I'm posting this from Greely, Colorado. (Or possibly Greeley.) In a combination coffeeshop/bookstore that does not have internet access, so it's queueing up in my outbox and who knows when it'll actually be sent. (They say starbucks might have wireless...)
Just wanted to point out that penguicon is six months ahead of us: They're April 16 and we're October 8. There's may, june, july, august, and september, plus the end of April and the start of October. Plus, they're in their second year and we're in our first. I just copied over the message for reference, no need to panic... :) I have no idea if Mark posted a condfw report to the list, but it was nice. (Small, but nice. We got another dozen dealer contacts, a potential person to run the art show, and several panelist leads. Only about 50 flyers actually got picked up by the attendees, but there were only 300 attendees and the flyer table was in an absolutely horrible location (nobody's flyers had very good uptake, it was wedged over in an inaccessable corner past the dealer's room entrance.) A number of counterexamples. We also talked to a lot of dealers and got suggestions. Make sure the aisles are big enough. Make sure there's at least a table's width of free space behind each table (a table and a half is better, for backtables or other displays). And the old standby, "Signage, signage, signage..." As we get closer to the event, we need to appoint a minister of signage... > > * Bruce Sterling, one of Confusion's Guests of Honor, devoted 2/3 of his > > post-Confusion weblog entry to Penguicon! > > I could post in *my* weblog. Feel free. :) I need to get a weblog. I'm trying to figure out who to throw at the fifth guest slot. Pete Abrams and Illiad were suggested by people I asked at condfw, but it's a shame to get just one of them and not both together since they enjoy hanging out with each other, and Illiad's a more expensive ticket (Canada) and Pete seems kind of overbooked at the moment. (I could certainly ask, but it seems cruel somehow... :) Besides, if I was going to grab one more cartoonist to supplement Fred and Howard, I'd ask John Kovalic who would go so well with Steve Jackson... After Penguicon, Wil Wheaton would be a perfect fit. (John Maddog Hall would be good too, but I can presumably beef up the geek side pretty easily with local IBM LTC guys, and Dell Linux people. Maddog's a big name but he's similar to Eric; not associated with a specific large technical project but instead one of the political leaders. If I was supplementing Eric, I'd prefer adding a technical leader. We can invite Maddog next year.) Of course if Wil agreed to come, and Steve is already coming, it would be a shame for John Kovalic _not_ to be there, since he had to miss out on Penguicon this year due to schedule committments... If no clear consensus emerges, i'll probably make a spur of the moment executive decision by fiat. (After all, in the absence of sufficient preregistration money early enough, I expect to front the money for all these plane tickets and hotel rooms myself...) You have been warned. If Howard's slot winds up being sponsored by Novell, then we could afford a pair (Wil and Kovalic, or Illiad and Abrams if Illiad's willing to be shipped here book rate). If Fred can't come, I'm undecided. (It was implied that he is not a strong Anime guest by the con chair of an anime con. Fine. Maybe that means if he can't come, his slot doesn't have to go to an anime guest. :P) But we readlly do need to get the out-of-towners locked in a soon as we can. Hmmm... > > * The paper Penguicon mailer is going out this week to just under 3,000 > > addresses. > > Urgh. Okay, IRS form is being done *TONIGHT*. Rob, where are you. I'll > go bug you to go over line by line on it, then print it out and mail it > tomorrow. Mainly for reduced mailing costs. Penguicon has A) last year's address list, B) the address list of Confusion and a local fan group called Stillyagi, C) addresses supplied by their vendors. Possibly we could make a similar deal with some other local cons (armadillocon comes to mind). I should bug the Fandom Association of Central Texas when I get back to town... I'm not doing online advertising until we fill that fifth fly-in slot and bug Richard Garriot (which I can't do because I'm on the road just now with intermittent email access; I'll try when I get to Pennsylvania...) > > * Solicited suggestions for tech dealers for the Dealers' Room. Susan > > Harris will be going to the A1 computer supershow to give flyers to > > dealers. Some suggestions were The Frag Center, Abilty PC in Utica, an > > independent computer dealer in South Lyon, Digilink in Okemos. Someone > > will also be at the Women in Computing show and make contacts. > > We need a list of these. We need to hit UT. There are also a couple other technical networking things I remember from the dotcom days, I need to see how many are still in business. I also went through a LinuxWorld Expo flyer and noted a few exhibitors with Austin addresses. I called the first three: one had a disconnected phone, one was still in business (got their "for a list of the ways technology has failed to improve the quality of life, press 3" directory tree thing), and one (metrowerks, I think) had been bought by somebody else but was now that other