Hotel
Convivial 3 will be held at the Holiday Inn Select in Bloomington, Minnesota. It’s located between the Mall of America and the Minneapolis/St. Paul International Airport along the light rail line.
Some of you may already be familiar with this hotel as it was home to Convivial 1 and Convivial 2; the Holiday Inn Select is also currently home to both Marscon and Diversicon; Fourth Street Fantasy Convention and AppleCon were also both held there and CONsume has been held there in the past.
Amenities
You can read all about the pool, fitness center, internet access, etc. on the Amenities page.
Convention Space
The convention will take place on the 13th floor (a.k.a. the Concierge floor), with the consuite located in the “Presidential suite” and the “Concierge suite” across the hall– they’re both spacious suites. We’ll also have two of the “Murphy Bed suites” on that same floor; we intend to have gaming in one of them (the one closest to the consuite) and we’ll have programming in the other.
Consuite = Presidential Suite (1321)
Overflow Consuite = Concierge Suite (1332)
Programming Room = 1340
Gaming Room = 1318
Room Reservation Info
Rooms are available for $99/night for folks who want to stay at the hotel. Smoking rooms are available on the 12th floor (just one short floor down from the convention) for the same rate. The suites are very nifty and will run you $124/night; they have a sitting room with microwave, mini fridge, desk, and second TV. There are a limited number of these available, but the ones that exist on our floor are right next to the consuite so we’d love for people to use them.
The deadline for room reservations is Thursday, September 25th, 2008. We recommend booking your room early as the hotel has sold out in the past.
Reservations may be made by calling the hotel directly at 952-854-9000 or toll-free at 1-800-465-4329. Be sure to mention you’re with the “Convivial Conference“. We are not sure at this time if you can reserve rooms in our block via the website so we recommend you call to make your reservation. You should to be able to get our rate/block for Thursday (the 16th), Friday (the 17th), Saturday (the 18th), and/or Sunday (the 19th).
You can register online for the hotel’s preferred customer program.
If you have any questions or run into any problems, please get in touch with us.
Parking
There is a free parking ramp adjacent to the hotel. Most vehicles should fit into it unless they’re high profile. You should park in the hotel section of the ramp, we recommend parking on the top level as the door up there leads right into the hotel. If you’re staying at the hotel, you’ll probably want to temporarily park near the front door to check-in and unload. There’s more information about parking on the directions page.
Directions
Please check out the directions page for driving directions to the hotel.
Getting There by Bus and/or Light Rail
The hotel is 3 blocks from a light rail stop (Bloomington Central Station on the Hiawatha Line) . Free shuttles run regularly between the hotel and the airport; and between the hotel and the Mall of America (more details on the amenities page). There are light rail stops at both the airport and Mall of America.
