Category Archives: conventions

Midwest FurFest 2011

Oh my goodness, what a convention. It scares me to think that Midwest FurFest 2011 was my 12th MFF – twelve years of doing this. Yikes.

This was also my second year working as Hotel Liaison with the Hyatt Regency O’Hare. In one sense it was easier but in another it was a little more difficult – I knew the lay of the land and what my proper role should be, however a few months before the convention we were surprised by the sudden resignation of our hotel contact (to go to the Hyatt Regency Woodfield, ironically). Our new contact, Matt, was promoted from Meeting Concierge (who work with meeting organizers the day of the meetings to make sure they have what they need) to Convention Services Manager (who work with meeting organizers before and during the convention to nail down all of the little details).

I won’t lie – I made Matt earn his keep, but he did very well. I filled his inbox with emails and lists (and lists, and lists of lists). He put up with me and my special OCD tendencies, and I think that between us we totally rocked the convention preparations. There’s still plenty of room for improvement, mainly in convention preparations and scheduling stuff that the average attendee never sees, but I’m sure that we’ll do even better next year.

I know better than to try to list things day by day, because honestly by now it’s all a blur. What did my days consist of? Up at 7 AM, shower, check emails and monitor Twitter/Facebook. 8 AM, check with Security and other departments to make sure no one burned down the hotel overnight. Check in with Gir or Cheetah to make sure they were good for their shift. 9 AM – 10 AM, morning meeting over breakfast with chairman and staff leads to discuss any convention-wide issues or problem children. Check social media again, respond to any queries/issues there. Hit the floor and start the rounds of the hotel, checking in various parts of the con and making sure everyone was happy. Put in a shift or two as Hotel staff on call. Check social media. Get lunch around 3 PM, typically a quick bite from the staff lounge. Roam some more, check social media, then a real dinner. Go off duty around 7 or 8 PM (unless I was on call for the night). That about sums it up.

I had two fine folks helping me out in this craziness: Gir and Cheetah. This was Cheetah’s first year on Hotel staff and Gir’s second, and both of them did utterly fantastic jobs. It is awesome to know that I have people whose judgment I trust and I can utterly rely on to just make it all work. And it doesn’t hurt that they’re both awesome friends!

Somewhere in the middle of all of this (Friday night, to be specific), Dan and I celebrated the ten-year anniversary of our commitment ceremony with a Renewal of Vows and Civil Union ceremony (now that CU’s are legal in the state of Illinois). It was an amazing event, with scores of our friends joining us. We had a beautiful cake for the occasion, and Matt from the Hyatt surprised us with a huge tub filled with ice and bottles of champagne. I know that several folks took video of the ceremony, and we have a ton of pictures to post as well. And after the whole event, we had one hell of a party! It was a great night for us both, and I was so glad to spend it with so many friends.

The rest of the convention went extremely well, and as always we succeeded in making our charity cry. The convention attendees raised around $6,000 for them, and the convention was able to add a check for $12,500 on top of that. I have to admit that I always love that part of Closing Ceremonies! Once the convention was all taken down and stowed for the night, we retired to our room for a final shindig where we welcomed a small number of friends to join us. Nothing too crazy, but a really nice way to wind things down.

So now we take a break, rest and recuperate. The ideas are already flowing for next year, and it’s safe to say that I don’t see us as a convention resting on our laurels any time soon.

Where’s Your Head At?

Yep, we’re down to the pre-convention head-in-a-fog period where I post even less than I usually do. We’re trying to keep things moderately low-key as we lead up to Anthrocon, which is just seven days away (for us, anyway). That doesn’t mean we’re sitting in darkened rooms all by ourselves, though…

On Friday after work takaza and I had a bit of shopping to do in McHenry, then wandered around a bit through Bull Valley (my gosh, that’s a beautiful area!) before winding up in Woodstock. We had dinner at La Petite Creperie. We eschewed crepes for their more formal dinner menu which was…something of a mixed bag. I felt strongly enough that I wrote up a review on Yelp, giving them 2 out of 5 stars. We’d go back, but only for the crepes.

Saturday we worked around the house a bit, then drove up to Antioch to visit with roho and genet and linnaeus. It was a pleasant evening, nice and laid back (though clearly we hadn’t had enough mind-altering substances to fully appreciate “Sita Sings the Blues” 🙂 On Sunday was spent working on Anthrocon stuff and generally just puttering around the house. Not a bad thing at all!

