Riverwalk Convention Double-Booking
Double-trouble next week: AAA and AA have both been booked during the same days at the Tommy Lee Jones Memorial Riverwalk Center. Simone Papasito reports.
The San Antonio Riverwalk is the most popular place for people to convene in the whole world. Conveners arrive from all over the country to be dazzled by the sights and sounds of the Riverwalk, while attending meetings and doing things that convening people do.
It’s becoming so popular that the city implemented a $40 million computerized booking system last week based upon Google’s free system, Calendar. But late last week, CVB Director Sandra Miller noticed the double-booking while checking the interwebs on her ‘iPhone’ at Tequila Tom’s Happy Hour. “We immediately set about notifying hotels but apparently they knew about it,” she said.
A Tale Of Two Conventions In One City
The double-booking occurred as a result of a computer error, caused the similarity of the convention names: AAA, the automobile people and AA, the alcoholics. The erroneous extra letter was sent from a router on the Riverwalk to an IP address somewhere in Google’s headquarters in cyberspace, causing the booking to be confirmed. A chainmail was also sent to everyone at the convention, instructing the reader to forward the email to ten friends immediately to receive a $5,000 check from Microsoft… or else. A last minute attempt to contact AA to cancel or reshedule have been thwarted by the lack of last names, and USPS returned over a thousand letters addressed to ‘John’.
But similar though the acronyms are, the organizations have vastly different agendas, and extra staff have been hired at CVB headquarters on the Riverwalk to make sure both groups remain separated. Sandra Miller said, again: “Clearly we don’t want the AA poaching honest AAA members, who are counting on daily happy hour specials. But it would be great if the AA folks could volunteer as designated drivers for the rest of us.”
Riverwalk retailers have been quick to respond to both groups, banning AA members who attempt to buy low-margin food without high-margin liquor. John Connor (no relation to the future leader of the resistance or Sarah Connor) is the assistant manager of Riotous Rick’s bar and explains: “We had the baptists here last year and splitting a check of 15 Diet Coke’s 16 different ways is no fun for anyone. So no, AA members aren’t welcome, unless ‘A quick drink’ has been added as one of the twelve steps.”
The convention center has also offered AA members a free transfer to join AAA instead, adding that while many people live with alcoholism, especially in San Antonio, nobody can survive without a car. An AA organizer known as Rupert (if that’s his real name?) called the CVB a “bunch of clueless rednecks”, on the condition of being quoted anonymously.
