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YAL DC Weekend 2008 Wrap-Up
November 17, 2008
YAL DC Weekend 2008, otherwise known as the second YAL conference hosted in the DC area in less than six months, provided those who attended with a great time in undoubtedly one of the greatest cities to host a YAL conference regardless of how many times one visits. Despite having hosted the National YAL Conference and the economy being what it has been lately, both limiting many out-of-towners’ willingness or ability to return to DC this year, the event still managed to draw a good out-of-town crowd and a decent local response to produce an overall good event. good event. There’s always a certain amount of nervousness anytime YAL DC Weekend’s hotel gets moved to Virginia, but the Key Bridge Marriott was the perfect location. Taking a cab or a Metro into DC for sightseeing or attending the Greek Nights was effortless, and many attendees took advantage of the balmy mid-60s temperatures and simply walked across the Key Bridge into the heart of Georgetown. Even after Greek Night on Friday Night, when Metros weren’t running most everyone was able to find a cab within 10 minutes of Greek Night letting out. ted the National YAL Conference and the economy being what it has been lately, both limiting many out-of-towners’ willingness or ability to return to DC this year, the event still managed to draw a good out-of-town crowd and a decent local response to produce an overall good event. There’s always a certain amount of nervousness anytime YAL DC Weekend’s hotel gets moved to Virginia, but the Key Bridge Marriott was the perfect location. Taking a cab or a Metro into DC for sightseeing or attending the Greek Nights was effortless, and many attendees took advantage of the balmy mid-60s temperatures and simply walked across the Key Bridge into the heart of Georgetown. Even after Greek Night on Friday Night, when Metros weren’t running most everyone was able to find a cab within 10 minutes of Greek Night letting out. The philosophy of YAL DC Weekend however in the last couple of years has been to schedule all of its events away from the hotel. There are certain events, like Greek Night, where it makes sense to have it elsewhere, because a hotel ballroom doesn’t substitute for a club, but even the semi-formal event has benefitted the last couple of years from a change of scenery. Looking at other YAL conferences we’ve been to lately, we’ve noticed that having everyone stay away from the ease of circuiting between a hotel ballroom and one’s hotel room keeps everyone active and engaged in the party for greater periods of time. The lack of an early out of town crowd on Thursday Night led to the strangest phenomena of the entire weekend. Typically the Thursday Night welcome happy hour looks and feels like a traditional happy hour, with the slightly later start time that we’re all used to for the fact that we’re Greek. Usually by 8:00 PM or 8:30 PM, we’ll get a good group of20 to 40 out-of-towners, local YALers, and Third Thursday types at the hotel bar or another location close to the hotel killing time until 10:30 or so when some of the out-of-towers who don’t have work the next morning will decide to venture into downtown DC. This year at the Continental, a slightly upscale pool hall and bar in Rosslyn, the crowd didn’t show up until after 10:00, and this was mostly locals. It was almost like it was being promoted as a Greek Night and not a Happy Hour at all. It was a shame because it was a good venue with a halfway serviceable cover band playing only stumbling distance from the hotel. Friday Night’s Greek Night benefitted from it being in a brand new venue, Muse Nightclub & Lounge, which allowed us to book its entire space a night before its actual grand opening. Many past attendees were surprised to discover that this was actually the same venue as last year’s Friday Night event, when it was formerly known as RnR and how it looked nothing like what it did last year. Having access to the main floor and the other two floors as overflow space made a big difference in the flow of the event, particularly in dance floor space, and the ability to access the bars, which if those who remember last year’s event could recall was hard to do at the same location. The only complaint was the hot temperature on the 1st floor of the club, which was likely due to the club having left the heat on, instead of cranking on the A/C, which was understandable seeing that a few days earlier, the temperatures were probably 20 degrees cooler in DC. The perfect weather on Saturday was ideal for sightseeing in DC and shopping in Georgetown before the 4:00 Happy Hour at McFadden’s at the top of Georgetown. This Saturday afternoon happy hour is a neat tradition at YAL DC Weekend as it may be the only gathering of Greek-American young adults from