thing's Austin office... > > * After discussion with Steve Jackson, we've decided not to do Evil > > Stevie's Pirate Game at Penguicon. Too much expense and volunteer time > > needed for too few people to be involved. Steve was also worried about > > it taking up too much of his time. Steve will spend more time with the > > CHAOS Toy instead. > > I'm assuming we're doing it, since he is a whopping few miles away. Exactly. :) > > * Howare Tayler of Schlock Mercenary had agreed to do the Penguicon > > Program Book cover, and also wants to do an interior cartoon, as well as > > a special back cover inset. Fred Gallagher of Megatokyo has agreed to do > > a con T-Shirt. > > I'll see if Dev (the artist) will do these as well...on the T-Shirts, > how much does it cost for colour designs, and how many colours? I dunno. I'm told silk screen is fundamentally better than iron on (lasts far longer and looks better), but is even more expensive. Then again, there was a dealer selling some of them for $12 (and annoying the other dealers who were selling them for $10). Even if it costs us $11, we won't lose money selling it for $10 if it's bundled with a preregistration. And then it can be $20 in the dealer's room... (And whatever dealers decide to sell it can buy them from us at cost and keep any profits: this is not a profit center for us but a form of advertising. Our main funding source is attendee registration; getting the numbers up for next year, especially preregistrations, is the best thing we can do for the con financially.) > > It was asked if the T-Shirt people could bring shirts with a different > > kind of neck, for women that don't fit the "standard" T well. We have > > also arranged to reprint some of the first Penguicon's T-Shirts for sale > > at this con. > > Linucon 0.1 T-Shirts! The con before the con! We are not doing this. Having seen apollocon's plans, now you know why... > > * Our space restrictions aren't going to allow us to do a Blood Drive > > this year. > > Blood drive...? I'm not going there. (I have a problem with needles. *shudder*) > > * We will do a Charity Auction, the charity will be the Comic Book Legal > > Defense Fund (Neil Gaiman is a Board member for CBLDF). > > Idea. If we can get him next year, I'm all for it. Of course, we have to wait until Penguicon 2.0 is over, and then ask both him and Terry. (Feel free to sing the "matchmaker" song from fiddler on the roof, as long as you don't bring up the fact that every group I've tried to assemble so far has consisted entirely of males.) > > * We will have a Guest of Honor Banquet again this year. We will make > > arrangements to pre-sell tickets via the website before the con, so as > > not to catch people by surprise on the con weekend with fairly high > > priced tickets. > > How much are they charging, Rob? Their hotel screwed them on banquet costs (miscommunication somewhere discovered at the last minute), I think they wound up charging something like $25. Add in the fact that there was no mention of the banquet during preregistration or even AT registration (see "luddites"), and the result is they didn't fill out the first year's banquet, and wound up combining Pete Abrams' and Rob Malda's tables. The only full table was Pratchett's. (He had a waiting list. :) Eric's was almost full, and Illiad's was over half. But Taco was a local and Pete had been at Confusion the previous year, so with the amazing lack of notice and high prices, between them they just about filled a table. This year, they're trying to be much better organized... There's no reason we CAN'T do a banquet for less than $15 a head, including drinks and dessert... > > * The Linux Box from Ann Arbor has agreed to hold several specially > > designed Linux/Open Source related training course before the con on > > Friday during the day. People that sign up for these courses will > > receive a free con registration. We will help coordinate publicizing this > > with The Linux Box, and they will handle the actual course signups > > through their website. > > Mmm? A Local Linux company. > > * We received another inquiry from someone that wants to be a Guest at > > Penguicon! Rob Balder, writer/artist of PartiallyClips.com, as well as > > filker and fanzine editor, knows several of our guests and wanted to know > > if he could be one too! We invited him as a panelist. > > "Okay, dude, stop bugging us. Here, be panel fodder" Hey, this is a good thing. :) > > * Dealers tables going well, 38 tables sold to date. Should have a full > > dealers' room. > > * Guest update: the list is full - Five Guests of Honor, and ten Nifty > > Guests. > > Full? Wish we could be that way. Working on it. Who I really want for the fifth slot is Wil Wheaton, and then John Kovalic if Howard's slot gets freed up by Novell... > > * Registration update - 279 preregistrations so far! Much excitement > > ensues! This is fantastic news, and well ahead of last year's numbers. A > > lengthy discussion about what to do if the hotel is overcrowded starts. > > We'll set our first "watch limit" at 800 people, and talk to the hotel > > about how many people they can support at the con. > > 800 for them? 1100 for us. WE GET BIGGER HOTEL! NYA NYA NYAH! This year we're committed to the Red Lion, and I'm not sure we'd WANT to grow bigger than about 