Brad Ideas - On worldcon and convention design - Comments

programming against the GOH speech

Gary Farber — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:50:11 -0700

"I've heard from people who are upset that a GoH speech doesn't draw as many people as the Masquerade, but a policy of cancelling anything more popular than the GoH speech seems self-defeating unless your goal is to downsize to a narrowly focussed con."

I won't address any of the other issues, but I'm in the camp that says the one thing there should be no counter-programming against are the GOH speechs. It's disrespectful to the GOHs. If people aren't interested in listening to the GOHs -- which is completely legitimate -- they can entertain themselves for that hour, or hour and a half. It's not the duty of the the con to supply alternatives at every moment, and the GOH speech is a unique moment.

Of course, immediately upon writing that, I realize that I'm so old-fashioned, I momentarily forgot we no longer have only two Guests of Honor, a Pro and a Fan.

But I'm stodgy enough to then argue that this demonstrably an example of how having more than two GOHs diminishes being a GOH. Once you have 5-6 of them, you've gone from half (okay, we all know the pro GOH got far more attention than the Fan GOH) the honor and attention going to each GOH to a fifth-to-sixth the honor and attention.

If it's a problem to stop Worldcon five or six times for each GOH event, then maybe that's too many Guests of Honor?

(Let alone noting the Worldcons that have had more than 6!)

By the way, am I the only person bothered that the Raleigh NASFiC has decided to have a "GOH" followed by an "Artist GOH" and a "Fan GOH," which implies that the first, with no modifier, is greater than the other two, modified, forms of GOH? Or am I being persnickety in noting that, so far as I can recall/have noticed, no Worldcon or NASFiC has ever used such nomenclature and made such a distinction before?

It reads to me as if they're saying there's a "real" GOH, and two lesser ones. But maybe that's just my own idiosyncratic reaction?

And you kids get off my lawn!

Why you can overprogram

brad — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 17:23:01 -0700

Fans are diverse, but a convention exists to come together. That’s why shared experience is essential to any convention, not just in SF. Worldcons don’t try to be all things to all people, nor should they. Now perhaps I may have a particular strong niche interest, but that had better not be all I am interested in because there I am better served at the world convention for that niche, and for most of them, there is one.

No, I will come to go outside my niche and to focus on some of the things the worldcon is strongest at — appreciation of written SF in particular, and a bit of the FIAWOL culture (fanzines, con running etc.)

If you try to have something for everyone you overdo it. You must strike a balance. A balance that brings people together, rather than sticks them in their pigeonholes. I would rather see a superb panel about one of my lesser interests than a mediocre panel about my strongest interests, and I am not alone.

You overprogram if people don’t feel the programming left them time for other things. You overprogram if people feel they ad to constantly travel long distances to get to sessions. You overprogram if you have a noticeable number of sessions with just a smattering of people. You only underprogram if people start staying, “The program usually had nothing to interest me” (when they are the sort of people who like programming.)

Overprogramming

Tom Galloway — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 16:13:16 -0700

I'll disagree there's no such thing as overprogramming, and can give an example from Anticipation that played out pretty much exactly how I expected.

In general, I thought Anticipation overprogrammed evenings, particularly given that the convention center was a 10 minute or so walk to the party hotel (i.e. people wouldn't duck in and out of evening program with respect to parties). But there was one case in particular I figured wasn't going to work. I was scheduled for an evening item that had, as its competition, 1) the Masquerade 2) Neil Gaiman reading a Cory Doctorow story with Cory in the room 3) Win Robert J. Sawyer's Money (note that Canadian author Sawyer is particularly popular in, well, Canada) 4) Parties. And probably another item or two I don't recall as not being as significant as those. My item had no one on it with any significant name draw; no offense to anyone else on it, and I include myself in this category, few if any would have anyone on that item on their "I really must go to this because this person is on it" list. Also, the topic wasn't one with strong intrinsic interest, such as a science or tech topic.

And, as I pretty much expected, no one showed up for it except the panelists.

