SXSW 2009

Airplane Charter

The desire would be to charter a plane from SFO --> AUS next year, most likely on Thursday. To gauge interest and serve as a repository of ideas for this charter, this wiki has been created.

At the very least, if there's not enough people for a full plane, we can negotiate group airfare rates beyond what SXSW has negotiated for a large group of people.

It's been suggested that this charter be one way and people need to return at different times, opinions on that can be put in the interested column, 

Costs

A rough estimate from Virgin Charter is that a 737 will cost around $78,000 - $110,000 for a round trip, and can seat 178 people. That puts the cost per person around $440 - $620. If we can get a number of sponsors, we can lower the cost considerably.

Other possibilities would be to charter a 757 or 767, which could hold over 200 passengers, but are generally older planes and not quite as nice. Matthew Levine is working on getting more specific estimates for each of these possibilities. 

UPDATE: Our first estimate from Virgin Charter is in. The plane in question is an Airbus A320 which seats 150, costs $154,000 for the round trip, plus 7.5% taxes & fees. This is considerably more than the initial quote, likely due to rising fuel costs. I'm hoping to get additional quotes by the end of the month. (To be safe we should estimate this as $200K.

UPDATE: Called Virgin Charter on 8/13 and spoke with Krista. She'll get back with quotes from other operators.

Next Steps

Carla and Matthew to meet and determine pricing and packages for sponsors.

Need to get some sort of bank account for the project?

Interested?

1. Carla/urban_mermaid

2. Matthew Levine

Companies

https://www.virgincharter.com/

Sponsors

We're looking for sponsors to either (a) add to the experience or (b) help bring the cost down (or both).

Ideas for the plane

1. Open bar

2. Clown

3. Magician

4. Rocky & Bullwinkle as entertainment

5. Desire for on-board wifi expressed

Notes

1. It has been noted that to secure the future of teh Internets, we should be limit the number of people from any given company on the plane.

2. We will make a go/no go decision by January to ensure that people can still buy regular plane tickets in the event we can't get enough passengers.

3. We are still determining whether or not we want a 1-way plane, or if we will provide a round trip experience. If so, there will be two departure dates, one at the close of interactive, and one at the close of music.