Hotels+vs.+Host+Families

District 11 - Most, if not all festivals have gone to hotel housing. While this certainly increases festival costs, the feeling is that it reduces and in some cases, eliminates other potential issues with host family housing.

Steve Luxbacher (District 3): Last year, we successfully hosted the first high school band festival with hotel housing. While it was more costly for hotel housing, and some schools opted to commute, we discovered that it is possible in our district. The problems that come from being in a rural area such as ours is that some of our schools would never be able to host if we went to all hotel housing, as many schools do not have hotels within a reasonable distance from the school. However, we are encouraging schools that can host, but may have problems finding host families, to consider this as an option.

Another thing to ponder: If we have one less day of the festival, would more people house?

Glenn R. Cameron (D2):

We only have 4-5 major cities/towns in D2 that can host utilizing hotels... St. Mary's, Warren, Meadville and Erie and the suburban areas surrounding Erie. Which would put a burden on the hosts in those areas to coordinate the events. However going with hotel or housing is a necessity due to our main problem in D2... travel distance. No matter where you host an event... some of the members could travel as much as two hours... some events can take 3-4 hours if you host on the outer edges of the district. So commuting is completely out of the question.

When we hosted in Edinboro... most of the directors had to stay in hotels in Erie because we used the hotel in town to house the District Band students.