DEDICATED TO YOU - TRIBUTE TO A MUSIC LEGEND
The date for the "Dedicated to You" Tribute to Brenton Wood is being moved and NOT CANCELED, as is being reported to our customers and supporters by the DoubleTree By Hilton Hotel Thornton. As a practice, we don't cancel events once we commit them to the community except under circumstances that we can't do anything about. That has always been, and will remain, La Familia's commitment to our community and our supporters. We just don't do that.
As many know, we have been doing these kinds of events at Greystone Castle for more than 20 years, whether it has been a Radisson, a Marriott, or a Hilton property. In reality, Denver Chicanos have been a mainstay support for Greystone through name transitions and more hotel management teams than I can remember. Over the years, there have been some great highs for our people, but also some lows. Regardless, through it all, our Gente have supported both our events and the hotel with your business.
Regretfully, based on the feedback from our support base, even though we have not cancelled the "Dedicated To You" event, we were required to move the date to make adjustments and bring resolution to your concerns. To that end, while seeking to resolve issues impacting the level of service and the treatment our guests have received by the hotel during recent events, I no longer see where our community is valued by the hotel enough, under the present management structure, for us to ask our supporters to support the hotel or events there as they have shown no interest in doing the housekeeping that needs to happen to demonstrate that our people's years of patronage holds any value to them.
In all of those years of producing events at Greystone, we have rarely ever failed to fill the castle ballroom to capacity. Accordingly, the hotel room and bar business history readily allowed for La Familia and the hotel to project and prepare for our events. Yet, leading up to and including last New Year's Eve, we were still running out of the most in-demand beer products, with our guests waiting up to 45 minutes to get a drink while management had to make runs to local liquor stores to replenish stock. With the knowledge that came from our past event history, it came down to a decision to value our customers enough to prepare properly for what we knew was coming or provide poor service. The last two events there told the story of the hotel's regard for that. In addition to the poor service, when waiting customers complained about the wait, they were treated rudely and with disrespect and open hostility by the hotel's General Manager at our last New Year's event, even after the price of drinks was raised by the hotel midway through the event. I had never seen anyone do that before.
I have personally taken your calls and heard from many of you in no uncertain terms regarding recent event problems, and specifically the last New Year’s Eve event at Greystone. In a recent meeting with the new General Manager and the hotel owners, I put all of this on the table and made them aware of the feedback I was getting. In that meeting, I did offer them an opportunity to begin to make these things right, once and for all. At first, they agreed and then later reneged on the agreement and made it clear that they hold no value, beyond profit, for the business that our customers and supporters bring them. This happened a few years ago, but I thought we were beyond that.
Having said that, La Familia is moving on to venues where Chicanos are treated with the respect that they deserve and where our gente are valued and appreciated for their business. We are a proud people and a formidable business market, and not just an ATM or undeserving of being treated with respect and regarded decently. La Familia will not put our gente in that position, so we move on.
Accordingly, the "Dedicated to You" Brenton Wood tribute show will become part of a much bigger outdoor all-day, into-the-night, festival event called the "5280 Swap Meet" at Heritage Lakewood on September 27th. More to come on that and we thank you for your years of support and understanding.
Also check out other Meetups in Lakewood, Festivals in Lakewood.
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