More Traveling... Maybe Not

Just finished booking my flights for a couple of last-minute video shoots in Minneapolis and Salt Lake City on Monday and Tuesday of next week... only to receive a message that our Minneapolis hospital has bailed on our visit.

This despite the fact that all of our video equipment is already on its way to our hotel in Minneapolis. So if we can’t get the hotel to overnight the equipment on to Salt Lake City (at the same time we’re canceling our reservations there, mind you), I may have to travel anyway — despite having no video to shoot there — just so that I can send the equipment onward.

The last time something like this happened (at an aborted shoot in Nashville), it took the hotel a week to send the equipment back. And in that case, it was just a matter of having them “refuse delivery,” so it would be returned to sender; no real effort required on their part. And even after all of that, they screwed up on the return, and we spent days trying to track down where it ended up.

So to say I’m not optimistic would be an understatement.

Add to this the fact that my client now is thinking of shifting things around so that the Salt Lake City shoot is on Monday. Which would be dependent on the equipment already being at the Minneapolis hotel (a possibility, as I sent it yesterday afternoon) and their being willing to overnight it now for an early-Monday delivery. Alternatively, they’re talking about rescheduling for the following Monday and Tuesday, which doesn’t work for me or anyone on my staff.

Keep in mind that all of this is happening on a Friday afternoon. So we’ve got basically two, three hours to figure out what the hell’s going on and finalize all of our changes.

Oh, happy day. Minneapolis in January.

If I do end up having to go, maybe I’ll end up checking out the Mall of America. Or the infamous location for the movie Mallrats.

And otherwise just freezing my ass off for no good reason.

Update: The trip was canceled altogether. So no Minneapolis, no Salt Lake City; the client just felt it wasn’t worth it to visit just one institution. And at least so far, it looks like the Minneapolis hotel will send the equipment back here in time for our Philadelphia shoot next Thursday. They weren’t exactly happy about it (oh, they acted like it wasn’t an inconvenience, but it wasn’t hard to discern the real situation), but they’ve agreed to do it; UPS is on their way over there for a pickup right now. And Travelocity (through whom we had to book the flights, since our in-house reservations system is a piece of shit) offered to void the reservation entirely (since it was less than 24 hours after booking), except for a $5 service charge. So I guess I’m not going anywhere. I’ll deal with the next week option on Monday. Right now, I’m going to go have a drink.