And now, the final installment.
Monday
Even though I didn’t need to be up that early, I was up at 6:30 AM anyway. I took a shower and walked over to the Steel City Diner, where I had their delicious breakfast sandwich, which was basically an omelet served on a bagel. Then it was back to the Westin for a meeting with their management to review the weekend. Nothing much to report there (even if it were my place to) – they seemed happy with how the weekend went. Afterward, I stopped by Crazy Mocha, where I ran into KP and Roho and Genet and chatted for a bit. Roho and I swapped some amusing text messages with Ford.
The meeting with the DLCC went well, too. Afterward, Dan and I returned to our room where we packed up the last of our stuff and took it downstairs, and then I walked over to the DLCC and retrieved our car from the loading dock. We were on the road not long after noon.
The theme on the drive back was meeting up with friends. When we stopped for lunch south of Cleveland, we ran into Heather Bruton and the Stein family (Dave, Diana, and Sabrina). Then when we stopped for gas near Toledo, we ran into Hegdish, Drake, and Bacon. Finally, in eastern Indiana we found ourselves being followed by Roho and Genet. We all stopped for dinner in Portage, and I led the way through the worst of the city traffic back home.
We rolled in at about 8:45 PM, and as tired as we were we went ahead and unloaded the car. We spent the next few hours waiting for the air conditioning to cool the place off, then went to bed at 11 PM.
The Thank-Yous
I want to take a moment to thank everyone who made this year’s Anthrocon good for me:
Dan – What, my husband wouldn’t be number one on my list? Are you nuts? Dan put up with my stressing while having a ton of stuff to worry about on his own. He kept me sane and suffered through my whining. I love him so much!
Rooth – Being my second in command can’t be easy, but he puts up with me pretty darned well. Rooth is a competent, caring guy who I consider myself very lucky to be able to call a friend.
The Artists Alley staff – Benjie, Delphi, Frosty, Geemo, Rama, Shy, and Snowie. You guys are nothing short of amazing! You took on more hours than I’ve ever had to schedule anyone without complaint, and you did a magnificent job of it. I count myself lucky to have great folks like you to work with. And Rama, I think I might have a few more things for you to do next year….
The Con Store guys – Dave and Wag. You took the schedule I’d written and pretty much tore it up, and each of you worked probably double the time you were scheduled for. Thanks again!
Dan’s staff: Hartree, Chanur, and Tango – if we had it bad, you guys had it worse. I hope you were able to get out of the little locked room and enjoy the convention.
Brophey and Karwood – Man, we need to see more of you guys (and Rasslor too!). Thanks for a very enjoyable evening.
Ford and Jack – Thanks for taking what would have been a boring drive to Pittsburgh and making it a lot more enjoyable! And congrats again on the new job, Jack!
Roho and Genet – Oh my gosh, did you guys go above and beyond! Thank you so much for your help with Artists Alley signups and payout, and thanks especially for the beer and downtime to relax. I couldn’t ask for better friends.
Final Thoughts
And then there’s the downside. As you might have guessed from some of the posts leading up to Anthrocon and immediately afterward, this wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as it could have been for me. In fact, it was pretty damn unpleasant at times.
What was the problem? Well, for one thing there’s the stress level. It was bad leading up to the convention, and even worse during the convention. It took a physical toll as well, with insomnia and stress backaches that are still plaguing me. I can honestly say it was easier to be chairman for Midwest FurFest than it was to run Artists Alley and Con Store at Anthrocon this year.
Additionally, there’s the fact that there was a whole convention that went on that I didn’t really get to see. Opening and Closing Ceremonies? Nope. Programming panels? Not a one. One trip through the Art Show, and two visits to the Dealers Room. Dances? Missed every single one. I couldn’t enjoy the few parties I visited, really, since I had to be up early each morning. 12-hour days, beginning to end.
I can’t do this again; at least not like things went this year. It’s just not fun, which leaves me wondering why I’m doing it at all. I came into the convention contemplating making this my last year, but I’ve come to realize that wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be fair to the Anthrocon board, but more importantly wouldn’t be fair to Rooth or Rama or any of my hard-working staff. If I’m going to leave, it’s going to be on a brighter note than this, and with everyone much more prepared to take over.
So, I’m left to think about what went wrong. Clearly a lack of delegation bit me in the ass, first and foremost. I’ve got some extremely talented and reliable folks on my staff, I need to make use of that fact. Lack of manpower was a problem as well. Eleven people isn’t enough to cover five registers and a supervisory position for 20+ hours and still have time for anyone to enjoy the convention. I need at least one more supervisor (hi, Rama!) and at least another three staffers. We need to improve our processes. I know Rooth has a whole list of possible improvements, and I have a couple to add to that myself. And I need to get my butt away from AA/CS and see more of the convention.
