Have to laugh. We just received an email at 6:37pm from Tesla inviting us to a weekend social this Sunday up in Half Moon Bay, CA and within a few hours it had already filled up so we couldn't RSVP for it. We did attend one held at the Stanford Shopping Center location a few months back and it too "sold out". Oh well would have loved to have gone to this one even if it was kind of last minute. Just a heads up to anyone who receives an invite to respond asap of receiving it.
-
Want to remove ads? Register an account and login to see fewer ads, and become a Supporting Member to remove almost all ads.
Weekend Socials
- Thread starter SMAlset
- Start date
-
- Tags
- EVents rsvp weekend social
I received that invite during dinner (why I was checking email during dinner anyway?). Quick poll of the family and we decided "yes" (in part because it was somewhere more interesting than a Tesla Store / Service Center), so I RSVP-ed within 20 minutes of receiving it. Sorry you didn't get in!
It'd be great to meet up with other TMC folks attending this thing...if you see somebody who looks like my avatar, come say hi.
Bruce.
I received that invite during dinner (why I was checking email during dinner anyway?). Quick poll of the family and we decided "yes" (in part because it was somewhere more interesting than a Tesla Store / Service Center), so I RSVP-ed within 20 minutes of receiving it. Sorry you didn't get in!
It'd be great to meet up with other TMC folks attending this thing...if you see somebody who looks like my avatar, come say hi.
Bruce.
We should have done the same except hubby was wondering if we should ask our friends who are on the M3 reserve list if they wanted to come and so we didn't respond immediately and waited for hubby to get home to further discuss. I agree the Half Moon Bay event should be a nice location there at the ocean. You'll have to report back on it.
Despite living in the general area I had actually planned on us staying Saturday night on the peninsula and have dinner up that way with friends who live nearby the hotel, relaxing in the hotel that evening, doing the breakfast deal and getting our MS washed at Eco Green Auto Clean before heading to the coast Sunday morning. Best laid plans! It would have been nice to have met you. Hopefully another time. We've been to two events since owning our car and we both have enjoyed going and learned something new each time. Meeting other owners and sharing info and tips is a nice plus too.
Had to settle for driving up to Redwood City to get the car cleaned today. Looks great! Met another Tesla owner while we were all waiting on our cars.
Last edited:
So...my wife, son, and I went to the weekend social event at the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, CA today, from 11AM to 1PM. TL;DR: It was great talking to other Tesla owners, but we were kind of disappointed with the whole experience.
It was well-attended, probably more people than I'd seen at any of the social events I'd been to before (all of those were at stores). I believe the venue had a good part to do with it. It was outdoors, near the golf course. For vehicles, Tesla brought a Model S, a Model X, and a Radio Flyer)), but no Model 3 as some of us were not-so-secretly hoping (as someone else pointed out, with a backlog of 400K+ vehicles it's not like they need any more Model 3 reservations right now).
We mostly hung out at a table with @Blu Zap and his SO, and we had good conversations with a few other owners. It's kind of hard to spot other TMC folks at these things; we both had our TMC Connect 2017 shirts but most TMC members don't have those. Maybe we need TMC shirts or something, I'd rather have one of those than a Tesla Corporate shirt!
A few things our family would have liked to have seen go differently:
1. More substantial food. I know this was free, gift horse, and all that. But they'd mentioned food and drink (on a Web page that I think is no longer accessible), and if they're going to hold an event over lunchtime, at a resort, I'm pretty sure people will be expecting more than basically snack food (pretzels, popcorn, watermelon wedges, ice cream). This kind of fare would have been great at 2PM, but are people supposed to just not eat lunch if they're going to attend this? I know the Ritz-Carlton catering isn't cheap, so maybe there were some budgetary considerations that limited the refreshments.
2. More stuff to get people to mingle...maybe some activities to get people to do things together (the blurb said "outdoor activities for the whole family" but all I saw was the aforementioned Radio Flyer and cornhole)? This would have required some more staff though, and aside from signing in, we only talked to one Tesla staff person the whole time we were there. At some of the other weekend social events they've done some sort of presentation, that's educational and also a good conversation starter.
3. The $30 valet parking was a bit of a surprise, but admittedly at the time I had to pay it, I was low on blood sugar (see #1) and not in the best frame of mind. I guess that was unavoidable...Ritz-Carlton is a resort. The hotel guests were treated to a long stream of Teslas coming in and out though.
4. It would have been cool to be able to do on-the-spot test drives of cars (especially for those of us with older cars). They were doing test drives, but I think this was only for non-owners and I think some pre-booking in advance was needed.
