How To Be Tour Sucker (based on the top of the planning file from last
year):

As far in advance as possible...
    *  Send out requests to potential demo sites
           
          I did this around August 15 or so and that was early enough
          that I got almost all positive responses.  Do it earlier if
          possible (keep in mind that a lot of people go on vacation
          in August and therefore won't be reading their email at all
          for a few weeks).

          The Media Lab is especially difficult to track down, but
          probably worthwhile.

          Sending mail to large contact lists (i.e. the list listed on 
          the group's website instead of the individual who did it
          last year) is more likely to get you results in the case of
          the media lab/ai lab/etc.

    *  Reserve room (4-231 and 7-131 are popular)
    
          Reservation needs to be made by a SIPB officer with
          room reservation bits.

    *  Delegate Food (xela has often done this)

    *  Confirm Speaker
       
A week later

    *  Send out a followup email to any groups that haven't responded.  If 
       they don't respond twice, they probably aren't going to.

Two weeks before

    *  Delegate posters (60 posters for each round of postering is good)

    *  Delegate the LSC slide if you're doing one

    *  Recruit tour guides.  Six is probably a good number.  Three is
       the minimum.  Remeber that it's good to have enough people to actually 
       talk to the frosh and answer their questions.

One week before

    *  Make sure postering happens

    *  Send out email to sipb-midway-yy announcing tours.  You may
       want to cc it to sipb-midway-(yy-1); ask at a meeting if people
       think this is rude or not.  (I got several emails saying "I
       can't make it, will this be happening again?" in response to my
       reminder.)

    *  Recruit more tour guides :-)

    *  Send out a reminder email to all of your stops confirming the details.

Day of

    *  Send out a reminder email to sipb-midway-yy.  My personal
       theory is that this is the single most important thing for
       getting frosh to actually show up.

    *  Make a *large* sign/banner to put up where you're going to wait
       for people to assemble (if you are visible enough, you will get
       random people coming up and saying "what is this?  can I come
       too?").

    *  Provide tour guides with some amount of written clue.

    *  Start waiting at the assembly point about half an hour in advance.

After
    
    *  Send thank-you email to the people who hosted stops

Other

   *  Be sure that you're very clear on how you're going to get into
      each location.  We ran into trouble because the media lab folks
      gave us a number to call to get in, but then forgot to have
      someone by the phone.  Make sure each tour guide has an ne43 key
      and the media lab elevator combo and (if possible) someone to
      contact if they get stuck.

   *  Leave someone behind for about 15 minutes to bring any latecomers
      with them.  That way the main group can depart on time.  We
      missed several people this year due to leaving someone behind
      for only five minutes.

   *  Attendance this year started out around 40.  About 25 were still
      with us at the end of the tour.  It's a good idea to plan as
      though you'll need to divide into three groups of people but
      realize that two may be all you'll actually need.