Relevant stuff we need to watch out for...

--
Mark A. Miller
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
(512) 796-3592
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On Monday 19 April 2004 02:19 pm, Tracy Worcester wrote:
[snip]

> As I told many of you at the time: thank you for all of it, compliments,
> comments, suggestions, and volunteering for next year.  And as I also said
> to many of you, my brain wasn't recording very well, so anything you told
> to me that you want folks to know about and consider for next year, I
> would suggest the following.
>
> 1.  Post it to the suggestion forum on the website (linked off the menu on
> the lower left side of the www.penguicon.org page,) or
> 2.  Post it for discussion on this list.

Thank you.  I intend to do just that, since I left the "gripe" session on 
Sunday before any actual griping took place.  :-)

Here are my comments.  There are some things I really thought went well, and I 
will get to those items in a bit.  First, however, my thoughts about what 
could use fixing.  They are arranged in (roughly) descending order--i.e., 
with what I considered to be the more broken stuff listed first.

BROKEN STUFF:

1.  GEEKS WITH GUNS.  So far as I could tell, the only thing the con did for 
this event was to post a sign outside the Computer Room saying "If you want 
to go on Geeks with Guns, meet here Friday at 6 PM".  

        *That's not enough.*  When Eric and I arrived outside the Computer Room at 6 
PM we learned that *nobody* was running the thing, and it took us a few 
minutes to find a Detroit-area fan who knew the roads well enough to be able 
to find the firing range suggested on the Web site.  Fortunately, among the 
people who wanted to go there were enough people with motor vehicles that 
transport was no problem. 

        However, if there had been fewer fen interested in making this event succeed, 
things could have gone very badly indeed.  

        What you need to do this event right is to appoint an official Organizer to 
run it.  This person should be someone from the Detroit area who does target 
shooting and knows where the local ranges are and, at least in general terms, 
what their rules are--including any rules based upon requirements of state or 
local law.  Eric cannot take on this role, not because he doesn't know guns 
(he does!) but because he doesn't know the area or the ranges available in 
the area.  

        Not knowing the law bit us slightly at the GWG.  We had with us a teenager 
who regularly goes with her father to pistol ranges and wanted to 
participate.  Unfortunately, the range we ended up at had a requirement that 
shooters under 18 had to have taken a state-sponsored course to be permitted 
to shoot, something which she, as a Pennsylvania resident, had no opportunity 
to do and in fact had not done.  If we had been aware of this fact in 
advance, we could have at least warned her so that she wouldn't have made the 
trip to the range for nothing.

        I don't, by the way, think that advance registration for an event like GWG is 
necessary, or even possible (though it might be useful; if you knew numbers 
in advance, the con might be able to organize special range rates with a 
particular range, which would be nice).  But if you're going to plug Geeks 
with Guns as a convention event, there should be someone who can promote and 
facilitate it--instead of hoping it will just, well, somehow happen if you 
just put up a sign.

2.  THE POCKET PROGRAM.  It was elegant.  It was concise.  It was small enough 
to be folded and slipped into a pocket.  But the way it was set up, it was 
damn near impossible to use.  Why?  

Because it violated the Rule of Least Surprise, that's why.  

Most convention program grids are set up so that the times of day are listed 
along the top, horizontally, so people can figure out what's happening at any 
given hour.  The P-con 2.0 grid has the rooms across the top, the times of 
day across the side, and the days indicated (unobtrusively) in small 
light-colored print in the middle of dark bars that ran across the grid.  
Matters were complicated by the fact that the first few programs on Friday, 
and the last on Sunday, were listed elsewhere in the pocket program and were 
not even on the grid.

Result:  It was easy to tell what events occurred in which rooms, but it took 
work to figure out, say, which events were running at 2 PM on Saturday 
afternoon.  I generally went to the full program book if I needed to know 
what was happening at a particular time and day.  This is not good!  The 
whole point of the pocket program is so that you can find out *when* 
something is going on.

3.      THE CON BADGE.  Most of them were on DARK PURPLE PAPER.  As a result, if 
anyone wrote their name on it in any color other than white, gold, silver, or 
yellow, their name would be unreadable except at embarrassingly close range.  
This made socializing harder, to say the least.  USE A LIGHTER COLOR OF PAPER 
NEXT TIME!