It's also the case that an item often really only works if you get a certain number of people in the audience. My Monday morning panel was hurt by being in one of the "I'm surprised the signs aren't in Chinese since we're that close to Chinatown" rooms at the very far end of the Palais. By that point, at least one person posted they were picking which items to attend by how far down the long hallway the room was. So we had a < 10 person audience. We did a good panel, with lots of audience interaction, but honestly it would've been much better if we'd had even 20 people. It probably would've been better, at least for that time slot, to have had one or two fewer items in it so that each item would've had a better chance for a significant audience.

Re: Not necessarily dinner

Petréa Mitchell — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 13:20:38 -0700

"While there are people who, like you, want to spend as much time in programming as possible, my estimate is that they are a small fraction."

On what do you base that estimate?

I'm not disagreeing with you; I think you could take any single person's description of the ideal Worldcon experience and it would only be representative of a small fraction of the Worldcon population. But if you're basing it on anything more substantial than intuition, I'd be interested in seeing that information myself.

"How many people think there is not enough programming at a typical worldcon?"

Anyone who thinks their particular subthread of fandom was unjustly ignored.

More solid answer: Go to the gripe sessions for 2-3 Worldcons and see for yourself. 2-3 because no Worldcon is ever absolutely typical.

I don't think there's any

Deirdre Saoirse Moen — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:44:31 -0700

I don't think there's any such thing as overprogramming. One of the things I love about going to a Worldcon is the diversity of topics. There is no One Fandom; we all have different interests and a Worldcon generally tries to do a number of topics well. Often, they succeed in some areas but not others.

over-programming

Bruce M. Miller — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:24:55 -0700

"I think it i can be a feature if there is no session to go to in a given hour... You want time for meals, for the dealers, for social conversation and many other things. I see no flaw if there is nothing to go to on the program."

You're committing a logical fallacy. You can see only one program at any given time. If there are two others you'd like to see running at the same time, you don't lose anything by having those other panels exist. In fact, you get a slight gain, because you get to pick the one you'd most like to see. You may have an emotional loss - frustration at not being able to be in three places at once - but having fewer choices never gives you better options. At some point more program tracks starts to spread the audience too thinly, but that's a different issue (and vendors in the Dealers' Room may think the ideal number of tracks is zero).

The shared experience aspect should be considered, but you can't force people to attend things they don't like by cancelling the things they do like. I've heard from people who are upset that a GoH speech doesn't draw as many people as the Masquerade, but a policy of cancelling anything more popular than the GoH speech seems self-defeating unless your goal is to downsize to a narrowly focussed con.

Your idea of an enforced lunch break suffers from the same logical fallacy (programming does not prevent you from going to lunch) and in most venues it would cause restaurant overload if everyone eats at the same time. It's better to spread the load out. The shared experience of standing in line is not popular at Worldcon (though it is at many anime cons).

Not necessarily dinner

brad — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:21:26 -0700

You don’t need to go to dinner during a break. There is so much going on at a convention. While there are people who, like you, want to spend as much time in programming as possible, my estimate is that they are a small faction. Having so much programming comes at a cost, so it is not a simple question of meeting every need that might be asked for. There is no typical fan priority, but I think many fans do want to participate in multiple activities at a con — not just programming, not just parties, etc. but there are some.

But put it another way? How many people think there is not enough programming at a typical worldcon? If the answer is hardly anybody (or nobody) then it’s pretty clear that there is too much. If the amount is “just right” then you will get more balance between those who say to little and those who say too much.

Overprogramming

Laurie Mann — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 12:08:50 -0700

There is a belief, an erroneous one, that "big program = great program." So, as a result, Program does flow over to fill all possible rooms, unless the people running it try to reign it in a little. People who run Program have got treat Program the way an editor puts together anthologies - listen to all the great ideas but edit ruthlessly.

This year, there were probably more program items this year than at any Worldcon ever, with the possible exception of Noreascon II (which, by the way, had 2,500 more attendees than this year's Worldcon).

I've been collecting Worldcon Programs at my site, and have all the Worldcon Programs online (except for one) going back to 1989 at http://www.dpsinfo.com/pbt One project I've been working on since Anticipation is to create a spreadsheet listing Program/Attendance data for the last 10 Worldcons. That spreadsheet ("Version 2" - I expect a few of you saw the earlier version), with a bunch of caveats, is now linked to the Worldcon Schedules home page.

