Convention running

[marcmagus]

There's a discussion going on in a locked post of a dear friend of mine regarding Noncon. She has several legitimate gripes regarding the way the convention committee has acted in (mis)communicating with her in the past. The topic is resurfacing in fairly general terms for a good reason. What surprised me is some of the other people who posted in response also expressing their dissatisfaction with Noncon. For some of these people I don't know what they're unhappy about. I'd like to.

So I'm opening the floor. Please, if you have any issues with things which have been done regarding Noncon in the past, tell me. I'm no longer involved with the convention. I won't pass it to anybody else if you don't want me to. But I expect there will come a time when I'm involved in organizing this event again, and I'd like an opportunity to learn from our collective mistakes.

This post is public so people who aren't on my friends list can see it and respond. If you want to reply but aren't comfortable doing so publicly, send me an email or IM. (Same username as here at AIM or gmail)

I especially encourage responses regarding things I, personally, have done, but I want to know about anything which has happened which might discourage someone from coming back. I also welcome any reasons you may have had for considering attending Noncon but ultimately deciding not to. Discussions of these sorts of issues seem to keep cropping up around me, and more information is definitely better.

Comments

[wylddelirium.livejournal.com]

I sent you an email with more detail, but my number one complaint is that for some reason, volunteering to incur expenses to run large scale LARPs for the convention was implicitly giving permission for my personal life and choices to be openly ridiculed and discussed by the ConCom and their close friends. It also meant that someone, usually someone high up in ConCom politic, would actively try to discourage people from playing in my games.

If I wanted to feel socially criticized and outcast, I can stay home and make random commentary on larpwriting's games. I mean, um...

No, but honestly, it's just not worth the social manipulations and politic to do actual work and spend actual money to be made to feel like I did in high school.

[wylddelirium.livejournal.com]

Upon further reflection, my advice is the same as it is for any sort of queerness between "friend" and "professional relationship". I'm willing to run games for my "friend's convention", as long as they treat me like any other presenter. This was NEVER the case with NonCon. People who had no standing relationship with anyone in the ConCom was treated with professional respect, whereas "friends of the convention" were treated incredibly poorly like the con was doing US a favor.

I might have been able to eat that six years ago, when I was a relatively new LARP GM with very little convention experience under my belt. I absolutely cannot swallow it now that I'm being woo'd by Dragon*Con and Origins to run games there - because once you find out what it's like to be treated like a professional, the idea that "We can't invite her because then all of her ex boyfriend's friends won't come [an actual arguement, once]" becomes petty horseshit.

[marcmagus]

That idea was always petty horseshit. I'm trying to figure out if I remember that discussion or missed it, and what I said if I was there. Odd that I can't remember.

Thank you. Some of this is stuff I wasn't aware of. I thought there was mostly the stuff involving the actual professional stuff (long delays in responses to emails, bids getting rejected unexpectedly, and the like). I feel like I completely missed the incredibly unacceptable things.

[captainecchi.livejournal.com]

I don't like that it's the same weekend at InterCon, consistently - especially since InterCon is better run, I'm finding. I say this, of course, having BEEN ConCom in the distant past.

It's just hard to run a good college convention, because running the convention is ALWAYS second fiddle to the ConCom's other life concerns. I know there were numerous things we fell down on, and it seems that nobody has learned from those lessons and they continue to fail at them. Scheduling was always a bear, and it still is. So are space issues.

[wylddelirium.livejournal.com]

All in all, though, in the past, I think the only people it's been a significant conflict for is you and I. However, I think they'd get much more LARP interest from the NY/CT/MA area if there wasn't a conflict. But the question hangs, does NonCon *want* more LARP representation?

I don't think MIT students would necessarily come to NonCon, which is the other community that heavily patronizes NEIL's Intercon (the "lettered" ones, rather than the "numbered" ones, which happen in the Baltimore/DC area).

[petiteamazon.livejournal.com]

The only problems I ever had with NonCon (myself being decidedly uninvolved in the actual running of the event) were 1.) the college's determination to kick us out of rooms we should have been allowed to game all night in; and 2.) the implication that by virtue of my decision to ignore the drama and come to the Con anyway, I must be "siding with" certain people who had made some of my friends feel unwelcome there.

I plan to be there this year again, and I'd like to make sure the alumnae/i dinner happens again if any other alum-ish folks are present and interested.

[wylddelirium.livejournal.com]

This may hit on a universal point, here. Is it too much to ask that the ConCom of NonCon act in a professional manner when it comes to to the con and it's organization? It sounds sort of basic, and mayhaps insulting, but it's the truth. When they let their personal drama influence decisions like what presenters to highlight or how to treat off-campus attendees.

If you're running a convention primarily for the enjoyment of other Vassar students, than who really cares? You'll pull who you can from the outlanders, and you'll fill the gaps with NSO people. But if you're looking to grow this to be more like ICON or ProCon - a "real" convention, run by college students, for the enjoyment of students and fen alike - then you HAVE to, absolutely HAVE to, create and maintain not only a professional demeanor when it comes to all things con related, but things like a codified schedule for each position ("Announcements to the paper must be mailed by January 12th", etc).

Because yes, there have also been problems with timely correspondance, timely reimbursement, and miscommunication. All solveable once you start treating this more like a business and less like a hobby.