We did a post-mortem on this event after we got home and we agreed this definitely didn't meet our expectations (and my son and I have done other Tesla weekend socials). It was great talking to other owners from around the Bay Area, but given that we spent as much time driving to and from the event as we did actually being there, unexpectedly shelled out $30 in valet parking (my wife pointed out that most Tesla owners can afford $30, but still...), and most importantly had to find a late lunch on our own afterwards, we probably wouldn't do this particular thing again. My son said if it were up to him, it would have been in Tilden Park (East Bay), and he'd use the money not spent booking the Ritz-Carlton to get some more/better food.
Bruce.
It was well-attended, probably more people than I'd seen at any of the social events I'd been to before (all of those were at stores). I believe the venue had a good part to do with it. It was outdoors, near the golf course. For vehicles, Tesla brought a Model S, a Model X, and a Radio Flyer
)), but no Model 3 as some of us were not-so-secretly hoping (as someone else pointed out, with a backlog of 400K+ vehicles it's not like they need any more Model 3 reservations right now).We mostly hung out at a table with @Blu Zap and his SO, and we had good conversations with a few other owners. It's kind of hard to spot other TMC folks at these things; we both had our TMC Connect 2017 shirts but most TMC members don't have those. Maybe we need TMC shirts or something, I'd rather have one of those than a Tesla Corporate shirt!
A few things our family would have liked to have seen go differently:
1. More substantial food. I know this was free, gift horse, and all that. But they'd mentioned food and drink (on a Web page that I think is no longer accessible), and if they're going to hold an event over lunchtime, at a resort, I'm pretty sure people will be expecting more than basically snack food (pretzels, popcorn, watermelon wedges, ice cream). This kind of fare would have been great at 2PM, but are people supposed to just not eat lunch if they're going to attend this? I know the Ritz-Carlton catering isn't cheap, so maybe there were some budgetary considerations that limited the refreshments.
2. More stuff to get people to mingle...maybe some activities to get people to do things together (the blurb said "outdoor activities for the whole family" but all I saw was the aforementioned Radio Flyer and cornhole)? This would have required some more staff though, and aside from signing in, we only talked to one Tesla staff person the whole time we were there. At some of the other weekend social events they've done some sort of presentation, that's educational and also a good conversation starter.
3. The $30 valet parking was a bit of a surprise, but admittedly at the time I had to pay it, I was low on blood sugar (see #1) and not in the best frame of mind. I guess that was unavoidable...Ritz-Carlton is a resort. The hotel guests were treated to a long stream of Teslas coming in and out though.
4. It would have been cool to be able to do on-the-spot test drives of cars (especially for those of us with older cars). They were doing test drives, but I think this was only for non-owners and I think some pre-booking in advance was needed.
We did a post-mortem on this event after we got home and we agreed this definitely didn't meet our expectations (and my son and I have done other Tesla weekend socials). It was great talking to other owners from around the Bay Area, but given that we spent as much time driving to and from the event as we did actually being there, unexpectedly shelled out $30 in valet parking (my wife pointed out that most Tesla owners can afford $30, but still...), and most importantly had to find a late lunch on our own afterwards, we probably wouldn't do this particular thing again. My son said if it were up to him, it would have been in Tilden Park (East Bay), and he'd use the money not spent booking the Ritz-Carlton to get some more/better food.
Bruce.
Agreed, very disappointing event.So...my wife, son, and I went to the weekend social event at the Ritz-Carlton, Half Moon Bay, CA today, from 11AM to 1PM. TL;DR: It was great talking to other Tesla owners, but we were kind of disappointed with the whole experience.
It was well-attended, probably more people than I'd seen at any of the social events I'd been to before (all of those were at stores). I believe the venue had a good part to do with it. It was outdoors, near the golf course. For vehicles, Tesla brought a Model S, a Model X, and a Radio Flyer
We mostly hung out at a table with @Blu Zap and his SO, and we had good conversations with a few other owners. It's kind of hard to spot other TMC folks at these things; we both had our TMC Connect 2017 shirts but most TMC members don't have those. Maybe we need TMC shirts or something, I'd rather have one of those than a Tesla Corporate shirt!
A few things our family would have liked to have seen go differently:
1. More substantial food. I know this was free, gift horse, and all that. But they'd mentioned food and drink (on a Web page that I think is no longer accessible), and if they're going to hold an event over lunchtime, at a resort, I'm pretty sure people will be expecting more than basically snack food (pretzels, popcorn, watermelon wedges, ice cream). This kind of fare would have been great at 2PM, but are people supposed to just not eat lunch if they're going to attend this? I know the Ritz-Carlton catering isn't cheap, so maybe there were some budgetary considerations that limited the refreshments.