I've been going to Worldcons, on and off, since 1976. I don't remember any recent Worldcons that didn't counter program Events a little bit. A few items against the Hugos or dinner is fine, but you want to schedule outside of the "main hours" (10-6 in most cases) carefully. And the Program managers have got to pay attention to what the program participants tell them, vis a vis times available and preferences.

No one should run a Program who isn't willing to deal with communicating with the Program participants in a timely fashion. It's critical, it takes and enormous amount of time, but it absolutely needs to be done. And Program managers must be willing to say "no" where it's needed.

Laurie Mann
Renovation Program team
Yes, we're already collecting Program ideas: http://www.renovationsf.org/prog-form.php

Re: No panel to go to?

Petréa Mitchell — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 10:47:58 -0700

It is fine and dandy if you prefer to take breaks from the massive panel schedule. You can do that as things stand. But when you're talking about wiping the board clean for meal breaks, you're trying to impose your vision of an ideal convention experience on all the other attendees.

"You want time for meals..." No, *you* want time for meals. I, for instance, don't eat lunch at conventions in the US because I can barely handle two US-restaurant-sized meals in one day. Under your plan, I lose 1-2 hours of potentially valuable educational time per day.

There's also the implied slight to people who are on different schedules for personal, medical, or cultural reasons (remember, this is an international convention). I know, you just mean the breaks to be there if people want to use them, but setting up a meal schedule unavoidably sends the message that people are expected to follow it and the convention disapproves of alternate approaches. This isn't because of something peculiar to Worldcon, or to sf fandom; it's just part of how the human brain works.

Also, as a practical point, imagine the lines if the entire convention is trying to pop out for a quick bite somewhere nearby all at the same time.

No panel to go to?

brad — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 01:44:34 -0700

I think it i can be a feature if there is no session to go to in a given hour, not a bug. There is much more at a con than panels — I know many who don’t even go to any panels, or perhaps just one. You want time for meals, for the dealers, for social conversation and many other things. I see no flaw if there is nothing to go to on the program.

Yes, people dine at odd hours and nothing stops them from dining when there is no break, but that doesn’t stop the value of a specific break.

As for skype it’s not a must. I would not do it with anybody who did not feel comfortable doing it — but many millions are comfortable. For others, the regular phone is fine.

But I know there are many types of worldcon attendee, but at the same time I would daresay that few would feel a cavernous convention center without much between-panel social interaction is what they seek. And I think everybody who goes to an award ceremony would find it better if they heard or saw the reaction of the winner.

Some things just never change

Gary Farber — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 20:08:16 -0700

"Anticipation did a roundly disliked 'pocket' program printed on tabloid sized paper, with two pages usually needed to cover a whole day. Nobody had a pocket it could fit in. In addition, there were many changes to the schedule and the online version was not updated."

It's good to see such ancient customs upheld.

Knotty problems

Petréa Mitchell — Sat, 29 Aug 2009 19:17:40 -0700

I find your criticism well-thought out and balanced. I just want to make sure I say that first, because I'm going to play devil's advocate now.

So many tracks of programming: One big reason is Worldcon is trying to accomodate every subset of fandom that feels like showing up under one roof. Another is that many attendees are disappointed when there's a whole time slot with no panel that looks interesting to them. And the con
will get tons more interesting panel ideas than they could ever have room for, so why not use as many as possible?

If the crowd is spread too thinly, I think the answer that Worldcon has a structure that works for a certain attendance range, and current Worldcon attendance (especially with such a crappy economy) is at the low end of that range. I'd rather see the convention grow.

Daytime social center: Sometimes this is the con suite or fanzine lounge. I think part of the reasoning in putting the fanzine lounge right in the exhibit hall may have been that it could function as a social center. But you're right, better communication of that intention (if it was so) would have helped.

Streamed video: A nice idea, and one that's been tried out recently on a much smaller scale at Corflu (a very small fanzine convention) and Eastercon (the UK national convention). But on networking costs, this is from my notes from a feedback session at Denvention last year: "free"
Wi-Fi at the convention center would have cost $36,000-$45,000. At L.A.Con IV in 2006, it cost $38,000 for the Internet access they provided. This isn't chump change for a Worldcon.