4.      COMPENSATION FOR PANELISTS.  Some conventions offer free memberships, or at 
least a membership discount, to brave individuals who agree to be on a 
specified number of panels.  For example, Confusion generally gives a free 
membership to people who serve on 3 panels or more.  A panelist who had done 
4 panels was surprised and upset that no such membership benefit was being 
offered here.  While I'm aware that money does not grow on trees, I think it 
behooves the con to provide as many incentives for people to serve on panels 
as possible.

 I think the con needs to set a policy on membership compensation for 
panelists and publicize it well in advance of the con.

5.      PANELS/PROGRAMMING.   By and large, the panels I was on were successes, but 
I felt I ended up working much harder to help make them so than I should have 
had to.  My suggestions for making things easier follow.

        I.      More Communication.  I did not learn who I would be on panels with 
until 
the program book text was published on the web site, and I did not have 
contact information for my fellow panelists.  This was unfortunate, since the 
panel descriptions were pretty vague, and I didn't have much of a clue as to 
what we were expected to say.  It would have been really useful to have my 
fellow panelists' email addresses about 2 weeks before the con, or a more 
specific panel description, or both, for planning purposes.  As it was, the 
only panel I was able to do this for was the Nethack panel, because Rich 
Clark tracked down the relevant email addresses and initiated communications 
himself.

        II.     More Panelists.  Most of the panels I was on had only two people--me 
and 
one other person (usually somebody I'd never met, but that's a side issue).  
On one of these, the other person never showed (fortunately, I was able to 
recruit Howard Taylor to plug the gap).  In my opinion, that's too few 
viewpoints to generate a good discussion.  Most panels that aren't "meet the 
author/artist" or seminar/workshops should have at least 3 people (4 is even 
better, 5 or more is too many).  Compensating panelists with membership/s or 
membership breaks may help in the recruiting process (see #4 above).
  
6.      THE PROGRAM BOOK.  Nicely laid out.  However, the tables for program items 
and anime items were identical in appearance and format, so it was a bit 
tricky finding the right place in the book to look up the type of item you 
were interested in.

7.      THE CON SUITE.  The location was good, but the room was so narrow it was 
almost always crowded.  As a result, I didn't go in there much.  
Consideration should be given to selecting a different room for Con Suite 
next year.  

Here's a more personal quibble.  -Although I understand the doubly caffienated 
coffee was much appreciated, I think the con suite could have used a larger 
variety of caffienated beverages.  Diet Coke (one of my beverages of choice) 
was in particularly short supply.

8.      THE DEALERS' ROOM.  It seemed to me that the Dealers' Room could have used 
more pure geek items (no stuffed Tuxes!) and a bit less costume-related 
stuff.

On the bright side, there were some things P-con did much, much better than 
average:  

Good points (in no particular order):

1.      MASQUERADE ENTERTAINMENT.  It was a stroke of genius recruiting Luke Ski to 
be the Masquerade "half time" entertainment.  Even closeted with the 
Masquerade judges, I could tell he was the best Masquerade entertainment I'd 
ever seen at a con (even though I didn't "see" his performance at all).  How?  
Because nobody left at half-time!  Heck, *I* usually leave a Masquerade at 
half time, and I'm a costumer!  

2.      MASQUERADE JUDGING.  I like the developing tradition of Masquerade 
celebrity judging.  Last year, it was Illiad, Terry Pratchett and me.  This 
year, it was Jon "maddog" Hall, Sandra Brewer, and me.  Having 2 guests to 
one "just a competent costumer judge" is a good ratio, and I'm willing to 
keep being the "costumer judge" so long as I can afford coming to Penguicons.  
:-)

3.      GREEN ROOM.  The room selected was the perfect space for a Green 
Room--spacious and well-furnished with comfy chairs, couches, and a nice big 
table.  Excellent.  (But maybe next year you can have more hot food in Green 
Room, hope, hope?)

4.      SIGNS.  There were enough of them and they were large, legible, attractive 
and well placed.  Good job.


That's the end of my comments.  Thanks for having Eric as a Nifty, and I look 
forward to next year!


-- 
Cathy Raymond <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

"Anything's within walking distance if you have the time." -Steven Wright


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