This weekend

[figmo]

As I expected, Baycon itself sucked. I was able to have a good time despite the quality of the con, not because of it.

What sucked about it? In a nutshell, when I, as an attendee, feel the politics of a con, it sucks. This has only happened to me once before, and that was at the 1984 Westercon in Portland.

Here's an example of the kind of thing I shouldn't notice: At the hotel coffee shop Friday, a bunch of us tried to get dinner. There were only four entrees on the menu. There was only one vegetarian item, unless you include the "garden salad."

Our party included a vegetarian who didn't want a fatty cream sauce. The waitress lectured the vegetarian as to what vegetarians do and don't eat, insisting the member of our party wasn't a real vegetarians because "vegetarians eat fish." What part of "fish is not an animal" did this lady not understand?

Everyone at the tables around us was watching to see what Fred Capp was going to eat. Fred is a vegetarian with a dairy allergy. When Fred, Robin Baylor, and I used to play together we'd go to dinner after rehearsal. Fred was so hard to feed we wound up coining the term "Fredible" to describe what he could and would eat. There was nothing "Fredible" on the menu other than the "garden salad."

Eventually the waitress found a box of Gardenburgers in the back, but she made the vegetarian in our party promise not to tell anyone about it. Great. Two of us had the "spaghetti bolognese," which was more like "chili on spaghetti." Uck. The "mixed vegetables" in the "lunch buffet" (being held over till 8pm) was corn (well, I guess somebody mixed them!).

There were problems with the Internet Lounge's net connection. They seemed to relate to the hotel.

Sunday night the music programming was asked to turn down the volume because the hotel had booked non attendees above it. Someone else who had requested a "quiet party room" got put next to a rave.

I later learned, without asking, that there had been something like three or four hotel liaisons, and that the last one had the job dumped in his lap less than a month before the con (read: scapegoat).

People who should have been programming participants weren't. I heard of a couple of cases where people were snuck onto the panel at the last minute because the panelists were so outraged at the omission.

The party line as to why I wasn't a panelist or given a concert was I'd fallen through the cracks. Given some of what I saw I can believe it, but I'll never know for sure.

Given that people on the concom feel they can "control" (this is the word I've heard used from multiple staffers) people in their departments and in their programming areas, there's some serious dysfunctionality going on. I spent years in therapy learning you don't "control" people unless you can physically restrain them; you "motivate" them to behave the way you want. Better yet, you "trust" your staffers to "do the right thing" and give them lots of feedback so they know whether they're doing the right thing.

I missed the LJ BoF Saturday because Mom got out of the hospital and called to let me know this. Mom had been suddenly admitted Thursday morning and had been diagnosed as having "a virtual hernia" after a CT scan and the doctor wanted to operate endoscopically. His partner poked at her abdomen Saturday, didn't look at the CT scan, and said she didn't need surgery. She now needs to get a 3rd opinion. The scary part: The 2nd doctor was the same one who thought my Dad's metastatic colon cancer was "diverticulitis."

The parties at the con were fewer in number, and the people made them. I was glad to run into friends on that floor. In various conversations I wound up introducing people to filk. In one party a guy who looked to be half my age hit on me! It's amazing what lots of alcohol (he was seriously drunk and slurring his speech) and dim lighting does to make one more attractive.

This past day I slept. It was as if someone sucked out my energy. In the filk room I was projecting energy as I would if I were doing a concert, and the responses I got showed it. I even did a new filk I wrote Saturday night three times over the weekend. I was going to write something about puns, but a conversation Ray "Buzz" Nelson, Gerry Pearce, and I had totally changed the course. Ray said "soak up the sun" sounds like something that should be about suns and solar systems, and somehow we diverted to black holes.

Anyhow, this is disjointed, and I'm pooped and in bed. Warren is next to me cracking sick jokes in response to CNN Headline News, and Lady is busy "attacking" Warren.

Comments

BayCon Commentaries.

[cadhla.livejournal.com]

There were a few points made in the entry above that I felt should be responded to. Firstly, as gridlore pointed out, the Doubletree is under new management -- they've been purchased by the Hilton chain. We went through six general managers within the hotel while preparing for BayCon 2002. While we do have a long-term relationship with the hotel, frankly, I feel that relationship was the only reason we had as much success with the hotel as we did. Our hotel liason's first year was, well, this year, and he slept very little as he tried to work with the hotel itself.

