Planning for ResoSummit 2008

You'll find key information and links on this page to help you plan for your trip to ResoSummit. If you are a confirmed registrant, you should have received an email update with a link to our online survey; let us know if you didn't receive this email (and don't find it in your spam folder.)

We'll be adding to this page regularly, so check back for more details.

Schedule Information

The first "official" event of ResoSummit is the Thursday night performance by Blue Highway at The Station Inn. If you are a ResoSummit participant, your non-transferrable name badge and lanyard serve as your admission ticket to this event, and to all other ResoSummit performances. You may buy advance tickets for your friends & family for these performances for $15 each (using the participant survey).

Thursday dinner: You and your friends/family are welcome to attend an informal "get acquainted" dinner before the Station Inn performance (adv. reservations required, using the participant survey).

On Friday and Saturday, we will have instructional activities from approx. 9am-4pm each day, with some optional additional activities from 4-5pm. Each evening will find us back at The Station Inn for a performance (Grasstowne on Friday; The Randy Kohrs Band on Saturday). Don't miss the Group Photo, to be taken on Friday at 3:30 pm.

On Sunday, instructional activities are from 9am-4:30pm, and ResoSummit 2008 officially closes with a performance by Rob Ickes and special guests Michael Alvey (jazz pianist) and Robinella (vocalist) in Harambee Auditorium (Fondren Hall) from 5:00-6:00pm. We are anticipating some non-ResoSummit events and activities on Sunday night that will be of interest to you, and as soon as we have confirmation of those, we will post them here.

Thursday, Nov. 13:

Note: The Station Inn is less than 2 miles from Scarritt-Bennett (S-B), and we will organize car pools from S-B's Parking Lot A to S-B each evening. If you have a car, please participate by taking some car-less Summiteers with you, who can hold a seat for you in the Station Inn while you find parking.

Friday, Nov. 14:

Saturday, Nov. 15:

Sunday, Nov. 16:

Note: Many ResoSummit participants depart on Monday, since there are limited flights out of Nashville Sunday night. We will offer Monday morning breakfast at S-B if we get the minimum number of reservations required, and we will have after-hours jam space available on Sunday night in Fondren (2nd floor). We will also be posting additional non-ResoSummit events on Sunday night that may be of interest to participants, so check back here for this information as we get closer to the event.

Workshop Scheduling: We will be scheduling workshops in several steps. When you complete your participant survey, you indicate specific workshop topics and instructors you are interested in. We will then assign you to specific workshop sessions, and will will send you a proposed schedule in advance that seeks to meet your interests and priorities, while ensuring that classes are kept to a reasonable size. (We make final scheduling decisions - for example, whether a topic is offered, how often, and at what levels) based on your responses to the survey, and once that is in place, we will post it on this website and make it available in PDF format to all participants.

Meal Options

While at ResoSummit, you have the option to eat meals on-site, or to eat at one of the many restaurants located within a few blocks of our venue, the Scarritt-Bennett Center.

Scarritt-Bennett offers breakfast, lunch and dinner in the beautiful Susie Gray Dining Hall. Last year's attendees typically gave the food fairly low ratings: on a scale of 1-5,with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent, here were last year's ratings from ResoSummit participants: breakfast - 3.5; Lunch - 3.1; Dinner - 2.1. Some people thought the convenience of eating on-site was worthwhile, while others thought the nearby off-site options would be a better choice. The words "overcooked", "institutional" and "basic cafeteria food" cropped up fairly often in the surveys. One person wrote, "As institutional food goes I thought it was palatable," while another wrote, "Some meals were pretty good, some were mediocre at best." We should note that S-B has a different catering company this year than it had last year, and we don't have a solid basis for saying whether or to what extent that change made a difference.

On-site meals must be ordered in advance, because we must turn in a meal count 30 days before our event. We are offering tax-inclusive prices this year to avoid the ridiculous mathematical chore we had last year, so the tax-inclusive prices are: breakfast $9, lunch $11, and dinner $13. Please order meals for yourself and any friends & family members you would like using the participant survey.

Nearby restaurants include: Panera, Subway, a Mediterranean cafe, Breugger's Bagels, Wendy's, San Antonio Taco Shop, Mellow Mushroom (pizza/pasta), Noshville delicatessan, and more. Click on the link below for detailed info about local restaurants, including a link to a "restaurant playlist" and map.

Transportation, Hotel, and Other Frequently Asked Questions

Information on transportation to and from the airport can be found on the ResoSummit 2008 page, as can information about our group rate at the Courtyard by Marriot (reservations deadline 10/13 for group rate), and many other frequently asked questions.

T-Shirt

The ResoSummit t-shirt is available by pre-order only, and is $20 for sizes S-XL (men's sizes), and $21 for XXL. All sizes except XXL are organic cotton. You can order t-shirts using the participant survey, or contact Betty on or before October 17 to order (contact info at left). Click on the image below to see the t-shirt design in a larger format.

Recording Policy

Audio-only recording of instructional workshops will be permitted for your personal use only, subject to these conditions:  1)  workshop faculty have the right to impose a no-recording policy for any given workshop, in their sole discretion;  2)  all recording must be nondisruptive (see below); and 3) recordings are for your personal use only.  You may not distribute copies of your personal recordings to others, or make them available for streaming, downloading, or share them in any other way.  "Nondisruptive" means:  do not ask the instructor to wait or start something over or play something again, or otherwise do anything that  facilitates your recording but affects the flow of the workshop or annoys your fellow workshop participants.  ResoSummit is intended to be a live experience, so please make sure that any audio recording you do is completely consistent with this policy. 

Flying with Your Dobro

Here's some advice on flying with your dobro:

Unless you are flying a regional service (like American Eagle), your dobro should fit into the overhead bin, even in a hardshell case. We recommend carrying your dobro on if possible, especially if you do not have a case designed for flight use (such as a Calton).

Here are tips to make it more likely you can carry your instrument on:

1. Do everything you can to board the plane in the earliest possible group. If you are flying on Southwest, go online and print your boarding pass as close to 24 hours before your flight time as possible, to get into the "A" boarding group. If you're in the "B" boarding group, you'll probably be fine. On other airlines, try to get a seat in the section of the plane that boards first (usually the back of the plane), to avoid boarding after the overhead space is full.

2. Pack your string cutters in your checked luggage, and minimize your other carry-on luggage (a small bag that will fit under the seat in front of you is ideal).

3. We strongly recommend packing your instrument in a way that will allow you to check it if necessary: use a good hardshell case; put some packing material to support the headstock; consider de-tuning slightly (down one step). If you do end up having to check your instrument, do so at the gate, NOT at the curb or at the ticket counter, to lessen the amount of handling.

Click the PDF link, below, for a comprehensive article by the American Symphony Orchestra League on traveling safely with instruments, including information on supportive TSA and airline policies currently in place.

If you do have to check a valuable instrument, the airline's liability is limited to a relatively low amount, in accordance with the airline's announced limit, unless you purchase insurance at the ticket counter for additional coverage (generally in the neighborhood of $50). We strongly urge you to check the limit for the airline you are using in advance of your travel date, and to purchase insurance at the ticket counter if your instrument is worth more than the limit. Plan some extra time at the ticket counter to handle this.

Since much of airline travel depends on the discretion of individual airline employees, we highly recommend courtesy and a calm approach, no matter what happens!