Every convention site the club has had since the first one held at the old Aladdin has had it's detractors. When Michael Knapp and myself served as co-chairs for the club's very first Las Vegas convention ... my Uncle Andy (who was an exectutive at Allstate Insurance) told me at the time that CC & GTCC would never see opening day of the convention at the Aladdin because the place was scheduled to be torn down. Well, Uncle Andy was wrong. The club held several conventions there despite the complaints from the relatively few. The same things were being said about Tropicana ... dirty, old, poor service, gong to be torn down, etc... even though through the involvement of Steve Cutler, the club got the place for free! Then it was off to the Orleans. Folks said they would not stay there because it wasn't located on the Strip.

If the convention were to be held at the Bellagio next year, as an example, I'm sure there would be similar but different outcries over certain issues as well. Does anyone remember when the club was considering having the convention in a huge tent in the parking lot of the Frontier many years ago?

In all probabilility the BOD will be negotiating with the Riv before our 2008 convention is over. Let's see what demands and conditions they put on the table for 2009 before completely dismissing any offer in advance. The club simply can't compete with cheaper Downtown hotel room rates on one hand ... and to have our convention at an upscale property ... the overwhelming majority of convention attendees will say the hotel rooms are too expensive. It's a Catch-22 situation and we're limited to the number of suitable properties that will have us to choose from.