Hi all --
Does anyone have any experience booking the Rose Barn in North Park for anything - particularly for a Saturday event?? Or know someone who might?? (I'm not wondering about the experience of using it for the wedding as much as I'm wondering if booking it is truly as insane as the woman at the park's office told me it is... she said that to book a building there, you have to show up in person one-year-to-the-date ahead of time -- ok, I can handle that -- but that people sometimes camp out at midnight for the more popular venues a year in advance - the office opens at 8:30am. I could not ever, ever bring myself to do that for the sake of my wedding... and even if I could, my fiance would call this thing off for fear I've gone insane...) I've talked to a lot of people who have BEEN to events there but they're always for school or church events or whatever, and no one seems to know anyone who's actually done the booking. We have an event planner working with us who has us sold on using it, but this booking process sounds nuts to me - I don't know if I could bring myself to think ANY venue was worth doing that.
In lieu of that -- any equally cool, raw spaces in the area anyone's come across? (not including the Union Project... I can't get past the sloped floor, unfortunately, and I'm not convinced we couldn't do better price-wise). We'd LOVE something big enough to hold everyone in case of rain but with an option to spill outside. We're looking for fall 2012 (I should also note that, for various reasons beyond our control -- namely, three teachers from out-of-town in the wedding party who could not possibly get a day off to make it down for a Friday evening wedding - Fridays are out unless it's in the summer... and I reaaaaaaaally don't want to risk a non-AC'd venue on a 95 degree day). I'm not TERRIBLY picky about the 'spilling outside' thing, that's just my ideal. I'm not feeling any of the more inclusive places around -- will be going to see the Mayernick Center Saturday, but I want to do more on our own than they let you do (e.g. I really feel no need for having a bartender, which appears to be required, though I need to figure that out --I've been to big, fun parties before where people were able to manage getting drinks without one.. there's also a $3.25/person drink fee before alcohol that appears mandatory -- and that alone would eat up about 3/4 of what we'd pay for EVERYthing if we did it on our own...). Anyway, I'm just more of a DIYer than many of the places we've looked into thus far allow, so am hoping there may be others with a similar mindset who may have ideas for a 'blank slate' kind of space... Thanks!!