Yes, there were hotel issues; I don't think anyone who attended the convention will deny that. As the Vice-Chairman, I encountered a remarkable number of them. And every time we found an issue, we started working to fix it. Unfortunately, we didn't learn about many of the problems -- such as the altered menu in the Coffee Garden -- until fairly late in the convention. My recommendation for anyone is that you tell us when you have a problem: ConOps is always located on the second floor, always open, and always willing to hear what's wrong. And we will come down on the hotel like an anvil if we know that they're giving you trouble.

The Internet Lounge connection issues were the fault of the hotel, and the Internet Lounge staff worked very, very hard to fix those problems as quickly as they occured. To be fair to the Internet Lounge staffers, they were running a free service on borrowed machines, and still managed to maintain more than 70% connectivity. I know offices that don't do as well.

To quote you directly: "People who should have been programming participants weren't. I heard of a couple of cases where people were snuck onto the panel at the last minute because the panelists were so outraged at the omission. The party line as to why I wasn't a panelist or given a concert was I'd fallen through the cracks. Given some of what I saw I can believe it, but I'll never know for sure."

Why 'should' anyone be a program participant? We had well over a hundred and eighty guests at the convention this year, covering all fields and genres. What grants any single person the right to be a guest of a given convention? Kevin Murphy, a personal friend of mine, was not a program participant for several years -- simply because his individual skills were not required. People can fail to be invited for any number of reasons, up to and including failure to reply to their invitations. Our deadline was the beginning of May, and replies to the guest survey were arriving as late as Saturday of the convention. At that point, it's a little late to add them.

Two further statements, again quoted (in italics): (original post) "Given that people on the concom feel they can "control" (this is the word I've heard used from multiple staffers) people in their departments and in their programming areas, there's some serious dysfunctionality going on." (from a comment) "I also get disgusted when I see nearly all the people working the con are young, impressionable folks who are (and in some cases have been) easily manipulated."

Since I believe that I'm the person who gave you the 'party line', and considering my relative age, I find this statement both worrisome and slightly offensive on a personal level. Having worked with me on a variety of conventions, it concerns me that you would question my integrity and imply at the same time that I can be controlled. I have the greatest respect for the BayCon staffers: they are some of the best people I've ever worked with in a convention environment. This year's convention was smooth and pleasant, save for the hotel issues, and I attribute that entirely to the efforts of those staffers.

Young people have energy, motivation and ideas. Youth does not imply inexperience or gullability; some of the youngest staff members on BayCon's 'list of regulars' have been working the convention for six years or more, and will hopefully stay with us for years to come.

Thank you for attending this year's BayCon: perhaps next year you could attend the Hiss and Purr panel, and share your issues with our executive committee.

Re: BayCon Commentaries.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

First of all, it's hard to run a good con when you have constant turnover on the concom. Period.

Second, when I'm at dinner I do not want to go shlepping up to conops to complain about the hotel restaurant's menu. I go to a con to have a good time, not to be a pest.

As for the "should have been guests," I was quoting other folks telling me stories about a few panels where, for one reason or another, someone the panelists felt should've been invited wasn't. I don't know who Kevin Murphy is; his wasn't one of the names I heard.

As for the party line and the word "control," it's a word I heard used a lot when I worked Baycon. Your use of it is hardly unique. People aren't "controlled." They're "motivated," "mentored," and "trusted." People will only do something if they want to do it. Saying you "control" your staff is like saying you control the rise and fall of the sun. That's classic dysfunctional management, and it took me years of therapy to learn this. You can only "control" someone if you can physically restrain them.

There were some older, competent, and experienced people working the con in some positions. There were also a lot of younger, inexperienced folks who were given "sink or swim" situations and were quickly being swallowed by quicksand. That, IMHO, was cruel. I was told by folks running the con suite that the final hotel liaison was thrown into the job less than a month before the con and had never done the job before. The hotel could walk all over him and did. That's manipulation.

I've also heard about the legal problems Baycon is facing. All of you could be in deep kimchee, and that would suck.

Re: the Hiss and Purr, that would've required me to drive back to San Jose Monday. Baycon is traditionally pretty dead that day anyway, and quite bluntly, so was I. I also feel like some suggestions I'd make would be met with lip service anyway, based on past experience, and as for the rest (the biggest problem being the hotel), Michael Siladi knows how to fix that, so I saw no point in dragging myself out of bed to tell him what he already knows.

