Dear Faithful Rocky Mountain Roundup Exhibitors and Participants:
These past few years has been challenging and taxing for all of us as we continue to navigate the obstacles that we have faced in producing a world-class event for you here in the Rocky Mountain West.
So we, here at the Wild West Cat Fanciers, do our best to meet those challenges as best we can and roll with the punches as we get them. This year seems to have been extra challenging for us.
What we did not anticipate is a series of events in our planning that would zero in on us from a completely unexpected place. Let us elaborate.
Last Summer (2021), we secured a new venue for our “all-in-one” show at the Hilton Salt Lake City Center, a perfect alternative to our previous hotel space that was closed and sold by the Red Lion Hotel chain due to COVID. Hotel room space in Salt Lake City has been a source of grief for the city and state and event space is even more scare. The Hilton was very excited to have our event at their hotel and we were relieved that everything was going smoothly…so we thought.
Every June, the State of Utah along with the American College Testing Board holds a NON-PUBLIC month-long testing and evaluation conference that takes up many rooms in the downtown area for the month. Having foreknowledge of this event from years past, we had specifically asked the Hilton if they were affected by this conference and were told “NO” they did not participate in that event. So we were good to go. Again…so we thought.
In January of this year, the Hilton hired a new sales manager and the sales contact person that was assigned to our event announced that she was taking a new position at a different property and that we would be reassigned to this new staff at the hotel. What we were not made aware of during this transition was that this Testing Conference was in desperate need of additional rooms in the downtown Salt Lake area and had approached the Hilton to secure the remaining rooms at the property without offering us a “heads-up” in case we needed any additional space or to confirm that our event was booked correctly.
In the midst of their personnel changes at the beginning of the year and with the Testing Conference pressuring the Hotel to get the rooms they needed, we were not made aware of this until some of our exhibitors tried booking their rooms for our June show and were being informed that the hotel was “sold out.” After we were made aware of this issue, we contacted the Sales staff and only then were we informed of the deal they made with the other event and it became quickly evident that our event had become “hamstrung,” making it impossible to make any adjustments to what was already negotiated and also restricting the hotel from adding additional block space for our exhibitors.
This gave us an ultimatum: either cancel the show entirely, or find another date to work with the hotel to get our event off the ground and protect some of the funds that we have already invested in putting on the show for 2022.
So Now What…?
To that end, the 2022 Rocky Mountain Roundup show is officially being rescheduled for October 29-30, 2022, with room blocks available from October 28 through the 31st of October set aside for those who wish to add time to their visit here in Salt Lake City. The hotel has agree to honor our already negotiated room rate of $129.00/night, and a one-time pet cleaning deposit of $25.00 for the entire stay booked with the hotel, and complimentary overnight parking in the hotel’s parking structure.
If you have already entered this year’s show, you have two options:
- Opt-In and keep your entry in the show, which we will keep on file for the new date. All entries that we’ve received up to this point will remain eligible for the Hotel Room Sweepstakes, and further details on the entry deadlines will be forthcoming.
- Opt-out of the show for this year and the Wild West Cat Fanciers will process a full refund of all the entry fees and miscellaneous fees paid to the club for the event.
Please let us know which option you prefer, and of course, we hope that this change will not be too burdensome and might even be a good thing for all parties involved.
FOR NOW, further entries into the Rocky Mountain Roundup are PAUSED until we have everything back in place for the new date. We will make announcements everywhere once everything has been finalized with the Hotel.
Thank you for your patience and understanding while we work through this hiccup and we still look forward to seeing you all in Salt Lake City this Fall!
In friendship,
Tristan Anderson, President