2. More stuff to get people to mingle...maybe some activities to get people to do things together (the blurb said "outdoor activities for the whole family" but all I saw was the aforementioned Radio Flyer and cornhole)? This would have required some more staff though, and aside from signing in, we only talked to one Tesla staff person the whole time we were there. At some of the other weekend social events they've done some sort of presentation, that's educational and also a good conversation starter.
3. The $30 valet parking was a bit of a surprise, but admittedly at the time I had to pay it, I was low on blood sugar (see #1) and not in the best frame of mind. I guess that was unavoidable...Ritz-Carlton is a resort. The hotel guests were treated to a long stream of Teslas coming in and out though.
4. It would have been cool to be able to do on-the-spot test drives of cars (especially for those of us with older cars). They were doing test drives, but I think this was only for non-owners and I think some pre-booking in advance was needed.
We did a post-mortem on this event after we got home and we agreed this definitely didn't meet our expectations (and my son and I have done other Tesla weekend socials). It was great talking to other owners from around the Bay Area, but given that we spent as much time driving to and from the event as we did actually being there, unexpectedly shelled out $30 in valet parking (my wife pointed out that most Tesla owners can afford $30, but still...), and most importantly had to find a late lunch on our own afterwards, we probably wouldn't do this particular thing again. My son said if it were up to him, it would have been in Tilden Park (East Bay), and he'd use the money not spent booking the Ritz-Carlton to get some more/better food.
Bruce.
Best if Tesla focuses on designing & building the best EVs in the world, and stops trying to be something they are not with events such as these.
EVie'sDad
Member
We instead opted for the Fremont Annual Arts & Wine Festival, saw numerous other 'alternative' vehicles being shown (Mirai, Bolt, Subaru), generating mild to moderate attention, but no presence from our nearby local EV manufacturer, Telsa Motors. Took the Model S85D over to represent the fleet. Would have been nice to have a planned 'social' around the event, given how many owners live in the immediate vicinity.
Blu Zap
Grinning member
I attended the Tesla Ritz Carlton event last year. Quite a bit different. They had it at 5:00 pm on a Friday. So throw traffic into the challenge. I happened to be working in the South Bay that day, so it worked out just fine for me. That venue was inside the hotel in a beautiful meeting room with a 180 degree panorama of the ocean. Hot & cold appetizers hit the spot, and catch this, an open bar of beer & wine. There was a presentation then milling around with good conversation. They also had test drives/ rides so we could fit more in the Teslas and have a chance to get to know what's new. Yes, the $30 valet was the same. But a bit more enjoyable event.
It's great to see Bay Area owners interested in getting together. It was great to see @bmah and @bodong408. We need to keep in touch. I suggest Northern California Tesla Owners on Facebook. The Silicon Valley Group on this forum. I am also on the Northern California/Reno group and Marin Owners Group on this forum. Then it takes someone to organize it. I arranged a meet up last May when we had many YouTube Vloggers in town for the Factory VIP event. We had a meet up in the factory parking lot. Here is James Cooke's video at our meet up.
Currently YouTube vlogger, Alex Guberman is organizing a get together of Bay Area owners to have video interviews of the owners experiences. Updates will appear in the Silicon Valley, Northern California and Marin County forums. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/lets-have-a-get-together.95644/#post-2239451 Ping the group moderator to gain access.
For Alex' event I'll update details here, too. Also check out his YouTube channel, Everything Tesla and his Facebook page below, Tesla Model S Owners Club. Still figuring out time date and location.
Log In or Sign Up to View
It's great to see Bay Area owners interested in getting together. It was great to see @bmah and @bodong408. We need to keep in touch. I suggest Northern California Tesla Owners on Facebook. The Silicon Valley Group on this forum. I am also on the Northern California/Reno group and Marin Owners Group on this forum. Then it takes someone to organize it. I arranged a meet up last May when we had many YouTube Vloggers in town for the Factory VIP event. We had a meet up in the factory parking lot. Here is James Cooke's video at our meet up.
Currently YouTube vlogger, Alex Guberman is organizing a get together of Bay Area owners to have video interviews of the owners experiences. Updates will appear in the Silicon Valley, Northern California and Marin County forums. https://teslamotorsclub.com/tmc/threads/lets-have-a-get-together.95644/#post-2239451 Ping the group moderator to gain access.