This brings me to the specter hanging over our heads right now – Anthrocon. It was with a bit of astonishment that I realized last week that I’ve been working in the Artists Alley at Anthrocon for the last nine years, and been in charge of it for the last seven years. Dan started in the Alley with me, then graduated to write the at-convention newsletter, then to create and run the Finance Office. Nine years is a long time, and we have both reached the point where we are burned out and it just isn’t fun anymore. It’s an insane amount of work to run these departments, and I know that at least for me serving as chairman of Midwest FurFest was easy compared to the time spent preparing for and running Artists Alley.

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve enjoyed my time managing Artists Alley. I have gotten to work with some really wonderful people, and as I wrap up my final year on Anthrocon staff I leave knowing that the Alley is in excellent hands. rooth, my second-in-command is taking over the position from me, and I have every confidence he will do an excellent job. We haven’t always agreed on philosophical matters, but that’s a good thing – it’s good to challenge and understand why we do what we do. He’s got a great head for logistics, and between us I think that we’ve created a pretty awesome purchasing system in the Alley. And I know he has a ton of new ideas that will be implemented over the next few years that will make the Alley even better.

As for us? We’ll be giving Anthrocon a miss next year, I’m afraid. We’re planning on a cruise to Alaska to celebrate the 10th anniversary of our commitment ceremony; I only have two weeks of vacation, and the cruise is going to consume a large chunk of that. We’ll still be active with Furry Connection North and Midwest FurFest, though, and the many and various smaller events throughout the year!

FCLR, and So Tired

Oh man, am I exhausted. It was an extremely full weekend. takaza was hosting the Furry Convention Leadership Roundtable, and I was helping. We had folks come in from all over the country, representing Anthrocon, Furry Connection North, Rainfurrest, IndyFurCon, the Dorsai Irregulars, and of course Midwest FurFest. We spent a solid 11 hours on Saturday talking over a host of different topics, talking about what worked, what didn’t, and how things can be improved. We finished off the day with a rousing discussion of Convention Horror Stories, which was a real hoot. (Note: If you weren’t invited, don’t be upset. To prevent the discussion from being too biased toward any one organization, there was a limit of three representatives, plus S.O.’s, per convention.)

The event was held at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Lincolnshire, IL, and it turned out to be the perfect hotel. Nice, big rooms, affordable rates, and just the right amount of function space. Next time I hope we’ll actually be able to check out the hot tub and pool. Since it’s in the middle of a ton of dining options, that makes it even more attractive. Finally, the staff was extremely accommodating and helpful.

After we had unpacked the car and picked up Buddy from Dan’s mom’s place, Dan pretty much went right to bed at about 6 PM. I stayed up until 10, but clearly I should have gone to bed earlier. I’ll be dragging for the rest of the day, and I may need to take a nap when I get home from work. Ugh.

We Did It.

I am tired.
I am hoarse – I have almost no voice left.
Did I mention I was tired?

But with 14+ months of preparation and untold hours of hard work by over 130 staff members, Midwest FurFest 2009 is done and was a huge success.

And now, I’m going to relax on the sofa, enjoy my mint tea, and not. Do. Anything.

And I’m going to feel damn good about it.

And Now, Here We Are

Twelve+ months of preparation (because planning for this started well before the last Midwest FurFest) and untold hours of work later, here we are at Midwest FurFest 2009, celebrating our tenth anniversary. This will be my final year as convention chairman, so it’s bittersweet in that respect. I wasn’t able to accomplish everything I wanted to do, but I made a good dent in it, so I’m not too unhappy.

Being chairman versus running Registration was a huge difference for me. It’s a lot less hands-on, and more management. In that respect it offered a welcome break from seven years of doing the same thing, but it introduced a whole host of new and interesting issues to be dealt with. All in all it’s been a worthwhile, if at times frustrating, experience. It’s been worth it, though.

As far as what this has meant to me as a person, it has been a tremendous experience in relinquishing control and letting other people do their jobs. Delegation, delegation, delegation. I know when I came into this position many staff members expected me to be a micromanager because I am such a control freak; I hope that I proved them wrong, or at least was helpful and constructive in what management I offered. I certainly appreciate the patience and cooperation that has been shown to me in return.

I guess I should say that I’m not going anywhere next year – I’ll be taking over the Hotel Liaison position, something that is sure to offer new and interesting challenges. But first I need to make it through this year’s convention. It’s going to be stressful, I can already see that. But we will work it through, and have a good time doing it.

I will receive a lot of thank-yous at this convention, and I can’t begin to say how much each and every one will be appreciated. But I would ask that you also take the time to stop a staffer or volunteer at the convention and thank them as well. I’m just the manager – they are the tireless folks who are doing the actual work. You would be amazed how much just a simple “Thank you” can turn around a crappy day and erase a bad experience someone has had. We are all volunteering our time to make this convention happen – nobody gets paid. Do your part and help people feel that it’s time well-spent.

