Meeting Room Condition
by Steve Stewart

In 1990, my client had booked a ballroom at a Radisson Hotel large enough to hold 200 to 250 people. But three or four weeks prior to the event, they already had reservations from almost 500 would be attending.

The hotel could not accommodate the increase in the ballroom, but said they were renting one of those very large tents like they use at revivals and wedding receptions, which would accommodate up to 525 people, and put it in the parking lot behind the hotel. Good idea; what could go wrong? I’d seen Elmer Gantry and worked on my Burt Lancaster impersonation.

But it did go wrong, sort of. First, it turned out to be an unusually hot morning for October in Southern California; 105 degrees under the tent even with several large fans working full time. Second, all 525 people sat down, another 75 stood up, and 200 more were turned away for lack of room. It was terribly hot, sweltering, but they stayed. I decided that if they saw me being comfortable in any way, they would be annoyed, so I let the sweat flow turning my light blue shirt into a dripping wet, dark blue dishrag and wiping my brow on handkerchiefs, tissues, handouts… and once the wall of the tent. Watching the speaker flirt with a heat stroke was all part of the entertainment. But like I say, they stayed to the end.