What you all need to understand is that the more options there are the more you will pay per option. I would say the weekend will probably be a package - if you want to sell off part of your package, that will be your choice.

Should I decide to not "force" the hotel choice, and you choose to stay elsewhere (which is fine), you will probably pay a small additional fee to help pay for things like meeting / hospitality room at the hotel which is subsidized by people staying at the hotel. Anytime you stage a large gathering, hotels look at the number of rooms you will use when they decide what to charge for a meeting room - don't use enough rooms, and the meeting room gets charged not comped.

All this said, nothing is finalized at this point. As I said earlier, that will happen after I make a site visit and meet with the various "players" that will be involved.