Skype for absent nominees: If Skype is all that's needed, you're presuming that all the nominees are equipped with webcams, fast enough Internet connections to make the video passable, and burly enough computers to handle the load. Whereas I think you may find that many of them fall into the consumer demographic that buys the lowest-priced machine available that can run Word, and then uses it until it develops unrecoverable errors. (Granted, waiting long enough will bring even the bottom of the market to the point where streaming video is doable.)

Coordinated meal breaks: You've got the whole spectrum of people from those who want to be up first thing in the morning for Strolling With the Stars to those who consider it a sin to go to sleep before the last party has ended. You've got people from all over the world trying for varying degrees of adjustment to the local time zone. And now you want to decree to everyone when they're going to take their meal breaks?

It seems to me that your perspective is informed by having been to a lot of professional conferences, which have a much, much more homogeneous group attending them for a much narrower range of reasons than you get with a Worldcon. I know you're just throwing out some ideas that seem modest and reasonable to you, and I don't mean to just stomp all over them, even though, um, I guess I am.

You can't offer yourself as a typical Worldcon attendee-- no one can, because there is no such thing. And because of that, the solution Worldcons have settled on is to offer as much as possible, and let everyone build the experience they prefer for themselves, knowing that some people will chose mutually exclusive ones.

Evil convention centers

brad — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 10:56:03 -0700

I agree there are convention centers that will rake you over the coals for every little thing, and the Palais certainly was one when it came to internet. However, there are convention centers (and hotels) which are much more reasonable about it.

Of course, one could also, if one really wanted to, set up a wireless network in the convention center not connected to the outside internet and that would not violate their exclusive internet provider contract. (Usually the hotel/CC has done a contract with some provider that makes them exclusive provider of internet to conventions.) Who knows it might even be possible to do a disconnected network on the wires.

But it’s probably only going to work with a cooperative network. Which some cons get, some don’t. As we all known, normally hotels don’t let you bring in any food and drink, but every con starts its negotiation by saying, “you don’t get our convention unless you waive corkage, and a few other business convention typical things.” This is a deal-breaker. Having internet available to the con members is not quite the same level of deal breaker yet, though it might well become that.

As for hardware logistics, all this needs is an old, but not too old laptop, with a webcam or just with USB. Even more available are older desktop PCs but they are not as portable. However, quiz 20 fans and you will probably find 30 old PCs. (Good webcams can now be bought for under $10.) And then one of those laptop locking chains, but older generation computers just aren’t the sort of things people will steal. Right now, older computers can’t do video compression as well, but this will change in a couple of years as today’s computers become the old computers at Reno 2011.

However the simple reality is you count how many computers fans offer and that’s how many rooms you can multicast. As more and more computers become able to boot from a USB stick, it also becomes possible to create a bootable linux USB stick with the OS and multicasting software preconfigured, so you just put in the stick and boot and the computer does not even need to have a hard drive (or permanent screen) to be the camera. Ideally you do mp4 streams, but that does depend on how much CPU you have available. I need to experiment with this. The first experiment (possibly for Reno) might just involve doing just a few tracks of programming.

Of course, in Reno, it would be possible to simply have somebody with a cell phone run QIK or Pocketcaster and you would have an instant (low quality) video stream of the session that could be brought up around the world. Has just that basic sort of stream been debated for the Hugos at least?

The one advantage of multicasting with vlc is that anybody on the network can tune into any room. Someday people on the network with wifi cell phones could watch it, though I don’t know if there are any such apps right now.

Agree about the need for a

Tom Galloway — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 08:26:25 -0700

Agree about the need for a social center, but there is a possible issue you didn't mention with the tech ideas. Namely, how outrageous are the hotel/convention center's charges for net access, bandwidth, devices, etc.? All too often, due to their having a monopoly on such there, the answer will be "extremely". As well as a requirement you use their equipment and not bring in your own. And sometimes, have to use their people to set it up at high labor costs.

