Sparr's DragonCon Secrets

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

This is a list of all the tricks, secrets, and shortcuts that I use to navigate the convention more quickly and effectively or otherwise enjoy the convention more. When I am doing crowd control or event planning, I'll often direct people to use specific tips from this list, but I've never put them all together in one place. Some of them are more "secret" than others, but none of them are against any rules to use.

Hyatt:

The underground parts of the Hyatt comprise two "towers" just like the aboveground hotel parts. If you go down from the lobby you'll encounter the large ballrooms. If you go down from the international tower, you'll encounter smaller rooms. At the bottom, the two sides connect. If you are in Hanover and need to get to Embassy, you don't have to go up, up, over, down, down. You can go down, over, up instead.

Between the Marriott skywalk and the convenience store, there are bathrooms and a stairwell. That stairwell goes up to the con suite on the second floor (and up farther, of course), and down to the Centennial ballroom area. In reverse, if you stand outside Centennial and look at the escalators, on your left there is a small nook containing three doors, one of which is a stairwell that goes up and skips the escalator crowd.

There is a skywalk on the 22nd floor of the International tower that goes to the main tower. If you have a room in the main tower on the 20th or 21st floor, consider going up the International tower elevators, across the skywalk, and down the stairs, rather than going up the main tower elevators. Unfortunately you cannot reverse this route, because the main tower stairwells do not allow access to the 22nd floor. If you're lucky enough to have a 22nd floor room, take advantage of this in both directions.

Marriott:

When the Marquis towers (the buildings you walk through between the Marriott Atrium and the Hyatt and food court skywalks) are open, there are nice quiet pretty places to relax available if you go down the stairs/escalators inside the towers.

There is a less popular food court attached to the other Marquis Tower. If you head from the Atrium toward the Hyatt skywalk, it will be on your right (through another small lobby and across another skywalk). It is only open on weekdays, unfortunately.

The pool is open during con to Marriott guests. It has indoor and outdoor sections and has a steel bottom, which is very cool. It also has a hot tub.

Hilton:

At the rear of the first floor there are two large outdoor concrete areas, one side with some plants. These are good gathering places for large groups of people, if weather permits.

There is an outdoor running track around the basketball courts on the 4th floor with a decent low skyline view of north/west Atlanta.

The first floor has an exit near the FedEx office that leads in the direction of the Sheraton.

There are small open lounge areas on floors 5, 12, and 19, similar to the 10th floor in the Marriott but much smaller and less frequented.

Sheraton:

There is a not-indoor skywalk from the food court to the parking garage between the Hilton and the Sheraton. Going that way and down the elevators in the garage is much faster than walking through the Marriott and Hilton, and a bit faster than walking at street level and dealing with crosswalks.

If you approach the pool from the lobby and turn right down the guest room hall, then turn right at the end, you'll find a hallway that goes to the back side of the meeting rooms and a staircase that goes down to the ballrooms. This can avoid large crowds at the choke points outside those rooms.


I'll probably eventually write an addendum to this covering MARTA, Peachtree Center, CVS, and other downtown stuff, but this covers the most important stuff. Feel free to comment with additions, or ask questions about how/when any of these work.

PS: If you've read this far, here are some "tricks" that don't work:
Holding "door close" and your floor button does not get you an express elevator in any of the host hotels.
Pressing both elevator buttons does not speed up the elevators. Instead, it makes the whole elevator system slower.
There are no attendee-accessible paths between the two underground portions of the Hyatt except those outlined above.

Comments

[phantomminuet.livejournal.com]

Holding "door close" and your floor button does not get you an express elevator in any of the host hotels.

Maybe not, but pushing and holding "door close" and the 6th floor button at the same time does work in the Westin, if you're going down. I saw someone else do it early in the con, and I did it, myself, on Monday. As a result, I was, briefly, a hero to an elevator full of people.

[the-wasuremono.livejournal.com]

Holding "door close" and your floor button does not get you an express elevator in any of the host hotels.

It worked in the Hyatt all weekend, sometimes when you also held your floor's number and sometimes without

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Do you realize how silly making a statement like this with "sometimes" in it sounds?

[lhogyn.livejournal.com]

i can vouch for this...we did it too! LOL

[andrew norton (from livejournal.com)]

The biggest thing I have to say is 'be fluid'
Saturday 2:20pm I'm in Conops (thats LL2 in the Hyatt, near the art show) and I had to get to the Hilton, Second floor. Despite the crowds, it took me 41/2 minutes THROUGH the hotels.

Be quick, focus on your travel. If you're staring around, you will go slower and walk into things. Don't be afraid to move into and through gaps. Moreso if you're one person moving quickly, but the aim is making progress.
As Sparr said, make use of stairs where possible.
Expect badge checks. I never put mine around my neck (used to be a safety guy, and having something that can get caught and drag your head is not a good thing. I have my (staff) lanyard looped around itself on a beltloop. That way I can slip it in a pocket when I don't need it (saves it getting ripped off). When a badgecheck comes, I just reach in and pull it out, the motion draws their eye, and makes it quicker to approve.
Most people don't mind you squeezing past them (or darting past) as long as you're polite, and don't knock them, or slow them down.

