We survey all Yarnover attendees each year to learn about their experience. We read and compile survey responses and share results with the teachers and the hotel.  The majority of feedback received this year was very positive, making the Yarnover committee pleased to know all their hard work paid off. 

We appreciate all feedback from Yarnover attendees.  Here are answers to some of the most common suggestions or questions:   

Q. Why can’t Yarnover be moved to [various areas of the Twin Cities]? Why can’t Yarnover be in a different location every year?

A. The location for Yarnover hasn’t so much been chosen by the area of the Twin Cities, but by finding a venue with all the facilities required at the right price. When searching for a new location for Yarnover, we need a venue to have 16+ classrooms with tables and adult seating; large rooms for dinner on Friday, lunch, the Marketplace and an evening social event on Saturday and the Guild meeting on Sunday; an attached hotel; a restaurant; plenty of free parking; and common areas to sit and knit. The Marriot Minneapolis Northwest fills all of these needs at a price we can afford. Plus, moving to this hotel has allowed us to make Yarnover more of a full weekend event with a Saturday night activity and the Sunday Guild meeting. We will continue to look at other venues and will consider shifting to a new location if one is found that meets our needs without significantly raising fees and hotel prices.

We have found some benefits to staying at the same location. Working with the same venue gives us the ability to learn how the space works and how to make it better every year. It also gives us leverage to negotiate our contract with the hotel to help keep costs where we need them to be. Unfortunately, wherever Yarnover takes place, we expect it will be more convenient for some people than others.

Q. Why does Yarnover cost what it does? Why is Yarnover so expensive? Where do my Yarnover fees go?

A. Yarnover needs to pay for itself every year, so registration fees must cover teachers' travel expenses and teaching fees, meeting room rentals, food, printing, and so on. Yarnover is organized and managed by a committee of volunteers so we’re happy to report no fees are used for administration or paid staff.

This pie chart shows the breakdown of how the Yarnover registration fees are spent.

Yarnover pricing is right in line with similar knitting conventions such as Vogue Knitting Live Minneapolis and Stitches Midwest in Chicago. Yarnover class fees include a lunch as well as an afternoon coffee and tea break, which other conventions do not. We work very hard to keep the Marketplace free, so your money can go towards shopping our vendors instead. We also plan to keep both the Saturday Yarn Bingo and the Sunday Guild Meeting free.

Based on the majority of feedback received from attendees, we believe Yarnover delivers the best experience possible for the price. Lowering registration fees at this point would require changing the type of convention Yarnover has become.

Q. How do you pick teachers? Why hasn’t a teacher I’ve suggested ever taught at Yarnover?

A. The Yarnover committee looks at every teacher suggested to us on the Yarnover survey and in person. Here is some of the criteria we look at when hiring the teachers each year:

• Past Yarnovers: We consider teachers’ evaluations from past Yarnovers and if they have taught at a lot of Yarnovers in a row.
• Cost: Many teachers suggested to us are from Europe and the cost of bringing them over is prohibitive, unless they are already doing a US tour at the same time.
• Designer vs Teacher: We get a lot of suggestions for people who are great designers but aren’t necessarily teachers.
• Availability: Teachers often stop teaching for a while or have scheduling conflicts.
• Subject Matter: We work hard to offer a range of subjects each year and look for teachers with different types of classes.
• Responsiveness: Some teachers suggested don’t respond to our invitation to teach.

Q. Can the Marketplace stay open longer on Saturday? Be open on Friday night? Be open on Sunday?

A. When we surveyed our vendors after Yarnover, almost all of them said their slowest time was after 3:00pm on Saturday; many of them would like to close earlier than 5:30pm. The closing time is a compromise between what the vendors and attendees would like.

While we would love to be able to have the Marketplace open on Friday evening for people attending the dinner and Sunday for people attending the Guild meeting, it just isn’t fiscally possible at this point. Room rental for these extended times would add thousands of dollars to Yarnover expenses which  would have to  be covered by either raising fees to attendees and vendors or charging for entrance to the Marketplace.   The Yarnover committee will continue to consider the feasibility of extending the Marketplace each year.   

Q. Can the Marketplace be moved to one large room?

A. We would love to eventually have the Marketplace in the large ballroom at the Marriott. Unfortunately, the cost is quite a bit higher and doesn’t allow for many more vendors to cover that increase in costs. The nice thing is the rooms currently used are near each other on the same floor.

Q. Can we get less local yarn stores and more stores from out-of-town, indie dyers, yarn companies, etc… as Marketplace vendors?

A. To be fair to everyone, we open the Marketplace vendor slots on the same day to everyone. They are filled first come, first serve. If you know someone you would like to see at Yarnover, please direct them to the Yarnover page on Knitters.org or have them email yarnovervendors@gmail.com.

In terms of local v. out-of-town vendors, 25% of this year’s Yarnover attendees come from  from out-of-state and even more are outside the Twin Cities area. This percentage has been increasing every year, so LYSs are not local to these attendees.

Q. Why don’t you give everyone who comes to Yarnover a prize/swag item? Why don’t I ever win a door prize?

A. The cost for a prize/swag item for all attendees would have to come out of Yarnover registration fees. We think most people prefer lower costs to getting a pin or sticker or such. This year, everyone received a copy of the Yarnover’s official pattern.

All door prizes are donated by our vendors and other fiber related companies. Our dream is to have one for every attendee, but there is only so much we can do to affect the number of donations we receive.

Door prize numbers are randomly assigned to both the prizes and the attendees. It is just luck of the draw whether you win or not. Maybe you are lucky in love?

Q. Can we have multiple categories in the Yarnover Shawl Contest?

A. Because we need to take photos of all the shawls and put them in a slide show during the cocktail hour, there really isn’t enough time to set it up for different categories. We also think it would make the voting confusing since the slide show is running continuously throughout dinner. The contest is only in its second year at Yarnover and we will keep working to make it run better each year, since most people seem to enjoy it. We have tried to give more people a chance to win with two popular vote winners and a random drawing winner who all receive a prize of the same value.

A few other quick things…

Signage: We worked to improve the signage this year and will continue to do in the future.  

Saturday Breakfast: Adding a breakfast for class attendees is cost prohibitive at this time.  In addition to the restaurant and the lobby coffee shop, the hotel offered grab and go breakfast items for sale in the main Yarnover area this year.  

Lunch Location is Too Far Away: There is not a closer space in the hotel to seat 300+ people for lunch that is available to us.

Coffee/Tea Service Ran Out: Next year the hotel will be told to keep these stations refilled as needed, so this shouldn’t be a problem. It is hard to predict what we need as one year we ran out of coffee and the next year we had too much coffee and not enough tea.

Skill Level of Classes: A lot of you are asking for more advanced classes. We’ve heard you and have selected more intermediate and advanced level classes for Yarnover 2019.

Other Events in the Hotel: We can’t stop any Yarnover location from renting out their other spaces on the same days. The events at the hotel this year knew about Yarnover and that our attendees would be walking through. Let me tell you about the year TNNA shared a convention center with a Mary Kay conference….

We are hard at work on Yarnover 2019, April 26th - 28th and hope to see as many of you there as possible!