[AMF Organize] 800# service problems

[Stan Osborne]

Hello.

Prior to and during the two past festivals the
spax 800 number service has been provided by
a company in Canada.  It turns out the service
provided by this company is just fine for 
everything but announcing the location of AMF.

The service is designed for people who travel
around the world on business.  It is not designed
to support a large number of calls over a short
time period.

The long descriptions for finding the location cause
people to call back several times while they
write down the directions.  This results in
several calls from each person who is trying to
use the 800# to find out the location.

The location is typically announced late in the 
week prior to the 1st Monday of the festival.
This causes most of the calls to happen on at 
the end of the week or over the weekend.

The service is a pay-in-advance service with
no way to add additional $$$ except on a weekly
cycle, or by calling them on the phone.  Even
when the weekly maximum charnge is increased
we have run out of prepaid credit before the
week is over.  This causes the 800# to stop
working.

The Canadian company provides no telephone support
over the weekend and rarely answeres their phone
during the week.  They want people to leave
messages or use the internet.

The result for the last two years has been the
800# shutting off when it is most needed by
people trying to find the location of AMF.
It shuts off on the Thursday or Friday before
the beginning of the festival and it does not
come back online until Monday or Tuesday.

We need to do something different this year
or this will become the 3rd year in a row
were the 800# temporarily shuts off for several
days just before the start of the festival.

Perhaps the 800# should just tell people to
check the website for directions?  This would
cut down on the repeated calls.  But it won't
stop the service from being shut off once the
prepaid credit is exhausted.

Stan