And with that…I’m out of here! My email and web access will be spotty for the next five days, so if you need to reach me, my cell phone is your best bet. See you all on the other side!

Anthrocon 2009 Con Report, Part 1

I’ve mentioned this before, but some folks have asked why I write up such long and detailed convention reports. The biggest reason is so that I have something to look back on in future years to remind me of what went wrong, what went right, and how to make each year better than the last. Granted, as some might have gathered this year’s Anthrocon wasn’t as great for me as past years have been. I’ll come to that in a bit, but let’s start with:

Monday

A Quick Word…

It’s been a completely insane week at work and I’ve been so exhausted when I got home I haven’t been up to writing anything. Thank heavens for LoudTwitter, eh?

Anyway, I did want to mention one very important thing: Online registration for Furry Connection North ends at midnight tonight! If you haven’t already, you should really go and register now. It’ll give Gir and Nik and all of those fine folks warm fuzzies 🙂 FCN is a great convention! We’ll be there, and you should be too. Hope to see you there!

(Oh yeah, and did I mention something about a party at FCN? One of those might just be happening…)

Will you be at Mephit Furmeet?

Unfortunately, time and expense will keep us away yet again this year, but if you can you should go to Mephit Furmeet! And while you’re there, you should lend ramalion a hand at Registration. Why? ‘Cause he’s a cool guy, and I owe him my soul for all the times he’s helped out at Midwest FurFest’s Registration and Anthrocon’s Artists Alley 🙂 Interested? Here’s how you can help.

Anthrocon 2008 Report, Part 1: Preparations, Tuesday, and Wednesday

Yes, it’s time for another one of Duncan’s exhaustive, verbose Anthrocon reports! This is the personal report; I have the “official” department report outlined. I’ll get that written up and posted by the end of the week.

I’ll preface this by saying that my Anthrocon reports (both personal and departmental) are long and detailed. This is mainly for my own benefit, as it’s very handy to look back just before the convention at past reports for reminders of what we did in prior years, what worked, what didn’t, and handy things like which pizza joints were good and which were not. Feel free to read along, though!
Preparations and Tuesday – The Drive Out

Furry Connection North: One Down, Many More to Go (Hopefully!)

Furry Connection North. It was a weekend so big it’s going to need two posts to cover it!

First off, let’s talk about the convention. From everything that I saw, girtygrin and his staff did an outstanding job. All of the staff was extremely cordial and friendly. Things ran on time (if not early!). The sponsor lounge was very good, and the complimentary beer (Bell’s Amber Ale and Oberon) was excellent. All in all, they can give themselves a pat on the back for a job well done. Speaking personally, I really appreciate that Gir went out of his way to make our experience a pleasant one.

So that meant that I had a great time at the convention, right? Well…not so much. I can’t stress this enough, though: this is absolutely no fault of FCN or anyone associated with it. As I have suspected all along, if I go to a convention and I’m not volunteering in some fashion, I’m bored. It’s how I’m wired, I guess, but there it is. I think I needed to recalibrate my approach to conventions a bit, and by the end of the weekend I was doing a lot better. I was a lot more outgoing and social, and I met a lot of new people and got to spend time with folks who I don’t often see. It was a real pleasure to spend more time with tervicz and to make the acquaintance of jet_der_hund. I also had a blast hanging out with huskydoggeh, kodi_pup, dexcat, Dexgirl, and of course all the usual gang of miscreants from Chicago and Chambana.

The hotel…yeah, the hotel. We had been to the Best Western Executive Plaza for Dorsai Thing last year, so we knew what to expect. Then, and this weekend, we stayed in the “tower”, which was the newer side of the hotel; our suite had a bit of an odd odor to it and the furnishings were somewhere well past “worn out”. I hadn’t realized though that the other parts of the hotel were quite so…grim. The lack of air conditioning would have killed me, and there was unfortunately a litany of other complaints as well. The reviews on TripAdvisor pretty much sum things up. Also, mirkowuff hit it on the head: “This was probably a fantastic hotel – in 1984.” Granted, the costs were reasonable and it enabled a first-year convention to get its feet under it, so it definitely served its purpose.

So, what did I do to fill the time this weekend? Well, that’ll have to wait for the next post.

Hooray for Half-Pony, Half-Monkey Monsters!

It’s Friday and I’m feeling random.