So right now, I’m up for next year. Depending on how things go, it may be a transition year; we’ll see. At any rate, having two (or three!) people who know enough to run the Artists Alley and Con Store independently doesn’t seem like such a bad idea anyway. I’m going to write up my official report, then I’m going to not think about Anthrocon for about six months. I seem to have this other little shindig to start focusing on…
I had heard a lot of people talking about the very low staff to attendee ratio that comes from the large explosions in attendance AC has seen over the past couple years. They desperately need to recruit a lot more full-time staff to spread things out a bit more in all areas, so its not just the same people running themselves more and more ragged as the convention continues to grow dramatically.
Anthrocon had 158 staff members registered this year for 3,776 attendees. Midwest FurFest had about 150 staff members for 1,992 attendees. You see the problem 🙂
The biggest problem is that in this particular case there is no “they”, there is me. No one is going to recruit staff for me, it’s pretty much up to me (and my staff, and their social networks). Clearly next year I’m going to have to shake the trees a bit more, ask people to talk to their friends, and get some more help in.
The staff:attendee ratio is absurd at Anthrocon. I’ve run a few cons in my life (hah), and a 10% staff margin is nominal – in fact, in chatting with folks from some of the mega conventions, they approach 20% in some cases.
The convention, as a whole, needs to make a committed effort to recruit and retain staff. Everyone is burning out, and the event is going to suffer significantly if there aren’t a number of improvements.
I’ll go ahead and voice this here: I’ve heard, over the years, a number of people perpetuating a rumor that the Board feels “Anthrocon has enough staff” – generally stated to imply that AC will not provide any more free staff badges.
If that is truth, then Anthrocon needs to clearly dictate what constitutes “staff” and what constitutes “volunteer” in order to adequately fill all necessary roles. If that is fallacy, it is imperative that the rumor be quashed and the call for staff be made clear.
I’m certain that our stress levels will be significantly improved should there be 378 staff at our disposal next year.
It would help…and I don’t know if this has changed since last time I went to AC…but it would help if they had a volunteers department. I’ve attended a lot of other conventions. AC is the only one I’ve gone too that doesn’t have a volunteers department. Granded some of that is mitigated by the Dorsi who handle badging duties and such. And I know Ops in years past has also been the focal point of volunteers. But IMHO I think it was ridiculous when a call came in from artshow that someone from ops had to go and run and track down someone with a ribbon and ask hey you want to help out. A volunteers department really needs to be created…IMHO of course. A convention’s board is perfectly capable of making the decisions they feel are best. I just think its just different is all.
Wrangling volunteers is indeed one of the things Operations does, but since we’re so spread out now the elegant simplicity of the volunteer light from the Adam’s Mark days is impractical. We’re exploring technical options, such as getting cell phone numbers from volunteers so they can be texted when a need arises.
Nobody’s told me I couldn’t recruit more staff — but I’m not a people person, I don’t know how to find people who’d be interested or willing, other than shanghaing clueful volunteers. I recruited three last year, but three regular staffers from previous years couldn’t make it, so net growth was zero. I had 16 staff this year; I need 25 people for all the positions that need to be filled on Sunday afternoon. I’ve recruited three more this year, and some from previous years will be able to attend again next year, so it’ll be better but still not optimal.
Generally, volunteers are those who want to help out only for a few hours here and there, or in different departments. Staff are those who are willing to accept greater responsibility (in exchange for roughly the equivalent of a supersponsor membership) to put in at least 5 hours or more a day in a particular department.
The solution is clear:
More robots.
I wish I had been able to recruit some people to work with us, unfortunately none of the locals I know out here were going to con and the boyfriend’s eyesight makes him a very poor candidate for the kind of work involved in Artist’s Alley. Anyway, I had a great time, and I’d be glad to work for you again next year. Hopefully some of these provisions can make it a less stressful time for you.
Hey Duncan just wondering if you have a cohead or is it just you? I’ve been looking at taking a department at Convergence here in Minnesota, however the concept of being stuck in a room pretty much all weekend makes me want to go nuts. Something I learned from Charles, and something I need to start working on the social committee stuff for Detour, is that grooming an heir is just as important as working out how your department runs the following year….something that really never even occurred to me previously, but makes sense.
*Thinks about his post* No that was not an offer…. 😛 As much as I loved going to AC the cost has become prohibitive the last few years. Missing that one AC it showed just how “happy” my wallet was after that.
One of the drawbacks of “being in charge” of some aspect of a volunteer organization is that, in many cases, you do a lot more work than anyone else in the group. Sadly, the 90/10 rule (90% of the time, 10% of the people do the work) has been dropping off with a lot of the groups I am either involved in or know of.
But in most cases, it’s a labor of love.
So the trick is in the recruiting and delegating – something I’ve had issues with in the past myself. I tend to not let go, and then I’m not as active in getting help as I could be. I’m trying to get better about that…
I would’ve liked to have gotten out a little more, but working with a bunch of awesome people behind the counter before and after Hall B hours made up for that a bit. We have a pretty kick-ass group, but we do need a few more furs. I’ve started talking to some local furs to see if there’s anyone who might be interested in helping out at AC 2010.
I will not mind repeating my secondary role of keeping the department manager caffeinated. 😉
I’ll work harder and see if I can talk some more people into helping 🙂
Rama, just how in the hell do you plan on working any harder? For a while there i thought you were going to put down roots.