DO NO STOP TO TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS.

And above all, know where you're going before you start moving. If you get uncertain, move out of the traffic flow to consult a map or ask someone.

[mhaithaca.livejournal.com]

I wish more people got that pushing both up and down buttons to call the elevator slowed everything down.

Fine, if you want to get on the elevator going the wrong way when it happens to open, that doesn't harm much. But pushing that second button just means the elevator is going to have to stop again for no good reason.

[ximinez]

Assuming it actually stops going the other way. At one point on Friday (?), my wife and I waited for over 20 minutes with only down pressed, and watched the same elevators go up more than once with no corresponding down stop in between. Obviously, they were to full to stop going down, but that led quickly to the idea of hitting both buttons to get something to stop.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

It will stop. It can't not. No matter how long it takes, if the button is lit up an elevator will eventually stop. If you aren't there any more then it stopped for no reason.

If OTHER people didn't press both buttons then YOUR elevator would have arrived sooner. See how that works?

[ximinez]

Now we get into a question of cost vs. benefit. Yes, the elevator will eventually stop, but what is a reasonable time to wait? 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour? I'm not exaggerating when I said that we had been waiting 20 minutes, and there was another guy who had been waiting for quite a while before we got there.

In this specific case, I'm pretty sure the delays were not caused by extra presses on the buttons. The elevators were moving plenty fast, but they were bypassing my floor (going down), presumably because they were too full. Since the normal elevator rules were being broken, I have no qualms about breaking some of the rules on my end, too.

Maybe the elevators function differently in the Hilton, but what I was seeing is that under some circumstances, they can not stop.

[ickletarakins.livejournal.com]

^^^^^^^
thank you for saying this. I knew I liked you. :D

[acciochocolate.livejournal.com]

The back stairs of the Hilton are used a lot for costume photoshoots--if one is not in the photoshoot, one will be asked to move.

As for the elevators, don't try to stop the doors with your hands--this can cause the elevator to mis-function, esp. in the Hilton. The Hilton elevators have two sets of doors, an inner set and an outer set. If someone interferes with the outer set, in a mis-guided attempt to get on, the outer doors will still close, but the inner ones will not. I know this because my bf was trapped in an elevator for over an hour on Sunday because someone did this. The Hilton staff did not rescue the people trapped, btw, although they were trying. Someone in the elevator pushed a lever at the top of the doors, and the inner doors finally closed. Someone then hit the doors open button, and everyone exited on the same floor, as the elevator had not moved, of course.

Frankly, one is much better off not using the skywalks between the 3 main hotels during peak times, but instead walking on the sidewalks around the hotels.

As for the food court in the Sun Trust building, that is already listed in one of my two sets of tips for D*C attendees here:

http://dragoncon.livejournal.com/2499527.html

Scroll down to #26.

I post this list each year with updated info. :)

The other tip list is here:

http://dragoncon.livejournal.com/2430029.html

It is also updated each year.

They can always be found by searching the "first timer" tag, although the tips are good for all. :)

[arasirsul.livejournal.com]

To expand on a few things:

There is a less popular food court attached to the other Marquis Tower. If you head from the Atrium toward the Hyatt skywalk, it will be on your right (through another small lobby and across another skywalk). It is only open on weekdays, unfortunately.

And not particularly late, at that-- I'm not sure when they close, but if lunch is at 3PM on Friday, you're heading over to Peachtree Center.

There are small open lounge areas on floors 5, 12, and 19, similar to the 10th floor in the Marriott but much smaller and less frequented.

"Less frequented" is questionable these days, at least on the 5th floor-- it's become something of an open secret. At least after-hours, there were generally a large number of people sprawled out on the lounge furniture. I found this trip that a couple dozen of your closest friends repeatedly bellowing out "So say we all!" in unison causes men with badges to show up and clear those lounges, as well, so beware of BSG fans bearing booze. :)

Also of note:

Most of the stairwells in the Marriott are useful, as well, but note that the one behind the Pulse Loft doesn't have exits on all floors-- it skips the Liquor Level, going directly from the Alcohol level to the Moonshine level. (What, you mean AL, LL, and ML mean something else?) If you enter the Westin from Peachtree street and are headed to the big panel room (Peachtree A-F, IIRC), you can save some walking to the far end of the hall to the escalator and back using the staircase to the right before you get to the elevator, but beware that you may get stuck waiting for the line for that panel to hike back up the stairs when they're let in; they appear to be staging lines on the 7th floor.

