Update: I want to personally thank everyone for hearing our call last week and helping out. We managed to cut our total obligation down by 75% and our hotel venue extended our deadline through August 25th, 2015 EoD CST. If you have not booked your accommodations, please consider doing so with our venue.

We'd like to give everyone one last reminder that you should book your accommodations with our venue by Friday, August 21st if you'd like to take advantage of our special hotel room rate. Not only does this ensure that you save (a lot) of money, but it also helps us! We are only 26 room reservations short of fulfilling our obligation. By booking room nights you help us avoid having to pay a penalty for not hitting our room minimum. We're sure we can all agree that we'd rather save the money for our financial aid program next year instead of paying it to the venue, right?

Why should you book your room with our venue?

• It’s convenient! Booking your room at our venue is convenient and you are only an elevator ride away from the conference.

• Our rate is a great deal! Some of us who are flying in early to Austin have been quoted rates of $209, $249, and $299 a night for other hotels because of local sporting events in the Austin area. Our rate of $139 a night is a tremendous savings.

• To lower our conference prices! We have to cover a minimum number of room nights or else we have to pay a penalty. Why do we have a room minimum? We had to guarantee a minimum set of rooms to reserve the venue. While we are doing well financially, we'd rather spend that money on the conference, increase our donation to the DSF, and save some money to help fund DjangoCon US 2016.

We also understand that not everyone is fortunate enough to work for a company who is willing to pay for these costs. We aren't asking you to cancel your AirBNB reservations or put yourself in a bad financial situation.

We are glad that you are attending DjangoCon US and we appreciate your consideration.

See you all in Austin!