For Alex' event I'll update details here, too. Also check out his YouTube channel, Everything Tesla and his Facebook page below, Tesla Model S Owners Club. Still figuring out time date and location.
Log In or Sign Up to View
EV-lutioin
Active Member
Blu Zap
Grinning member
Just to add to those interested in meet-ups among owners. Many Bay Area Tesla owners have initially met at the National Drive Electric week events in the Bay Area. Different dates in September and locations all around the Bay Area. Volunteer for one, or set one up yourself! Other locations in the country have posted their drive electric week events here.
National Drive Electric Week 2017 - Event Map
National Drive Electric Week 2017 - Event Map
Thanks for the recap. Think hubby and I would both feel a bit lucky to have been shut out of the RSVP given the comments. Not that the $30 valet fee would be a stopper for us but in general don't like others driving our vehicles and valet should be optional for those that do mind. If mandatory I find that irritating right from the start so understand the comments about it.
I was wondering what the family activities were. Remember it on our invite. Lack of food at lunchtime never a crowd pleaser. Was it catered by the Ritz? Suppose hot dogs and burgers wouldn't have fit in with the hotel but could have at least been more picnic like at the beach kind of themed. Was there any presentation on the Powerwall/solar roof tiles or a rep to speak to there for it? At our last social we too were hoping to see a M3 drive up, but figured it wouldn't happen since it hadn't been released yet. Given the closeness of the Factory to the event and now that's its released, I think it would have been easy enough to have arranged and certainly would have made everyone's day who drove out to the coast for the event. I'm sure even if a lucky employee had been willing to attend the event with their M3 would have brought smiles.
Too bad for what it must have cost to put on that it's been poorly received in general. Out of curiosity anyone know which Tesla store location was sponsoring it? We went to the Stanford Shopping Center one and the Santana Row ones this year, both held more around breakfast time, and enjoyed both of those.
I was wondering what the family activities were. Remember it on our invite. Lack of food at lunchtime never a crowd pleaser. Was it catered by the Ritz? Suppose hot dogs and burgers wouldn't have fit in with the hotel but could have at least been more picnic like at the beach kind of themed. Was there any presentation on the Powerwall/solar roof tiles or a rep to speak to there for it? At our last social we too were hoping to see a M3 drive up, but figured it wouldn't happen since it hadn't been released yet. Given the closeness of the Factory to the event and now that's its released, I think it would have been easy enough to have arranged and certainly would have made everyone's day who drove out to the coast for the event. I'm sure even if a lucky employee had been willing to attend the event with their M3 would have brought smiles.
Too bad for what it must have cost to put on that it's been poorly received in general. Out of curiosity anyone know which Tesla store location was sponsoring it? We went to the Stanford Shopping Center one and the Santana Row ones this year, both held more around breakfast time, and enjoyed both of those.
I am not sure if the valet was mandatory or not, it seemed to be at least the default. On the way out we noticed what seemed to be a few Teslas parked at a parking lot a few blocks away from the main entrance to the Ritz-Carlton, and my wife was speculating that maybe those were people who were smarter than us about the valet parking and just chose to park off-site.
I believe the people actually handling the catering were Ritz-Carlton staff. No presentations (given the physical layout this would have been difficult...we were all spread out over a large grassy area).
I don't know what store was involved in this...it is a shame that effort was put into something that just made Tesla and Ritz-Carlton both look bad (or at least not good).
Bruce.
Blu Zap
Grinning member
Yes, Ritz Carlton did the catering. To be fair to them, there were some party crashers let in by the Tesla staff. So longer food line than what they expected. This is noted from the Facebook NorCal owners forum.
Either way, Tesla could have made this a wonderful event as they did last year. Can you imagine when we are at the lawn socializing and a Model 3 drove up. What a highlight!! It wouldn't take much. My suspicion was that the event was put on by one of the stores. I recall one of the Tesla employees saying they were from the Santana Row store. So probably not a connection between the store and corporate product marketing. As I have said they don't need to sell any more Model 3s, but what a highlight for the owners that were there if one showed up! Missed opportunity.
Either way, Tesla could have made this a wonderful event as they did last year. Can you imagine when we are at the lawn socializing and a Model 3 drove up. What a highlight!! It wouldn't take much. My suspicion was that the event was put on by one of the stores. I recall one of the Tesla employees saying they were from the Santana Row store. So probably not a connection between the store and corporate product marketing. As I have said they don't need to sell any more Model 3s, but what a highlight for the owners that were there if one showed up! Missed opportunity.
The $30 mandatory valet parking on premise was mandatory per Ritz gate staffers and we paid it. That line to get to the valet took us like 30 min.