[charismaryllis.livejournal.com]

a note on using the interior stairwells: when you are coming out of one, open the door *slowly*: there may be someone posing for a photo on the other side of it and you don't want to clobber them. (you will likely end up *in* the photo and then have to apologize, but them's the breaks.)

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

Sorry, zero sympathy for people who stand in front of doors, especially exit doors. When I'm working (tech ops), I will regularly hit those doors at a run. Anyone on the other side gets a shouted apology while I continue through without stopping.

[raidingparty.livejournal.com]

" so beware of BSG fans bearing booze. :)"
Beware the gifts of geeks? :D

[encarmencita.livejournal.com]

BSGers are the best drunks around! I get treated more warmly and respectfully by inebriated BSG fans than sober almost everybody else. Not that I'm mistreated by other fandoms, just that even when they are spifflicated they still manage to outshine others. :)

[myras-girls.livejournal.com]

I may kick myself later for posting this but there's a walkway that is rarely used that offers quite convenient travel from the Hilton to the food court. Go into the parking garage on Courtland Street and take the elevator to the 7th floor. There's a walkway that leads to the food court. The walkway is the orange line between the parking garage and Harris Tower/Peachtree Center (http://www.atlantadowntown.com/map/227-courtland-street). It leads directly into the food court and bypasses all the street traffic.

[sparr0.livejournal.com]

That's the same skywalk that I mention leading from the food court toward the Sheraton :)

[ceredonia.livejournal.com]

SECRET TUNNELLLLLL

[alladinsane.livejournal.com]

Many many D*Cs ago I once traversed that tunnel one evening....coming down from the opposite end was none other than Danger Woman(she was Ms. Marvel back then)...her voice echoed thru the tunnel the entire walk which made for an interesting experience...

[songbirdsews.livejournal.com]

The Sheraton also has its own deli on the 3rd floor. It's in the same area as the restaurant. It's pricey (7.50 for a sub this year), but the food is edible and it's a quiet place to sit. If I remember correctly, there's also a staircase that goes down/up from the 3rd floor to the 2nd and 1st from that area. That part I could be mis-remembering.

[lapis-lazuli615.livejournal.com]

You are correct on the stairwell. :)

[lurkrealclose.livejournal.com]

I second the Sheraton Deli. It is pricey, but there are places to sit down quietly, which is worth it, in my opinion.

[lapis-lazuli615.livejournal.com]

May I point out that while yes, the Hilton "roof" area has been getting used for photo ops, I do not believe this is the best place for it!
I realize that it's got good positioning being out of the way as it is - and with the stairs and all it makes posing much easier for large groups.

HOWEVER

This is also the emergency exit area for the bajillions of people in the Walk of Fame. Personally, when I step out the exit doors and see both stairwells covered in superheros, I don't think "cool". I think "dear god, I hope no one starts a fire or we're ALL gonna die!" Especially when the photo-oppers seem to think that they OWN those stairwells.

Also, when someone tries to tell you to close the damn door (because a) it's hot in there and they had to bring in extra A/C to keep us from frying and b) you're opening a door in an area that makes the very act a security risk), being an asshole about it isn't going to get your passed out friend help any sooner. It might be better to say "hey, great, someone who can help! we have a medical emergency!" instead of snarling at the person asking you to close the door.

[ydnic.livejournal.com]

There is a not-indoor skywalk from the food court to the parking garage between the Hilton and the Sheraton...

I do wish I hadn't forgotten about that one this weekend. :P Good list!

[adolla.livejournal.com]

If you want to by-pass the front door to the Westin you can go down Andrew Young International Blvd and enter the ramp on the side. It goes into level 5, though if it's after 10pm you'll need a room key or wait for someone coming out.

There's a little bar in the Marriott Courtyard called the Carnegie Deli that is absolutely perfect for a steampunky dinner and photo op. Plus they had $3 beers all weekend!

[griffindriver7.livejournal.com]

Ahhh, short cut tips! Due to the huge crowds this year my group had to resort to our old short cuts to get to our panels on time. If your've ever stood in line for a panel for one of the Hyatt's Centinial ballrooms, you'll remember the stair well down the hall that leads past the men's room. Go up these stairs and you pop out in front of the Hyatt facing Peachtree St.. These stairs came in handy in past years due to the over crowding in the Hyatt on Saturday night.

For some reason few people have noticed what my group calls the "book end stair wells" in the Marriott. These allow us to go from the comic book area on the bottom floor to the upper floors. We stood and watched hundreds of attendees come in from the Hilton side and go straight for the bottle neck in front of the escalator. If you turn around, you'll see open doorway in the corner with stairs leading up. There is a matching pair of stairs on the other side. We used them when we were on the upper floor and wanted to go down. We didn't use these as often because if I remember correctly will open out into the drive way area.

Note: We only used them during high traffic time and if we were late for a panel. Other than that, we would use the escalator and just stroll through the Marriott enjoying the con.