So it appears that we’ll be going to Furry Connection North (April 11-13, Ann Arbor, MI). It will be the first convention I’ve been to in a long LONG time where I haven’t been on staff, so it should be an interesting experience. Once we get our rooming situation sorted out I’ll go ahead and buy sponsorships for takaza and me. If things work out, it appears that there may even be a Fine Potables Party there!

We need to make a couple of side dishes for a birthday party this weekend. Because I’ve never really cooked with Jerusalem artichokes (and because everything is better with bacon) I’m going to try making Warm Salad with Jerusalem Artichokes, Bacon, and Radicchio, a recipe from Jamie Oliver’s newest cookbook. I don’t have a lot of use for Oliver, but hey, the recipe sounds tasty. I just hope it scales reasonably.

Speaking of food-blog related stuff, I’m sad that I didn’t win anything in the Menu for Hope 4 raffle results that were announced today, but they did raise over $91,000 for the United Nations World Food Programme. That’s just amazing. I look forward to participating in Menu for Hope next year! (and I’ll probably mention it more next year because not only is it a great cause, the prizes they were raffling off were extremely nifty)

Finally, yesterday I introduced a cow-orker to the amusement that is Jonathan Coulton. That reminded me to go back and listen to some of his songs I haven’t heard. My new favorite of his is Skullcrusher Mountain, a tender tale of an evil overlord attempting to impress his less-than-willing female captive:

I made this half-pony half-monkey monster to please you
But I get the feeling that you don’t like it
What’s with all the screaming?
You like monkeys, you like ponies
Maybe you don’t like monsters so much
Maybe I used too many monkeys
Isn’t it enough to know that I ruined a pony making a gift for you?

Midwest FurFest 2007: Personal Observations

There’s not going to be a lot of order to this, but hey, bear with me.

  • I said it before but I want to say it again: I had the support of the most amazing group of people at Registration this year. They worked hard, and every single one of them deserves high praise: Neowolf2, rustitobuck, Rolliebear, CobaltFox, Little_Wolf, DaveQat, Ramalion, chsck83, Shy_Matsi, mutantur, Moiracoon, Woodychitwn, Bullethc, Chanur2000, Drew2u, Fordshepherd, Kellicjtiger, Street22, and Tozier_wah. Great job, folks!
  • I will freely admit I had some concerns about sabotlours and carol_kitty running Con Suite, mainly due to the complexities of running something as logistically complicated as Con Suite from Albuquerque. I am delighted to say that not only were my concerns completely unjustified, but also that they totally rocked the place, bringing foods heretofore unseen in MFF’s Con Suite (sushi! stir fry!). And I am very, very glad that they are returning to staff next year in the same role.
  • It is with mixed emotions that I leave Registration behind and move into the Chairman role. I’ve been running Registration for seven years (the first MFF, damnbear did a great job at it) and it’s time for a change. I’m a logistics guy, not a programmer, and it always bothered me that the Registration system was pretty much a black box to me (of necessity – I wasn’t expecting anyone to teach me to program, after all!). I’m glad that Neowolf will be taking it over; he will hopefully bring new life and new ideas to the department. As for being chairman: Wow. Daunting doesn’t begin to cover it. I have some ideas for the coming year, and I still need to talk to many of the convention staff to see what their plans are for 2008. We’ve got a terrific group of people on staff and my job will be to stay out of their way and let them do what they do best.
  • I get to sleep in next year! Well, at least until 8 AM. Sometimes it sucks to be a morning person.
  • Speaking of waking up early, props to crim_ferret and the other Security folks for having fresh coffee each morning. Thanks!
  • There will be another Fine Potables Party at Anthrocon, and at Midwest FurFest 2008 (“Chairman’s Reception”? 🙂 Those are far too entertaining to let fall by the wayside.
  • So we had three elevators in a four-story hotel and we managed to kill one of them. The Westin has four elevators for 16 floors. Well – this will be fun to manage.

The Midwest FurFest Website has been updated, and has not only the video that we showed at Closing Ceremonies to introduce the Westin but also links to reserve your hotel room and register for MFF 2008! Yay!

So, now there’s nothing to worry about until next year. Oh, except for Wuffmeet. And Anthrocon (and creating an entirely new point of sale system for that). Yeah, no worries whatsoever…

Coming Up For Air

Well, it’s been almost a week since Midwest FurFest, and I’m finally able to sum it all up: DAMN. And I mean that in a good way 🙂

Let’s see if I can condense this down to something readable. I do want to preface this by saying that if I don’t mention your name it’s because it was all a blur – please don’t think any slight is intended.

Wednesday

Home. Ow.

Takaza and I are home.