This was my first social event. I envisioned all of the Teslas would be all grouped together somewhere on premise, similar to a C&C-type event. I would have much preferred to walk through all of the attending Teslas than the two S and X demo models. To echo others above who previously mentioned, it would have been cool to have a model 3 show up.
The walk from the valet was a bit longish for my family (we have a toddler and an infant). Once we showed up, we quickly discovered there was no shelter which was a problem because it was pretty cold.
The line for the food/snacks were long. We had foolishly assumed because the event was 11-1 there would be decent eats. I walked past the line to check the food selections and found all the plates empty. The folks at the front of the line were standing there waiting. All of the tables were taken as well. RSVP was pointless because of party-crashers (also like previously mentioned)
It was time for kid to eat so within 15 min we walked back to the lobby. I really wanted to eat at the buffet but they were fully committed for another 2H, so we just ate at the restaurant, which was fine but felt like an over-priced consolation.
Anyways, nice try Tesla. I really hope you continue to do more events. Here are some tips:
-try to find somewhere that doesn't have mandatory $30 valet parking
-owners really do want to see other owners cars, so maybe valet parking isn't ideal
-show us what's new (Model 3? Roof? Truck? I dunno)
-more food
-more shelter
-give people more head-notice?
The drive wasn't that long for me since I live right off HWY 1.
Thanks
This was my first social event. I envisioned all of the Teslas would be all grouped together somewhere on premise, similar to a C&C-type event. I would have much preferred to walk through all of the attending Teslas than the two S and X demo models. To echo others above who previously mentioned, it would have been cool to have a model 3 show up.
The walk from the valet was a bit longish for my family (we have a toddler and an infant). Once we showed up, we quickly discovered there was no shelter which was a problem because it was pretty cold.
The line for the food/snacks were long. We had foolishly assumed because the event was 11-1 there would be decent eats. I walked past the line to check the food selections and found all the plates empty. The folks at the front of the line were standing there waiting. All of the tables were taken as well. RSVP was pointless because of party-crashers (also like previously mentioned)
It was time for kid to eat so within 15 min we walked back to the lobby. I really wanted to eat at the buffet but they were fully committed for another 2H, so we just ate at the restaurant, which was fine but felt like an over-priced consolation.
Anyways, nice try Tesla. I really hope you continue to do more events. Here are some tips:
-try to find somewhere that doesn't have mandatory $30 valet parking
-owners really do want to see other owners cars, so maybe valet parking isn't ideal
-show us what's new (Model 3? Roof? Truck? I dunno)
-more food
-more shelter
-give people more head-notice?
The drive wasn't that long for me since I live right off HWY 1.
Thanks
Anyone going to the Monterey/Seaside Tesla Event on Sat 8/19? Got our RSVP email this morning. Will be held during the Monterey Car Week. Saturday morning thru afternoon is the Concorso Italiano (9:30-5p) and the Barnyard Ferrari event is from 4-7p. Tesla's invite hours run from 4-6:30p so time to enjoy the rest.
Light refreshments and hors d'oeuvres, so will be sure to eat a late lunch before going given food comments above LOL.
Light refreshments and hors d'oeuvres, so will be sure to eat a late lunch before going given food comments above LOL.
Wow glad we got our RSVP for this event. Jon McNeill just spoke.
7 Roadsters here, most I've ever seen in one place.
Lots of food and champagne/wine while waiting for Franz to arrive. Very nice event. Even received swag bag.
Oh and almost forgot Lol to mention Jon brought his red Model 3 for us to see. All 4 Tesla model cars to see.
7 Roadsters here, most I've ever seen in one place.
Lots of food and champagne/wine while waiting for Franz to arrive. Very nice event. Even received swag bag.
Oh and almost forgot Lol to mention Jon brought his red Model 3 for us to see. All 4 Tesla model cars to see.
A few more pics. Franz arrived and spoke for a bit and answered questions.
The red twin M3s were parked next to each other.
Frunk space.
The red twin M3s were parked next to each other.
Frunk space.
BTW Jon began by thanking everyone who has supported Tesla and wanted to especially thank the Roadster owners who helped start all of this off. The cocktail social was dedicated to them in effect. It was fabulous to see all the representative models that came for the event. Sadly we don't see many of them on the road unlike the MS and MXs. Both the Roadsters and Model 3s were an unexpected surprise.
Very nice, and thanks for sharing the pix! I'd say you definitely got the better end of the deal compared to that debacle at Half Moon Bay. Sigh...
Bruce.
Similar threads
- Article
- Article