OK, I admit, I’m using a shameless ‘Game of Thrones’ reference to get your attention and I’m jumping on the GOT zeitgeist bandwagon by citing their catch-phrase “Winter Is Coming.”
But the winter I refer to is not one of impending doom or (Spoiler Alert) Crumbling Ice-Walls, Ice-Zombies and blue-fire breathing Ice-Dragons. I’m referring here to the number one question asked by conference delegates to event organisers, usually around Morning Tea time of Day 1.
“It’s freezing in here……can we turn the air-con down a little”?
I’d hazard a guess that this one specific question gets asked in pretty much every hotel ballroom in every conference all over the country, all year round. For reasons unknown to me (and to be fair there may be an engineering reason or mechanical explanation that I am unaware of) the air conditioning at the start of a conference always seems to be turned up way too high.
Is it a hidden technique to ensure people don’t doze off during a dull presentation? Does a frosty room subliminally force us to pay attention? Surely it can’t be a cost saving device if the cost of my home electricity bill after a hot summer is anything to go by? Is it genuinely so hard to judge how high or low the room temperature should be?
I know not Jon Snow. Sorry, that was another GGOTR, (Gratuitous Game of Thrones Reference).
Surely hotel banquet managers or conference staff or the hotel engineering manager or the local Daikin air-con dudes know the correct, most comfortable climate control room temperature settings for standard numbers of delegate attendances?
It makes no difference whether it’s a Darwin conference where outside the temperature is pushing 30 or a chilly Hobart conference. The inside room temp never seems quite right. I was working at a conference in the USA last month and they had exactly the same issue, so it’s clearly not an Aussie thing.
To be fair, most conferences get it right by the middle of Day 1, by which time delegates have already thawed off out in the sun over Morning Tea or trotted back to their hotel rooms to grab a jacket…..a jacket they then have to remove in the next session, when the ballroom room temp becomes way too hot and stuffy!!
Yes I know, first world problem. But what’s the solution? No idea, but I’d love someone in the know to enlighten me. Until then, if you’re heading off soon to the Gold Coast, Cairns, Hamilton Island or Alice Springs for a conference, pack your fur coat, even though Summer Is Coming.