As a non-tech example, for San Diego Comic-Con this year I ended up with a trivia-based item I was associated with having to be cancelled due to some scheduling conflicts for other people on it. Since we had an already scheduled slot, I suggested that I could do the Worldcon/sf con long-established "Trivia for Chocolate" item in it. This consists of asking rapid-fire trivia questions to the entire audience, first person to yell out the correct answer gets a small piece of chocolate, say an Andes Mint or Hershey's Kiss, tossed to them. Winner is the person with the most uneaten chocolate.

Didn't happen, because while I was willing to pay up to 25 cents per piece of chocolate, the Convention Center would've charged more than that (no, I didn't learn the exact amount). And I couldn't just bring in my own chocolate.

Technical Issues

-dsr- — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 07:41:50 -0700

I worked tech at Anticipation and can put you in touch with the tech director if you'd like.

That said -- the budgets were slashed because of low pre-registration numbers. Costs were higher than normal because equipment had to be rented from the Palais des Congres's preferred (internal?) supplier rather than a competitive look at all of the Montreal area theatre and corporate equipment suppliers.

Streaming video from all or even a few panels would be a great idea -- but perhaps you noticed the general lack of network access around the Palais? And convention centers have a horrible habit of charging for bandwidth as though it were ten years ago. While 30 netbook + webcam setups wouldn't be horrendously expensive in terms of hardware ($500 apiece?) if it could be amortized over a few WorldCons, the extra time for setup, teardown and the theft-prevention costs would be pretty bad. Remember that at a typical WorldCon, all the technical labor except, perhaps, lighting trusses, is donated by volunteers. I'd estimate we need 3-5 more volunteers to take care of that.

In other words, everything can be done... it's just a small matter of getting people to do it and pay for it in money and time.

On worldcon and convention design

brad — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 14:32:53 -0700

The Worldcon (World Science Fiction Convention) in Montreal was enjoyable. Like all worldcons, which are run by fans rather than professional convention staff, it had its issues, but nothing too drastic. Our worst experience actually came from the Delta hotel, which I’ll describe below.

For the past few decades, Worldcons have been held in convention centers. They attract from 4,000 to 7,000 people and are generally felt to not fit in any ordinary hotel outside Las Vegas. (They don’t go to Las Vegas both because there is no large fan base there to run it, and the Las Vegas Hotels, unlike those in most towns, have no incentive to offer a cut-rate deal on a summer weekend.)

Because they are always held where deals are to be had on hotels and convention space, it is not uncommon for them to get the entire convention center or a large portion of it. This turns out to be a temptation which most cons succumb to, but should not. The Montreal convention was huge and cavernous. It had little of the intimacy a mostly social event should have. Use of the entire convention center meant long walks and robbed the convention of a social center — a single place through which you could expect people to flow, so you would see your friends, join up for hallway conversations and gather people to go for meals.

This is one of those cases where less can be more. You should not take more space than you need. The convention should be as initimate as it can be without becoming crowded. That may mean deliberately not taking function space.

A social center is vital to a good convention. Unfortunately when there are hotels in multiple directions from the convention center so that people use different exits, it is hard for the crowd to figure one out. At the Montreal convention (Anticipation) the closest thing to such a center was near the registration desk, but it never really worked. At other conventions, anywhere on the path to the primary entrance works. Sometimes it is the lobby and bar of the HQ hotel, but this was not the case here.

When the social center will not be obvious, the convention should try to find the best one, and put up a sign saying it is the congregation point. In some convention centers, meeting rooms will be on a different floor from other function space, and so it may be necessary to have two meeting points, one for in-between sessions, and the other for general time.

The social center/meeting point is the one thing it can make sense to use some space on. Expect a good fraction of the con to congregate there in break times. Let them form groups of conversation (there should be sound absorbing walls) but still be able to see and find other people in the space.

A good thing to make a meeting point work is to put up the schedule there, ideally in a dynamic way. This can be computer screens showing the titles of the upcoming sessions, or even human changed cards saying this. Anticipation used a giant schedule on the wall, which is also OK. The other methods allow descriptions to go up with the names. Anticipation did a roundly disliked “pocket” program printed on tabloid sized paper, with two pages usually needed to cover a whole day. Nobody had a pocket it could fit in. In addition, there were many changes to the schedule and the online version was not updated. Again, this is a volunteer effort, so I expect some glitches like this to happen, they are par for the course.