conac

[calimac]

I don't see much in fan writing about what it's really like to run a convention. Right now we're in the home stretch to Potlatch (2 1/2 weeks), and my job as hotel liaison is full of keeping track of fiddly bits. Last Thursday I had a long meeting with the hotel staff, including my first real contact with the person who'll be handling most of the hard at-con logistics. (Previously, I'd been in touch mostly with the sales manager, who operates on a more abstract level.) It took some persuasion to have this be an in-person meeting, which I thought would work better than phone or e-mail, and it did. We walked about the hotel and talked about matters relating to the various rooms we're using.

Since then I've compiled all my notes and fired off e-mails to various committee members, either things they need to know about their responsibilities or questions the hotel needs answered about their preferences and plans. Some of these have been answered quickly and some not. So, more keeping track. The meeting did throw one major complexity into our plans which we are now hashing out, but better we do it now than be blindsided during the convention itself. I count doing my job as having had the wit to suspect from things previously said during the meeting that this problem was likely to come up, and then having the gumption to ask specifically about it.

I see the liaison job as being both speaker-to-the-hotel on behalf of the committee, and speaker-to-the-committee on behalf of the hotel. This means I speak two different dialects. The committee, for instance, says "dealers' room" (I'm old enough to remember when fans said "huckster room"), while the hotel says "sales room." The hotel knows its physical meeting rooms by their names, but it's rather confusing for the committee, who don't live there, to remember which of the synonymously-named Peak Room, Apex Room, and Summit Room is which (strangely, none of them is on the top floor), so I use their functions when speaking to the committee, while I'm not even going to mention to the hotel that we're calling something the Algonquin room, let alone explain what that means. I'm telling them it's our breakout room, which is the closest available word in their language. (One thing I always advise Mythcon committees is never, ever attempt to explain to the hotel or campus about Golfimbul. It will only confuse them.)

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

shsilver has published at least one and maybe more issues of Argentus devoted to conrunning. I contributed a long article on Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Available online.

Many years ago, one of my issues of Rune was mainly the Operations Log from that year's Minicon. Still one of my proudest achievements in fandom. Some people really appreciated the behind-the-scenes view, others were perplexed that I would run such a thing. I have copies.

Yes, the hospitality industry has a different vocabulary than fans. But we're the customer, and we generally know a LOT more than most of their customers, so they like us. This, of course, varies.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

There's also Ian Sorensen's fanzine Conrunner (http://www.compulink.co.uk/~magician/conrunner/index2.htm)....

I get the fix I used to get from con-going/-running in other ways these days, but it doesn't mean I don't miss it (on a suitable scale, that is).

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

That's just a touch out of date, though.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

True. But that doesn't make it completely useless: perhaps the answers to the questions aren't what they were, but the questions considered should help people think about what they want to do....

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I would draw a distinction between material on how to run a convention and material on what it's like to run a convention.

[akicif.livejournal.com]

A very good point: the second sort of article is a special case of the con report and does tend to be pretty rare: I'm just thinking now that the dearth of such articles probably contributed to the general feeling in large chunks of UK fandom back in the eighties and early to mid-nineties that fanzine fans and conrunners were two separate species who didn't necessarily have that much to say to each other - which reminds me all too easily of the 1995 fan programme that Jenny and I were responsible for.

Coincidentally, your distinction strikes another chord: I'll be spending a chunk of this weekend writing two documents: one on how to steward or run stewarding for an event, and another on what it's like to be a steward or steward organiser at the same event....

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

A very special case, since some of the most interesting stuff occurs before the convention ever happens. (But then, that's true of ordinary con reports that begin as trip reports on how we got there, from Art Widner's foo-foo trips of the 1940s and Willis's The Harp Stateside ["Next day began my grim struggles with the transport systems of the world"] on.)

[chorale.livejournal.com]

Ah, for the days of con-running again. Actually, I'm happier now that I don't have that in my life because I can spend more time actually enjoying the ones I attend. I highly recommend taking time off from running one to attend one. It helps one to have a break from all the pressure.

[scribblerworks.livejournal.com]

I did "explain" Golfimbul to the UCLA site coordinator - but only to the extent of "we have some evening games that require some open playing space." Her response was just that security be informed that we would be out playing. It was the doing the book toss outdoors that really intrigued her.

[wordweaverlynn.livejournal.com]

Running a con is, in my very limited experience, a lot like putting on a play, a wedding, or a Renaissance festival. Or even like getting ready for a software release, though customers generally don't swarm in the moment you reach code complete.