from the box of business cards. Some business card blanks could be made available for people that didn't bring any.

Happy Holidays to all!

Casey