Well, I have yet to write up even a semi-coherent post about Midwest FurFest, but in the meantime, I want to address a topic near and dear to my heart: Registration. It’s funny, because in all the con reports I’ve read I haven’t seen a lot of mention of registration, something which is just fine with me. Reg is one of those things you only hear a lot about when things go wrong, and things went spectacularly right for us this year.

Preparations for this year were more stressful in years past. I was stupid and didn’t follow the timeline I set out for myself last year (you know, the one that I made so I wouldn’t go insane?) and for that I paid the price of large quantities of stress. Everything came together on Tuesday before the con when the registration bags arrived five hours before we drove out for Chicago. That’s cutting things a bit too close. Next year, this Will Not Be The Case.

We also got an unpleasant surprise when we arrived at the hotel: the coat closet that we had used in previous years was completely unavailable to us due to being flooded two weeks prior and they had STILL not found or repaired the leak. This meant that we had to set up in the hallways in front of the coat check, and in hindsight this was actually a Good Thing. We had a lot more space to work with, and I think we actually handled attendees better with this configuration than we would have otherwise, although it was at a cost of packing everything up every night, something that was distinctly unpleasant but not too onerous. We’ll be sticking with this configuration for next year, with some minor adjustments (and having the coat closet available for storage will make it much more livable!)

Then the people came. And came. And came. This year we added a time stamp to every badge printed, so I was able to do traffic analysis. At the peak of processing on Thursday night, we registered one person every twenty seconds. On Friday morning, with fewer people and fewer stations that went up to one person every thirty seconds. Damn. To the best of my knowledge no one waited longer than fifteen minutes to get their badge all weekend. I consider that damn good, but there’s still room for improvement. We have some changes to make to our system, both in software and hardware, that will really speed things along. Next year, my goal is that no one waits longer than ten minutes. We’ll see if we can hit that.

I suppose I’m making this all sound like I did it myself, and I want to assure everyone that I am laboring under no such delusions. This was very much a team effort, and there’s a great many thank-you’s to go out, starting first and foremost with rustitobuck. Rusty is responsible for all the programming for the registration database, and this is the third year in a row that it has worked and worked well. Even in the face of printer issues (as in, nothing would print!) hours before Registration opened on Thursday, he held everything together and came through with a system that withstood the beating that we gave it. You’re awesome, Mr. Wookiee, and I can’t thank you enough!

My second-in-command, DaveQat, did a fine job of keeping things running and sorting through issues in my absence and even when I was there. Be ready for a lot more to do in the coming year, Dave, ’cause I’m ready to offload some of these preparations to you!

Then there’s my staff. At times I feel sort of like an Amway salesman, dragging friends onto Registration staff whether they like it or not. They put up with me, though, somehow, and do an amazing job. It’s because of these great people that we were able to be as efficient as we were and they deserve your thanks:
Ramalion (I so owe you for this, and the next time I’m at MFM I know where I’ll be working!), Osiris (kittylad), Tsuki, Benjie (boixboi), Rasslor, Feren (because, you know, Art Show didn’t give him enough to do…), Jackie (my mother-in-law :-), Synicism, Tecknow, damnbear (hey, how’d you get in there?), and Rolliebear. Y’all are all fantastic, and I can’t begin to express how grateful I am for your help during the convention.

Many thanks, too, to the fabulous gophers cuttercoon (you were there when I needed you!), bakimono (so quiet and efficient I forgot to mention you), and Cheesecake (chsck83) (damn, even I don’t pull six-and-a-half hour shifts at Registration!). I appreciate the time you volunteered and hope you enjoyed it as well.

And finally, thanks very, very much to my beloved husband, Takaza, who not only put up with my annoying crap leading up to the con, but provided support throughtout the con and ordered pizza for us on Thursday night so my Registration staff was fed and happy! He’s really neat, and I’m going to keep him 🙂

So there you have it. We rocked this year, quite frankly, and we have set the standard for next year. And with the crew that I have (and any other interested folks who care to join us), I am absolutely certain that we can be even better next year. Way to go, folks!