My cell phone is out of commission; it crashed and had to be mailed to Sprint for service. If I’m lucky I’ll have it back my Wednesday; if not, I assume it’ll be sometime next July or something.

I slipped off the truck as we were loading it and not only seriously whacked my knee but twisted my back and my ankle. Consequently I haven’t been much use in moving the massive amounts of stuff that require both Dan and my cars to get home. Oh, and Dan’s sciatica flared up again last night.

Whining aside, the con went well. No major problems, and a lot of very pleasant surprises. I’ll have a Registration Report sometime in the next few weeks and perhaps a personal report when I can. Now, I’m going to go collapse.

The Things We Do For Fun

Wow, a week since I last posted. As you might guess, my life is sort of exploding at the moment. Last week was a flurry of last-minute preparations, and everything seems to be falling into place nicely. There’s just a few loose ends to wrap up this week (including printing sponsor coupons and temporary badges for the evenings) and we should be good to go. At this point, we’d better be in place or, well, tough luck!

And in the midst of all of this, we worked Windycon. Now, this may seem like madness, but there is a method to it: the idea was to have a weekend where we didn’t deal with MFF stuff at all, and we could just act as drones and do what we’re told. Yeah, that was the theory anyway.

See, here’s the problem: This was the 34th Windycon. And it showed, badly. They have too many people who are in a rut, who are pretty much down to taking the approach of “let’s just do everything like we did it last year, and the year before, and the year before that.” Please don’t get me wrong – in most cases the folks who run the convention are lovely people, and I wouldn’t mind spending time around them. But even the best of us gets jaded. The other problem is that over the years, turf wars have erupted. His clique hates her clique, and that person doesn’t play well with that other person. The entire thing is grossly dysfunctional, and communications have broken down. A couple of examples: 1. There was an information desk near the Dealers Room. They were serving much the same purpose of Operations (where we were working). There was zero communication between the Information Desk and Operations. 2. Registration didn’t open at all on Sunday, due to too few memberships typically being sold. Instead, attendees were supposed to go to Operations to buy badges. We knew that we were selling badges overnight, but when people started coming in to register at 8:30 AM, we told them that maybe Reg opened at 9 AM. Then 10 AM. Then 11 AM. At 11:30 AM we finally found out that Registration wouldn’t be opening at all that day but never communicated that fact to Operations.

We have helped in Windycon Operations for the last few years as a favor to unclevlad, but he’s moving on to another position next year, and we’re done. The convention holds no interest to us. So we’re done – no more Windycon after this. If nothing else, though, it served as a nice reminder that Midwest FurFest is amazingly well-organized and functional. Also, the Dorsai were helping out with Security Adult Supervision, so we got a chance to talk with Rene a bit, which is always a pleasure. It would be crazy, but we’re giving serious consideration to helping out the Dorsai with Magfest this year. We’ll see what happens after MFF, though…

Unfortunately, I didn’t sleep well at all all weekend, so I’m dragging a bit today even after last night’s sound sleep. That makes life fun, eh?

I Don’t Think Marble Slab Makes Rogan Josh Mix-Ins…

Now that was an entertaining weekend! First off, the week was instantly made better on Friday afternoon when takaza returned from the wilds of Indiana. Of course, not an hour after he got home we had to leave again, but it was for a good cause: dinner with friends at Bombay City Indian Restaurant. We had a lot of fun seeing familiar faces and meeting some cool new folks too (who I hope we’ll have a chance to see more of!). The food was, as always, fantabulous, though I have learned my lesson: while tandoori stuff is tasty, the sauced dishes are where it’s at. Fresh naan dipped in the chicken tikka masala sauce…heaven! Unfortunately, we’ve been there three times and each time the service has been sub-par. This time we waited about 30 minutes for our check once we were done. It might be time to investigate other Indian places in the area, sadly. For dessert, we went to Marble Slab Creamery with steviemaxwell, roho, genet, and linnaeus, which was a perfect capper for the evening.