different parts of the country during college football season. Particularly given our high draw from Big Ten and ACC markets, given the right game, there could be a huge rooting interest for or against a particular team, as was the case watching Penn State drop its first game of the season this year. We were surprised that given the great weather and the late start that some folks had gotten from sleeping off the prior night’s festivities, that we still managed over 80 people throughout the course of happy hour. The highlight of YAL DC Weekend still remains the Saturday Night Semiformal, which this year was moved away from both a hotel ballroom and a church hall to Caribbean Breeze in Arlington. Now a Caribbean restaurant may seem like an odd choice for a Greek event, but what’s not to like about a menu that features meat on its own stick in the form of endless baby lamb chops, meat wrapped in pastry dough in the form of empanadas, spinach in phyllo dough in the form of a traditional spanokopita, and roast beef for those who didn’t want to have to deal with bones or carbs. There was so much great food that we need to start advertising this event as including dinner not just heavy hors d'oeuvres. The layout of the place met everyone’s needs. Those who wanted a seat at the bar could have one. Those who wanted to catch up with old friends at a table inside had plenty of tables to choose from. Those who needed some air or a place to smoke could do so in the outside heated patio, and the dance floor was wide open for everyone else who wanted to enjoy the live Greek music inside. For years YAL DC Weekend has been getting some flack from those in the church who have pointed out that it can’t be considered a real YAL event for the lack of a spiritual element. Although we would argue that Sunday church attendance, particularly as a percentage of total registrants, is higher at this event than some of the other regional YAL events we’ve attended, we decided to throw in a spiritual discussion this year. Given the popularity of the discussion on Dating, Marriage and Interfaith Relationships at this summer’s National YAL Conference, we decided to replicate that discussion over brunch after Sunday morning service at St. Katherine. The problem was that we didn’t have any priests available who weren’t at that same hour tending to the needs of those former YALers who had successfully solved their Dating and Marriage issues and had now moved on to baptizing their children. So the spiritual discussion was led with the help of several disclaimers by The Guys @ DCGreeks.com. Those in the group said it went well, despite the attempt to make it about why The Guys @ DCGreeks.com themselves are still single – a topic, perhaps, for a multi-part series for another day. We’re not sure how the surprisingly large number of out-of-towners who stayed on Sunday spent their day before Greek Night at Ultrabar rolled around. It’s so refreshing though to be able to go to a Greek Night on a Sunday Night and to find parking right across the street from a club that is normally impossible to find parking at within four blocks on a Friday or Saturday Night given its proximity to the ever busy Verizon Center. Even a Greek Night with 100 people in attendance, which is what this event became due to the fact that this Monday of YAL DC Weekend wasn’t the observance of Veterans Day allowing less people to stay out late, can be a great time given the right mix of people and music. In the end it was another successful YAL DC Weekend due mostly in part to the people who continue to support the event year after year and the high numbers of first-timers who come to replace those who have moved on from YAL Events for various reasons. DC continues to be a place with infinite places to go and things to do on a weekend that even those who came during the summer had plenty to do. We hope that next year the pockets of people who couldn’t or didn’t make the trip out here twice return, particularly from places like Colorado, California, and other places on the West Coast that always allowed YAL DC Weekend to be able to boast numbers of having attendees from over two dozen states and Canada in some years. We particularly like to thank those who came both from out-of-town and particularly locally, because the support from those in town for whom sometimes YAL DC Weekend becomes just another DC area Greek event, is very much needed and appreciated. Finally we’d like to thank the other members of this year’s committee, Billy Apostolou, Gabby Sakellarides., and Helen Spanos for their work in pulling off a second YAL conference this year, particularly after the late start involved in hosting the National YAL Conference in July. We all look forward to seeing everyone back in DC next November for YAL DC Weekend 2009.
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