Salt Lake City — $118 (also check Jet Blue, which has comparable fares)

Denver — $146

Indy — $192

Albuquerque — $196

Kansas City — $200

Spokane — $200

Portland — $211

Seattle — $211

Houston — $229

Jacksonville — $238

Boise — $238

Austin — $250

Columbus — $250

Raleigh-Durham — $250

Ft. Lauderdale — $257

Cleveland — $260

Philly — $270

Manchester, N.H. — $276

Pittsburgh — $287

Chicago — $294

Start here to begin your low-fare search on Southwest.

For the actual Workshop nights (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday), we’re fine. No need to hurry if you’re planning to come for those nights or later in the week.

At the moment, if you phone in your reservation operators will tell you we’ve exceeded our room block for Friday/Saturday. However, we’re finding you can still book for those nights if you use the online booking system.

We are working with the hotel to increase our room block for those nights. And we’ll very likely get some extra rooms. But it looks like the “come early” half of the “come early, stay late” equation is pretty popular.

We’ll post additional information about the hotel as we confirm additional rooms and get more information on registration patterns. Watch this space.

And we’re sorry we’re so late in getting this information out.

But the good news is, the application process is considerably simpler — as is the entire selection process. View the full details and download this year’s application.

After a couple of wonderfully elaborate contests in Orlando and Boston, we’re taking a low-key approach in Vegas.

We’re doing that partly because the timing of this Workshop makes it impossible for a number of students to attend (we’re the first week of classes for many schools). And partly because the media economy is in tough shape this year.

But for everyone who can come, we’re opening the process to many more students. Now, every student who applies and shows up for the free student workshop on Sunday can participate in the first two rounds of the competition.

You do not have to register for the professional workshop to participate, but you do have to find your way to Vegas on Sunday, Sept. 7 to be considered. And you must send in an application prior to the workshop. If you’re still not sure if you can be here, you have until July 16 to have the application to us.

So far, we have two paid internships for either juniors or seniors — one with The Arizona Republic and the other with the St. Petersburg Times. We will announce additional participants over the summer. It’s too early in the budget cycle for some papers to make a commitment.

In addition, Poynter is offering three multimedia fellowships for graduating seniors that run from the first week of June to the third week of July. The $3500 tuition (which includes lodging and meals) will be waived.

And we’re planning to put together a job fair to bring you, the potential employees, together with potential employers in a mini job fair after the official “interns” are chosen. So even if you don’t win, you still have a good chance of leaving with a job.

Our next 15 eligible room registrants went into the drawing bowl today and Kimiko Fieg, Presentation Editor at the Victoria Advocate in Victoria, TX won the $150 gift certificate to the Red Rock Spa.

There’s still time to get in on the next drawing: A $100 gift card good at any of Red Rock’s 10 terrific restaurants. Just be among the next 25 people to book their hotel room. Click here for more information on reserving your room.

Congratulations Kimiko! Will you be next?

The prize? Our 100 package: A $100 per night room rate (up to five nights), a $100 spa gift certificate and a $100 dining gift certificate good at any of Red Rock’s 10 restaurants.

Paul Wallen, Design Director of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, is our first winner.

Congratulations Paul. That’s worth $400 - 600 depending on how long you’re staying.

Stay tuned for the next drawing for a $150 Red Rock Spa gift certificate.

With the clock counting down towards this year’s SND convention in Las Vegas, we want to hear from you. What topics would you like covered in the student session scheduled for Sunday, Sept. 7?

The three we’ve lined up so far are getting internships; the Internet and public journalism; and typography. Vote on the topics you’d like to see in our poll, leave a comment and/or send me an e-mail if we missed something.

And be sure to check here at SNDVegas.com for more updates, including information about this year’s student critiques and speakers.

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And we’ve got a lot planned for you — as would be expected for a milestone workshop in a city that knows how to create an experience.

Our partners — the Associated Press Managing Editors and Associated Press Photo Managers — are moving along in their plans as well. If you didn’t know, we are meeting in conjunction with those two outstanding journalism organizations. While each of us will have our own sessions, we will program two general sessions for everyone on the Tuesday of our workshop. (Remember, we’re meeting Sunday-Monday-Tuesday this year.)

This will be a unique opportunity to network and seriously discuss issues with those who run our photo departments and our newsrooms. Ever been to a workshop and said, “I wish my boss were here.” This year, they will be.

At this point, about 90% of our professional program is set, although we still have many details to work out with our 50+ speakers and trainers. We will have the usual full schedule of design sessions, but we’ll also have aggressive programming in web, multimedia, interactive and graphics. The workshop’s tag line is “Rethink yourself. Rethink everything.” True to that, we will have sessions that focus on where the business is going and some that focus on you (becoming a more effective leader, a better art director, what to do when faced with the latest buyout offer and even what you can do with your skills outside of newspapers).

We’ll have hands-on sessions to sharpen your skills in different software programs, such as Flash, Illustrator, Lightwave, Photoshop, Final Cut and Motion.

This will truly be an international event, with speakers from Mexico, Argentina, Canada, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Germany, the Netherlands and, hopefully, China. There’s a lot of innovation happening worldwide and there will be plenty of opportunities to learn about it.

Beginning this month, we will post brief topic descriptions and the names of speakers we have confirmed. Click on the program tab on the upper left of this page. Over the next three months, we’ll add details to those descriptions as well as speaker bios as we work through those with our presenters. And as quickly as we can we’ll begin to arrange those sessions and speakers into days and time slots to better help you plan.

My best advice is to come early and stay late. We have sessions beginning mid-afternoon on Sunday and ending late Tuesday afternoon. Plus we have a few hands-on sessions on Wednesday and your SND registration gets you into a full day of APME/APPM sessions on Wednesday as well.

Watch this space for updates. If you have any questions, check out our FAQ section. If you don’t find an answer in there, drop me an e-mail at bill.gaspard@vegas.com if it’s an individual question or use the comment box to the right or the feedback tab up top for questions about general issues.

Workshop registration and hotel registration are both available online. Don’t wait… this is the best training bargain of the year!

Bill Gaspard, 2008 Site Chair

bill.gaspard@vegas.com | 702-259-4134