On Saturday, after a very quick follow-up visit with the doctor about my toe (it’s healing nicely, thank you), I returned home and Dan woke up not long after. I knew that I needed to go to laffsoftballLAFF Softball to drop off the badge holders for Mephit Furmeet to ramalion, but it was up in the air if Dan would be joining me. Between a couple of calls to Stevie, making some lists, and having some cool ideas for grilling, it suddenly transpired that he had talked himself into going and we were going to be grilling for the picnic after the softball game. We stopped by Sam’s Club and picked up a huge amount of food (as well as a nifty new portable table) and then headed over to the softball game. Aeto was kind enough to make a quick store run for us for a few things we couldn’t get at Sam’s Club and to lend us the use of his cooler – thanks, Aeto! We watched some of the game and chatted with the various folks who were there (too many to name!). At about 4 PM we took all of the supplies over to the cooking area and fired up the (one, very small) grill and set to work prepping the food. Dan and I had agreed that we were going to make “Jucy Lucy” burgers (sic), and we set to work making the patties. Perro and Darkwolph let us store some of the perishables in their refrigerator, which was a huge help! I learned that the grill didn’t put out as much heat as I had hoped as I limped along with the first batch of bratwurst, but once we got a handle on it (and added another chimney full of charcoal!) we got things working properly. We wound up feeding 25 people or so, and even managed to break even in costs! Dan and I are kicking around ideas for the end-of-the-season picnic, possibly including steaks. We’ll see if we can make that work, though.

After grilling, we were both drained, so we drove home and crashed. We were both silly and didn’t put on sunscreen (not too bad – we were mostly in the shade) or bug spray (bad – I’ve got multiple unpleasant welts!), so we’ve got some tokens of the day to remind us to properly prepare next time!

Dan’s sister came over Sunday afternoon and they worked on her computer for several hours while I puttered around the house doing laundry and cleaning. That unfortunately meant that Dan had to stay home to work on work-related stuff while I headed out to have dinner with Roho, Genet, chebuytkin and CAJones at Dave and Busters. The company was excellent, with much smoffage and comparisons of conventions (I like the idea of road-tripping to Minneapolis next July 4 for Convergence!). The food was surprisingly good as well, as was my strawberry margarita. The games afterwards…not so much. If you like shooting or driving games, D&B’s is the place to go. Unfortunately, shooting games have zero interest for me and my passion for driving games is limited at best. I left with credit still on my card, but the night was getting late. I got home just as Dan was wrapping up for the evening, so it all worked out.

It’s a new week now, and it looks like it’ll be a busy one at work. We don’t have much planned during the week, though at the end of the week is the Chicago Air and Water Show. Also, keep an eye out here because plans are in the works for another game night at our place next week!

Conventions, Hobbies, and Saying “No”

First off, since I have been somewhat remiss, I want to thank everyone for their congratulations and well-wishes from Sunday’s journal entry. Make no mistake, I am honored and gratified to have been chosen for the 2008 chairman position. If there’s any tremor in my voice, it’s due to the realization of how big the scope of the position is and of the challenges that lie before me in the coming year and a half (or so).

There is one thing that I wanted to touch on, though. Many of you have heard me say this before over the last fifteen (!) years, but it certainly bears repeating.

Furry conventions, and indeed any fannish-run convention (or SCA event, or what have you), are part of our hobbies. To my mind, a hobby is something that you do for fun, to take you away from the humdrum of the everyday world. To that end I think that it is extremely important that while we are engaged in hobbies, we are enjoying ourselves and having a good time. Because in the end, if a hobby isn’t fun, why are you doing it? And to be honest, if you’re not having fun, it shows. It drags down those around you. And it puts you on the fast track to burnout, where anything associated with your hobby fails to bring you happiness. That, to me, is the worst of all possible outcomes.

I never want someone to work with me at a convention because they feel guilty, or because they have a feeling of obligation. That isn’t what conventions are about. Sure, the immediate task may not be that exciting, but overall the opportunity to give something back to the community, to meet new people, to work side by side with your friends, to enjoy the challenge of bringing order out of chaos – that is what I would hope people get out of the experience.

The corollary to this applies to those who aren’t working the convention. I would never think less of someone who isn’t interested in volunteering or who says, “I need a break.” If it’s not fun, if it’s not enjoyable, then don’t do it. Don’t let working take the fun out of your hobby.

Now, I hope I’m not cutting my own throat here, but what I want to say is that if someone feels that they are not enjoying working for a convention, I would hope that they would be willing to say so. I would consider them no less a friend for their decision, because hey – I want to see my friends enjoy themselves too! And for those who work the conventions and find joy in the work they do, you should know that your efforts are deeply appreciated, not only by the other staff of the convention but by all of the attendees as well.

Something to consider for those who have not worked at conventions: there are always opportunities to help others, and to see the convention (or event) from a different angle. As people take a break from helping out, new blood is needed to keep the convention going. And hey, you can usually get a nifty T-shirt or membership out of the deal, too! 🙂

Anthrocon Report, Part 6: Final Thoughts

So, how to summarize Anthrocon 2007?

It was a big year for me. We put a lot of plans into place and I think they came off rather well, a few technical glitches notwithstanding. I didn’t have enough time to socialize, which isn’t too surprising given how I was tethered to the Alley, but I don’t really regret that too much. Standing in the empty Artists Alley at 4:45 PM on Sunday, after everyone had been paid and left, I was left with a feeling of accomplishment.

