You’ve heard of Rachel Ray’s $40/day? The key to what makes that work is having a budget ahead of time and sticking to it. I’m not suggesting that you can do NCECA on $40/day, but you can take some time in advance to plan your expenses and know where you are spending your money. I’m including a spreadsheet of some average costs for attending the conference. You can tighten the purse strings in some areas and loosen them in others as is appropriate. I’m also including some good tips to cut costs so you can ensure
• Register now! Early bird rates end on January 21st.
• Set up airport transportation using SuperShuttle and save a bundle over taxi costs. Book online or by calling 1-800-BLUEVAN. Discount code 3CZT9
• Maintain your NCECA membership and save up to $65! (it’s actually cheaper to buy a membership and then buy the conference pass, considering you also get the NCECA Journal for free!)
• Share a hotel room! Visit our new bulletin board to find a roomie! In a room with 4 people, each will only pay about $40 per night. If you split it between 6 people and rotate who has to sleep on the floor, You’re looking at a little over $25/night.
• Road trip with a friend and split the gas costs. Don’t have any friends? make some new ones on our new bulletin board….
• Join a bus tour to see all the galleries. Hop on/Hop off shuttles to nearby areas are only $25. Longer excursions that include lunch will be about $60, and all of these trips include top notch exhibitions that you won’t want to miss. Registration for these opens soon, stay tuned for details, but don’t delay! The excursions can fill up quickly, and prices for all tours are higher onsite!
• Go Grocery Shopping! Bring your own breakfast – granola bars, apples, and other snacks travel fine in your suitcase, or you can usually find a grocery store or convenience store close to the convention center. It’ll save you quite a bit, just on the absence of your breakfast bill! (there’s also a nearby liquor store, if you prefer to skip the high drink prices in the hotel bar)
Got some great tips of your own you want to share? Post ’em here!
We just reserved a room at the Seville Plaza/Best Western, Thursday night @ 93 bucks, Friday night for $97 (plus taxes… came to about $222 for a two queen-bed room) which is just a couple of blocks from Nelson-Atkins, KCAI, on Main Street. They do a comp breakfast, there’s a health food store on the block, liquor store across the street. We’ve stayed there several times over the last years, nice place, easy to get to and drive around looking for galleries.
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