I'm glad you had a pleasant and smooth experience with Baycon. I agree some of the folks I met while working Baycon years ago were (and still are) great people. However, this doesn't mean I had a pleasant experience at the con this year.

I didn't know there were concerts till I got to the con. Why? Friday night's were sparsely attended because people didn't know they were happening. People who did have concerts told me communication from the con was a big problem.

Other program participants complained the Program Book didn't match the Pocket Program which didn't match the stickers on the back of their badges. In one case someone was on two conflicting panels. That's just plain sloppy.

Next time when you have constant turnover, you might just want to post names and real e-mail addresses of the people running a department on the web site and in the program book so e-mail doesn't go to the wrong people. I tried e-mailing about the con programming several times over the last few months and it seems to have fallen in a black hole. James Daugherty never got any of my e-mail, and you wound up with e-mail that should've gone to Brianna.

There's no One Set Way to correctly run a con other than communicate, communicate, communicate -- and that wasn't going on.

Re: BayCon Commentaries.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

First of all, it's hard to run a good con when you have constant turnover on the concom. Period.

Provably not true. CapriCon, among others, has almost an entirely different concom each time. True, that may not lead to enough of a 'same con every year' feel, which some people like, and it means that departments will be run differently each year, but that's not automatically a sign of incompetence.

Second, when I'm at dinner I do not want to go shlepping up to conops to complain about the hotel restaurant's menu.

As a judge of elections, I have one hard and fast rule: If you didn't vote, you don't get to bitch. This has a corrolary: If you didn't let the people who can fix it know there's a problem, you have no right to complain when nobody ELSE told them, either. You have every right to bitch about the *restaurant*, however, since they did you dirt and apparently were icky. :->

for one reason or another, someone the panelists felt should've been invited wasn't.

Like every con doesn't get this? There are always people who feel entitled, as Seanan points out, and most of them are blowhards. Frederick Pohl (to pick a local Chicago-area pro) doesn't complain when he doesn't get guested to a con; he just buys his membership and attends. I have very little sympathy for people who think they're 'entitled' to a star spot/concert/panel at a con, probably for personal reasons. Especially if said people haven't returned their 'here's the panels I can be on' paperwork on time, as apparently happened in this case.

Other program participants complained the Program Book didn't match the Pocket Program which didn't match the stickers on the back of their badges. In one case someone was on two conflicting panels. That's just plain sloppy.

Bigtime agree on this one, though that doesn't mean it doesn't happen all the time at Chicago-area cons. Proooooooooooofread. Sigh. *forestalls another long anecdote, 'cause you probably don't care and I'm just bitter* *grin*

Re: BayCon Commentaries.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

What you don't realize is it when I say "a lot of turnover" this year, I mean just within this year. I believe Baycon went through three con chairs, three Programming people, four hotel liaisons, and I don't know how many other positions had that level of turnover in one year!

In some cases I'd heard from a fellow fan hanging around that The Powers That Be Have Been Notified And Are Working On It. If that's so, I trust my fellow fen and see no reason to make conops lives' more miserable. In the case of guests, I'd heard a few were genuine oversights, while others were deliberate snubs because someone in a position of power didn't like someone the panelists felt should've been there. I'm merely repeating a couple of stories I heard. I was not a panelist; I was merely a paying member of this con, so this is clearly not my story. If I have the energy to get to a Pensfa soon I might be able to get names, but we'll probably be talking about other stuff by then.

Re: You and experience, yes, these days you do have people in their early 20s who know enough to run a con because they've been at it so long and who are extraordinarily mature for their age. They happen, and that's great.

Quite bluntly, I came into Baycon expecting a mess held together with twine and shiny duct tape, and that's what I saw. Was I surprised? No. Was I disappointed? No.

You see, someone at Baycon needs to learn you can't "control" the people you deal with. The hotel proved that.

Re: BayCon Commentaries.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

First of all, I didn't mean "yearly" turnover. I meant "monthly" or "every other month" turnover. When three or four people in one year slide through a position it's different than when a person has that whole year to do things. Baycon had that kind of turnover this year in many of its positions, such as con chair (3), programming (3), and hotel liaison (4).