One thing that I think is worth mentioning, and something that very few people know, unless they were involved with staff in Hall C. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if it weren’t for the efforts of my husband, takaza. Yes, I know – he’s my husband and it’s expected that I would give him credit. But were it not for him and his staff (daveqat, jimcyl, and wild_rhythm) we wouldn’t have had the cash for our cash registers or to pay the artists at the end of the day, and Anthrocon’s finances would be a mess. Dan put in a lot of time preparing for the con, and during the con put in even longer hours than I did. Unfortunately, the nature of his job keeps him out of the public eye, and it’s often rather thankless. So I want to publicly thank him for all of his hard work, and remind him that I love him very much!

Looking ahead to 2008, I see a lot of challenges ahead of us. If we expand the Alley by 50%, our registers and our payout system are going to be stretched to the breaking point. We need to investigate how to improve the artist tracking system (possibly with a Point-of-Sale system, and making the Con Store register able to take Artists Alley purchases during busy periods) and how to speed up payout. I need at least two or three more staff members, as well. We’ve got some other innovative ideas that we need to pitch to the Anthrocon board that could help dealers as well. In short, we have some exciting opportunities ahead of us, and amazingly enough I’m looking forward to next year already.

Among other things for next year, I hope to finally set foot in the Steel City Diner. I hope to host another Fine Potables Tasting (and actually get invitations to everyone I want to invite!). I hope to make it back to the Dorsai debriefing on Sunday night. And finally, I hope that, when Anthrocon 2008 is over, I’m looking forward to 2009 with the excitement I feel now for 2008.

Anthrocon Report, Part 1: Tuesday and Wednesday

I’ll start out by saying that this is going to be a long, multi-part report. The main reason I write these (and so many of my other “went-here, did-this” entries) is because I find that it’s nice to be able to come back months or years later and revisit these entries and be reminded of what went wrong, what went right, who I spent time with, and what exactly happened. I invite everyone to come along for the ride, but if it’s not your thing, I understand completely.

That having been said, let’s start at the beginning, on Tuesday, shall we?

For obvious reasons I’m afraid I didn’t get much accomplished on Tuesday at work, since my mind was very much on the coming trip. I was able to get away from work at 2 PM. This gave me time to stop at Subway and grab some lunch, then go home and eat before piling part of our luggage into the car and heading to the train station for the 3:13 PM Metra train. Takaza had the rest of the luggage and was going to meet me at O’Hare, having gotten a ride from a co-worker. The train ride was uneventful, and the transfer from the train to the bus to the O’Hare ATS was very simple. I met Dan at the United E-Ticketing baggage check-in in Terminal 1 and we cruised through the security checkpoint.

The flight out was unremarkable, save that on what appeared to be a very full flight, an unoccupied row was available so Dan grabbed the window seat and I grabbed the aisle, thus freeing us both of the packed three-person rows we were in before. We got to Pittsburgh International Airport at about 10:30 PM and after a bit of an extended wait for our luggage, went out to meet the shuttle that Dan had called while we waited. The shuttle (with the World’s Most Surly Driver, who didn’t even make a move to help load our bags into the van) took us over to the La Quinta Pittsburgh Airport. It was…adequate. Definitely a mid-to-lower range La Quinta, but it was only $15 with Dan’s LQ points. We watched a bit of TV then went to sleep at around midnight.

Wednesday

I woke up with a coughing fit (something that was to become standard for the week) at about 6 AM and after about a half-hour of trying to get back to sleep, I got up and showered, then went down to get some breakfast and read the paper. I thought something was a bit odd with the free newspaper the hotel supplied (the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review), but it wasn’t until I read the uncritical quote from a Washington Times reporter and saw Mallard Fillmore on the editorial page that I decided I needed to get a real newspaper and walked next door to the Bob Evans and bought a copy of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I knew I was going into a news black hole (I don’t have time to read a newspaper during a con!) so I figured I’d enjoy it while I could.

I returned to the room to find Dan already up and showered. We packed everything up and took it down to the lobby where Dan had some breakfast while we waited for the shuttle back to the airport at 9:30 AM. Once we got back to the airport (courtesy of our MUCH friendlier and helpful driver), we walked all of 100 feet down the curb to wait for the 28X bus to take us downtown. As we waited we were joined by Mach, which made the ride much more pleasant and a really nice start to our con experience. The bus let us off about three blocks from the Westin, and we had no problems finding it. We were able to check in immediately, which was a very nice surprise. We took our luggage up to the room and I got the clothes put away and shirts and pants hung up while we had the chance.