1200 people our first 3 years. If we sell out 1200 slots entirely via preregistration, then we think about getting a bigger hotel for the next year... Right now, let's beat the 500 Penguicon had their first year, eh? :) > > Marketing > > * Susan Harris has contacted a number of publishers for donations, has > > received offers of some amount of promotional materials. Also, Eric > > Raymond wrote a very helpful letter to his publicist at Addison-Wesley, > > recommending that A-W have a presense at Penguicon. A-W is considering > > it. We also need to contact the original and current publishers of Wil > > Wheaton's books. > > Rob, get Eric to right a letter to A-W for us as well. Heh. Will do. (It's Austin, a geek mecca. Eric may be willing to do signings at local bookstores on Thursday...) > > Media > > * Requested that Anne Murphy contact Lorraine (Neil Gaiman's assistant) > > and ask if she can help us obtain permission to screen Neil's BBC > > mini-series, "Neverwhere" at the con. > > > > Registrations > > * ConCom members need to register ASAP. Kimba has permission to beat > > them about the head and shoulders until they do. > > Hah. > > > Room Parties > > * Chip has advised potential parties to steer clear of the 5th and 6th > > hotel floors (the 6th floor is the official quiet floor). Bill plans > > room party tours Friday and Saturday at 9:00pm. > > An idea we need to see about. We need to work out where the "quiet floor" will be (this is also where the hotel can dump non-convention guests, which there are always some of). > > Financial > > * The con has $6720 in the band as of today. Last year' ConChair was > > overheard to say "So you mean we won't have to kite checks to the hotel > > for our rooms?". More money is on the way from Dealers' tables signups. > > $600, soon to be $100 for us, after paying the IRS. With $950 or so already paid to the hotel by me. I'm estimating about $1000 each for a guest fly-in slot (two round trip plane tickets and three hotel nights), for a total budget there of around $5000. The good news is, none of them are international... > > Anime > > * Anime will be in a larger room this year, and will be able to get a DVD > > player and VCR, along with a projector and screen from the con's A/V > > supplier. > > Also need to see about this. To-do item. We need a video person. > > Signage > > * Bill will post a list of all signs needed. We will have to pay > > attention to directing people to the stairs, and make sure they know that > > not all stairs go to the ground floor. > > Heh. Our hotel liason is going to have to go see about hotel idiosyncrasies. Unfortunately, this means me... :) > > Website > > * The website now supports forums for online discussion. Matt Arnold > > will be posting working copies of the Program Book to a Forum so everyone > > can read and comment. This is how the Program Book should be evaluated, > > not at the ConCom meeting. Users must have an ID and be logged in to see > > the Forums. > > Also need to do this. Not my problem. :) > > Program Book > > * The general deadline for Program Book material is March 1. Programming > > schedule should get to Matt by Feb 21. Guest of Honor bio's should go to > > Matt immediately. > > We need a programmer! Do you mean someone in charge or programming, someone to do the program book, or someone who can teach a computer new tricks? :) > > Travel > > * We've started to make travel arrangements for GoHs. Everything going > > well. > > Let's see...Cessna... I'd say southwest airlines as as cheap as we can go. (And that _is_ "book rate".) > > Programming Update > > * Programming going well, with schedules mostly filled. We could use some > > more panelists to fill the proposed panels, but don't really need more > > panels unless they are irresistable. We have a full list of tech and fen > > panels, with some crossover panels, although not counting on Robotics now > > after Neal Probert left the Concom. > > Robotics? Don't worry about it. > > * Dave Campbell has agreed to be the Programming Ops head, he will be > > responsible for executing the Programming at the convention, as well as > > the preparation. (Such as scheduling room changes, or A/V equipment, or > > getting the list of panelists to registration.) > > > > * There will be a 24 hour Anime schedule in the Interlochen room. Gaming > > will also be 24 hour, in the Charlevoix room. The large spaces (the > > combined ballroom sections and the Theatre) will be heavily used all > > weekend. Tech has at least two sessions running at almost all times. > > Swordfighting demos during signings to keep the crowds occupied. Built > > in some breaks during the tech track schedules so the geeks don't forget > > to eat and sleep. > > > > Volunteers > > * Alice Smith-Goeke volunteered to coordinate the Charity Auction. > > > > Registration Rates > > * Doing three panels qualifies for reduced rate of $25 for con. > > Eh? They're charging? Yup. I say if you do three panels we comp your membership, they give a discount instead. (It all depends on how the finances are going to work out. I'm more optimistic than they are...) There's also the psychological aspect that giving out free registrations cheapens the event in the minds of the people offered the free membership, but then again our first year... Rob