As for the restaurant, I voted with my feet by not eating there the rest of the con. 'Nuff said. It was my choice to handle it that way. I figure others who had stronger feelings could complain to whoever.

I can't comment firsthand on who was and wasn't on panels re: who did and didn't return paperwork on time. When I'm invited I'm anal about getting that paperwork in because I feel privileged to have been invited. I'm one of those weirdoes who likes filling out that kind of stuff. Anyone who knows my pattern of membership purchases at Baycon can attest I sure as hell don't expect to get guested; I buy my membership and a "Guest of" every year at the end of the con for next year.

What I had heard was people would send in e-mail and it'd fall into a black hole. The e-mail addresses for "programming" and a few other positions didn't point to the right person for large chunks of time, and a lot of e-mail fell through the cracks.

As for the stuff you're bitter about, feel free to vent to me in private. I don't mind listening, and if I need to vent, I'll tell Lady. Bichon Frises have a limited command of spoken English. :-)

Re: BayCon Commentaries.

[bellacrow.livejournal.com]

First of all, it's hard to run a good con when you have constant turnover on the concom. Period

How many cons have you helped run? I'm curious, because there are quite a few conventions, including Convergence which have a totally new staff each and every time.

I've been in Con Ops and Programming for this Con for 5 years now.

And you make it sound like everybody was brand-new to BayCon, which is patently untrue.

As for the "should have been guests," I was quoting other folks telling me stories about a few panels where, for one reason or another, someone the panelists felt should've been invited wasn't.

I like that, "someone the panelists felt should've been", it's not the panelists running Programming, guiding the feel and tone of the guest list. There are so many reasons for a guest not attending or even being invited that it's pointless to speculate.
There were also a lot of younger, inexperienced folks who were given "sink or swim" situations and were quickly being swallowed by quicksand. That, IMHO, was cruel. I was told by folks running the con suite that the final hotel liaison was thrown into the job less than a month before the con and had never done the job before. The hotel could walk all over him and did. That's manipulation.


Once again, we're talking about Tycho, who knew what the job entailed, was on good terms with everyone and had impressed the hell out of us by being our Party Maven last year. This year he did both Hotel and Party Maven and did a great job. He was lauded up and down. The hotel didnt walk all over him. Once again, you're really eager to believe the worst you hear.

And I for one am getting tired of your skewed viewpoint. Either get all the facts or stop listening to someone's twisted viewpoint.

There's no One Set Way to correctly run a con other than communicate, communicate, communicate -- and that wasn't going on.


um, bullpuckey? I was in Ops, I was surrounded by communication, I was one of the crew passing on messages, by radio, telephone, etc

I give up, you want to have this twisted view of the Con, be my guest, just know it's not shared by many, especially not those with accurate information.

Re: BayCon Commentaries.

[figmo.livejournal.com]

How many cons have I helped run? Let's see...I've worked Baycon in the past, Silicon, Westercon, ConFrancisco, LACon III, Conterpoint Too!, and I'm chair of Consonance. My experience goes back 15 years.

When I referred to "turnover," I meant multiple staff changes within one year, as opposed to something like a typical Westercon or Worldcon where a different group runs it every year.

Quite bluntly, I felt the hotel stuff sucked this year. You can tell me till you're blue in the face about how wonderful it was. I paid, I attended, and I experienced problems. You know the saying:

1. The customer is always right.
2. When the customer is wrong, refer to Rule #1.

I was a consumer. As for the programming stuff, I was merely reporting what I'd heard from other folks. Don't shoot me -- I'm just the messenger!

As for communicating, I didn't just mean the conops stuff going on during the con; I meant all the pre-planning stuff. It's hard to contact a department head before the con when a) you don't know who the department head is because the name on your last PR doesn't match reality and b) the "department-head@baycon.org" e-mail addresses on the web site point at the wrong person. For example, I e-mailed to music and got Seanan instead of Kierin. James Daugherty never got my e-mail I'd sent him in advance of the con. In fact, the PR I'd had said someone else was doing programming.

I know about radios and conops. Ask me in person sometime about the time the person in charge of programming at a different con once squealed, "There's a fire here that needs to be put out" over the two-way radio when she really meant, "I need help answering a question." (Rule #1: Never yell "Fire!" over a two-way radio unless there really is one -- literally -- and you can't extinguish it on your own.)