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calimacI 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.)
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.)
