The Atla staff has been discussing Atla Annual quite a bit. We are intensely concerned about the variety of challenges in attending, especially the costs of attending in person. The meeting is so important for the Atla culture in general and the professional development and networking opportunities for members in particular. We want to be sure that we provide both at a reasonable cost, and that is the reason for this blog post.
In 2000, the Atla Annual Conference was held at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Beginning in 2001, the annual conference was held primarily in hotels, and that year it was at the Durham Marriott in Durham, North Carolina. 372 members attended.
For several years prior to 2001, a variety of approaches were taken to host the annual conference, including using the combination of hotel and campus for meetings. From what I understand, it was a variety of factors that led to the annual conference location shifting from primarily a campus venue to a hotel. One was the increasing number of attendees making campus venues challenging for both accommodations, planning, and logistics. Looking ahead to the shift to hotels, the January 2000 board meeting minutes note: “The ATLA staff will handle most of the details with the conference hotel. Increasing the role of the ATLA staff makes it possible for schools which don’t have as many resources to host a Conference.” Even as the meeting shifted to hotels after 2000, local institutions, typically seminaries, continued to be the Conference Hosts, and sometimes provided additional dorm rooms for a less expensive option than lodging at the conference hotels.
The minutes from the June 2001 Board meeting in the Durham Marriott offered these observations: “The conference was a little more leisurely paced than usual, perhaps because it was at a hotel….There should be more opportunities to eat together….The day at Duke was a highlight of the conference.” The contrast is interesting. The hotels were used for sleeping and meeting rooms, but (1) the opportunities for a community to break bread together were missed, and (2) a highlight was the day on campus.
Over two decades ago, the shift was certainly made possible by the increasing attendance, allowing for economies of scale to support a hotel venue while keeping rooming costs down. Hotel contracts for meetings provide deeply reduced or even free meeting rooms, exhibit halls, and ballrooms, when an organization can guarantee two things: a large sleeping room commitment (a Room Block) and a larger order of food and beverage (F & B). Other factors for selecting a meeting location include location, so that members don’t have too many connecting flights. This typically means that bigger and thus more expensive metro areas are chosen. The unfortunate corollary is that hotel rooms in these locations typically cost more. Even a meeting of 350 people does not give an organization much bargaining power.
And things have changed.
- Even before the pandemic, attendance at Atla Annual was declining because institutional support for library staff was declining. Higher ed and theological education have been facing financial challenges for two decades, and library budgets have felt the brunt.
- Technology post-pandemic has made hybrid meetings possible for Atla.
- In 2023, 47% attended Atla Annual virtually for several reasons: lack of institutional support, the demands of professional and personal responsibilities at home, the need for library staff to be on campus to stay open for students, concern about travel’s impact on the environment, health reasons, and the preference to attend online since so much has improved and normalized that experience (similar to online education and remote work).
This has a domino effect. Fewer attending the meeting in person means even less bargaining power to keep room rates low. Airbnb and less expensive hotels near the conference hotel become more attractive, especially if your institution is not supporting your attending a professional conference. Some may prefer staying in places other than the conference hotel for a variety of reasons. However, this means fewer attendees booking rooms in the conference hotel, the Room Block commitment and the F & B order decline, and the organization may face penalties for not meeting its contractual commitments.
A meeting of 123 (the number of in-person registrations in 2023 and one-third of those in 2001) puts Atla in a challenging middle area. We need a hotel with enough sleeping rooms, meeting rooms for four to five concurrent sessions, and a large hall for plenary sessions, lunch, and exhibitors. That is not a common hotel profile. We could reduce the number of concurrent sessions, which widens the hotel options, but that feels like the tail wagging the dog and that would reduce the richness of the programming. Our work is more complex than ever so why reduce the number of sessions?
In the archives, a memo dated August 10, 1998, asks the question: “Does a conference that is held at an inadequate facility, but one that is inexpensive for members, provide the kind of conference experience our members want?” This is not to say that any annual conference on campus was inadequate, but hotels offer simplicity: take the elevator to the meeting, and between sessions take the elevator to freshen up.
There are pros to meeting in a hotel for those attending in person: one location, no long walks, restaurants and bars, and overall good accommodations. And there are pros for Atla staff: fewer moving parts and logistics, and the hotel provides so many services in one place with one agreement. The biggest con to meeting in a hotel are the costs passed directly to members—the hotel room rates.
There are pros to meeting on a campus: communing with fellow members in their environment, in their library, and on their campus. That solidarity and support is powerful, especially in this environment. And lodging costs could be significantly reduced. The biggest cons are that logistics go up, as does the need for ambulation, as well as other inconveniences and challenges.
Is it time to revisit the 1998 question and consider using a campus for meetings and a combination of campus housing and inexpensive nearby hotels? Atla is its members. The staff is here to serve you. What do you think?
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