Once we were fully settled in, it was time to dive into the convention! We stopped by Operations, but except for various staff members filtering in, there wasn’t a lot going on, especially since they hadn’t dispatched the truck to the storage unit yet. We hung out there for a while, and then decided to get some lunch. Unfortunately, we found that downtown Pittsburgh on a holiday (July 4th, in this case) was a ghost town. Nothing was open, and we wound up walking about eight blocks down to Gateway Center before coming on a McDonalds that was open. Any port in a storm, I guess. We had a quick lunch, and then returned to the hotel to find that the troops had been marshaled and dispatched to the storage unit in our absence.

Dan, kellicjtigerKellic, and I worked to get the radios set up, identifying the faulty ones and verifying the programming on all of them. I think we wound up with a couple of duds (like last year) but overall everything seemed OK. I had an excellent discussion with Bigtig about the Anthrocon Registration system, and what he’s done to improve it over the years. I continue to be impressed with the work that he’s done, and I think he has every right to be very proud of the improvements he has made to the system. The proof is how smoothly things went this year as he and his staff registered 2,849 people. Well done!

We took a break from Ops and I went outside and hung out with Datahawk, Emrldgrrl, Artemisfur, Dancingninny, and the rest of the Dekalb crew. We had a lot of fun chatting, watching the crowds coming in, and making snarky comments. After a time, I went back into find that the hordes had come and gone and emptied the truck very quickly into the Operations office. I helped Dan get his office’s equipment sorted out, and then we started to talk about dinner.

We wound up taking orders from most of the Dorsai on site as well as a couple of others and ordering from Ephesus Pizza. Dan and I ordered a chicken alfredo pizza (with bacon!) that was delicious, if a bit salty for my taste. We hung out in Ops for a few hours, helping out here and there and sharing some of our pizza. The fireworks were quite pretty, what little we could see in the gap between the office buildings. Afterwards, we trundled up to bed and watched a bit of TV before sleep claimed us at around midnight.

How To Recruit Staff for Fannish Conventions

Here’s an essay I wrote last year and never got around to posting. I updated it a bit and cleaned it up. Enjoy!

How To Recruit Staff for Fannish Conventions

Since a couple of people have mentioned that they had issues with putting together staffs for their departments at various conventions, I thought I’d post some thoughts that I had on the matter. I have run Registration at Midwest FurFest for the last six years and Artists Alley at Anthrocon for the last three years. I have put together quality groups of people to work both of these labor-intensive departments with minimal year-to-year turnover, so I figure I must be doing something right! I don’t expect that anyone is going to read this and suddenly all will become clear, but I hope that it might provide fuel for thought and at least some of this might be helpful.

I’ll break this down into three sections: Before the Convention, During the Convention, and After the Convention.

Before the Convention

Convention Worst Case Scenario: When It All Goes Wrong

Wow. Big convention news going on right now, and it’s not a happy thing.

Flanvention 2 (aka The Big Damn Flanvention, Part 2), a professionally-run convention based around all things Whedon (Buffy, Angel, Firefly) was supposed to take place this weekend. Tickets were amazingly pricey, which I suppose is to be expected given that relatively small niche we’re talking about. Tickets for the weekend started at $229, with premium packages going for $2,000 and up.

Except yesterday Booster Entertainment announced on their website that the event was cancelled. Now everyone is asking what happened to the approximately $200,000 in revenue went, and the Booster people aren’t talking. You can follow the developing story on the Whedonesque message boards, or on the LJ community. This is Big and Ugly.

The one good thing in all of this is that so far Adam Baldwin (“Jayne”) and Mark Sheppard (“Badger”) have shown up, uncompensated, to meet and greet the fans. That’s pretty darned cool.

Apply The Brakes?

For the past few months, I’ve had two driving forces: get a job, and prepare for Midwest FurFest. These two things have been pretty much what I built every day around, and kept my mind occupied. So now I have a job in hand, and I’ve completed all of my preparations (well, save one or two, but those are not time-consuming). So I have before me a rarity: a day unclaimed. Now, because I’m the way I am, that doesn’t mean I’ll be lolling about; I have to get a haircut, stop by Sam’s Wine to stock up for the Fine Potables party at MFF, do laundry…but I do those things today or tomorrow or even on Monday, were I so inclined. The pressure to get stuff done is off, and it’s a very strange feeling. It’s certainly not one that I’ve felt in literally years, and while a relief, it’s unfortunate that it’s a little disquieting too.

Ah well. Off to start the day!