Seven Days Until Registration Closes!
Registration for Sirens, including registration for the Sirens Shuttle, ends on September 8, and all payments are due no later than September 18, even if this means you have less than the usual 30 days to complete your payment. Any registrations or tickets that are still unpaid on September 18 will be canceled. We will only have a handful of first-come, first-served on-site registrations available–and as we can’t hold them for any particular potential attendee, we strongly recommend registering in advance!

If you can’t make it this year, please consider purchasing a supporting registration. This support helps us present Sirens this year and offer Sirens in future years, and you’ll receive a 2010 program book following the conference. Supporting registrations cost $45; $35 of each supporting registration is a donation to Sirens, and because Narrate Conferences, Inc. is a charitable organization, that amount is eligible for tax deduction in the United States. (The other $10 covers a program book for the donor and our mailing costs.)

On-site registration begins at noon on October 7 in the Mountain View Room. Please stop by for tea, snacks, socializing, and your registration packet. If you’re arriving early for the Sirens Supper, we’ll e-mail you in late September with more information on where to meet.

If you’re arriving for Sirens between noon on October 7 and the hotel’s 4:00 p.m. check-in time, and your room isn’t ready, you are welcome to come to the Mountain View Room and leave your luggage with us. We can’t guarantee its safety, but we can offer a quiet corner to leave your belongings for a time.

Sirens Shuttle and Flight Tracking
If you haven’t added your airline flight numbers to your shuttle reservation, please visit the registration changes page and update your record. This way, we can set up notifications and reminders, and keep an eye out for delayed flights. Also, if you have a shuttle ticket, keep an eye on your inbox: we’ll send rider information in late September.

Meal Information
Registered attendees should have received an e-mail with information about our conference menus, including vegetarian options for each included meal. If you didn’t receive one, or if you need to chat about dietary concerns or request a special plate, please e-mail (help at sirensconference.org). We appreciate hearing from you by September 8; after that, we’ll assume that we’ve collected all the information we need to make arrangements with the hotel catering staff.

Hotel Reservations: Fifteen Days Left
Hotel reservations must be made by September 16 in order to get the Sirens rate–and as a reminder, the Vail Cascade Resort and Spa is a mountain resort with somewhat different reservation policies from other hotels. The last day to modify, change, or cancel your reservation is September 16, 2010. Also, your first night’s stay will be charged to you on September 17, so if you intend to share the room’s costs with others, you may want to plan for this now! There are a few folks looking for roommates on the Sirens message boards.

And, as always, if you have issues completing your reservation or if you have problems booking the Sirens room rate for the room types we’ve asked the hotel to set aside, please e-mail us. We recommend making your reservation as soon as possible, in fact, so that we can assist should any problems arise.

Volunteers Still Needed!
Now is the perfect time to sign up to volunteer at Sirens. At the conference, we always need people to watch over a track of programming for a morning or afternoon, to assist with our author signings program, to help set up and troubleshoot audio-visual equipment, and other easy but important tasks–most of which can be done without missing a minute of the conference! Also, for each shift you work, we’ll provide a light snack. Now that the programming schedule is up, you can review the volunteer schedule and choose a shift or two here.

Some Frequently Asked Questions
We recently put together some updates for this year in terms of our conference space, on-site food options, and so on. You can see that information here on the Sirens LiveJournal.

A few other tips and facts:
You might wish to skim through the Vail and altitude pages on the Sirens website, and we recommend that you keep an eye on the weather widget or use a site like weather.com to help guide your packing–and remember that mountain weather can change very, very quickly. In Colorado, a weather forecast isn’t usually good for more than 12-24 hours anyway, though an extended forecast can give you a general idea of temperature and precipitation. October is a transitional month, so you might have temperatures in the 60s Fahrenheit during the day and freezing temperatures overnight, or a snow flurry in the morning followed by a hot afternoon.

Casual clothes are perfectly appropriate for Sirens. You might see attendees dressed up a bit if they’re presenting, but most will wear jeans, t-shirts, sweaters, and other casual outfits, and layers are always good to deal with changes in temperature, whether in the conference space or outside.

Both casual and fancy wear are welcome at the Faery Lights Ball, but please note that if your ball dress includes wings or other bulky items and you’re shipping them, you should use the address information below, and that you may be subject to a package handling fee (usually $5-10) upon arrival, at the hotel’s discretion. You should time your package to arrive no more than one day before you do, to prevent its being returned. Please also consider how you’ll make a return shipment, as all local shippers are closed on Sunday.

Your Name, Guest
Dates of Arrival and Departure
Vail Cascade Resort and Spa
1300 Westhaven Drive
Vail, CO 81657

Do not put “Sirens” on your package! We are not shipping any items to Vail, and the hotel front desk will refuse packages sent to the conference. Also, typically, hotel staff will attempt to contact a Sirens staff member if a package is labeled “Sirens,” or try to deliver your package to a staff room, and we might not notice it among other conference materials. Thanks for understanding!

Sirens Chat
Our last chat for 2010 will be held in September, and all are welcome to chat about Sirens, books, travel, and other topics.

DATE: Sunday, September 12
TIME: 2:00-4:00 p.m. Eastern/1:00-3:00 p.m. Central/noon-2:00 p.m. Mountain/11 a.m.-1:00 p.m. Pacific
LOCATION: www.sirensconference.org/chat/

You don’t need to download anything or have any special software to participate; the page will turn into a chat room when the chat begins.

Quick Links
The Sirens Website and Tell a Friend
Registration
Travel
Become a Supporter
Read the FAQ

For More Information
Please feel free to contact us at (help at sirensconference.org). We’re happy to answer any questions you might have. You can leave general questions in the comments here as well.

We hope to see you in Vail!