The Allerton Crowne Plaza, Chicago

ABA's official 2004 BookExpo America hotel, the Allerton Crowne Plaza, will provide a warm and inviting stay for ABA member booksellers, who can look forward to a number of special amenities. A special package was offered only to ABA member booksellers in mid-September 2003 and those who booked early (rooms were filled by mid-December) were able to take advantage of a special room rate of $115 per night and a great package of benefits.

Booksellers staying at the hotel should look for the ABA Concierge Desk just across the lobby from the hotel's check-in counter. ABA staff members will be there handing out a "Welcome Bag," which includes a badge holder, a convention guide, shuttle bus schedule, and other information and materials to make booksellers' convention stay as smooth as possible.

Also included in the Welcome Bag will be a Book Sense Gift Card. Each bag includes a gift card, but only five have been randomly loaded with a prize of $100 for use at Ingram's Bookmarks bookstore (located in the North Concourse across from the entrance to the trade show). To find out if a card is a winner, booksellers need only take the gift card to the ABA/Book Sense Lounge in Room 401 at the McCormick Place Convention Center and ask for a "balance check." (For more about the gift card giveaway, click here [4].)

The ABA Concierge Desk will be situated right outside the ABA Hospitality Suite, which will be open 24 hours a day from Wednesday, June 2 - Sunday, June 6. A simple continental-style breakfast will be available each day in the Hospitality Suite from 6:00 a.m. - 10:00 a.m., and booksellers will be able to pick up copies of Publishers Weekly's Show Daily.

The Hotel ABA Chicago will be on Shuttle Bus Route 4, and beginning Thursday at 7:00 a.m. and running through 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, June 6, a bus will run every 20 minutes to the convention center; every 30 minutes retuning to the hotel. (Booksellers should check the schedule posted in the lobby for possible changes.)

The Allerton will also be the site of pillow drops from Book Sense Publisher Partners, and Wednesday through Friday, there will be publisher-sponsored receptions on the 23rd floor, from 9:00 p.m. - midnight. The Wednesday reception and pillow drop is sponsored by Rodale Press; Thursday's reception and pillow drop sponsor is Random House; Friday will feature a reception and pillow drop by Warner Books and Hyperion; and Saturday's pillow drop will come from HarperCollins.

Booksellers staying at the inaugural "Hotel ABA" last year in Los Angeles found the site a wonderful opportunity to meet with other booksellers in a relaxed atmosphere, and this year the Allerton promises even more of the same.