(no subject)

[jazzfish]

Gah. Rant about Tcon for vt_komainu composed and wiped, because I am a twit. The short version consisted of "I'm sorry, I forget that there are people who are still idealistic about Tcon, but my experiences as staff were unpleasant. Ask Emily for more details, although she'll talk your ear off."

Reading went decently well. Attendance consisted of the Tuesday Night Music Club plus Ross and (later) Shawn Lassiter. Stuff was read. It was cool.

In retrospect it's just as well that I didn't finish Kierkegaard for today; Bliss is sick. Not that I'd be able to get back to sleep, though.

Comments

[rubinpdf.livejournal.com]

I believe there was some accountant dude who was not reliable.

Wasn't me!

IMHO, in the past, the issues have been money.

Speaking as a former accountant of Tcon (Tcon 9 thru 11 and Tcon 16 thru 19), there's no need for the Opinion portion of IMHO... TCon's biggest issue is money and it will likely always be money. The expenses for putting on a Tcon are phenomenal - somewhere in neighborhood of $10000). In order to not go into a tremendous amount of debt, sometimes we can't have all the guests or things we'd like (I know there are a number of people that would love to have Micheal Sheard back - but the cost would be huge - he needs to be flown in from Great Britain in case you didn't know).

That being said, IMHO as the accountant, Tcon was incredible fair to Spiel last year by allowing them 24 hr access to a Function Room. You must remember that the cost to Tcon for a function room is in the neighborhood of $600 for the weekend That means that Tcon believed enough in Spiel that they would generate enough interest to offset the cost of the room (by bringing in at least $600 in memberships). To me, that sounds like a mighty high compliment. I'm not on staff this year, but it sounds like Tcon was offering the same room again to Spiel this year (and turned it down in favor of space in Das FestHaus). Again, to me, Spiel should be incredibly honored that Tcon would put so much faith in them.

In all my time as staff, no one purposefully attempt to shaft any other person/group. In reality, it all came down to whether money could be found in the budget to support whatever was desired (though occasionaly a few miscommunications did pop up). I'm sorry that it has to all come down to dollars and cents, but that's the way of the world, and sometimes we just have to deal.

[jazzfish]

Tcon was incredible fair to Spiel last year by allowing them 24 hr access to a Function Room.

This is absolutely true, and was a wonderful thing.

it sounds like Tcon was offering the same room again to Spiel this year (and turned it down in favor of space in Das FestHaus).

This sounds true. I was unfortunately not at the turning-down, so I couldn't say "I would like to have the back room and would be willing to fight for it." (The downside of trying to stay out of the general, ineffective kvetching is that you miss when it turns into actual, effective planning.)

In all my time as staff, no one purposefully attempt to shaft any other person/group.(snip)

True. I think that the issues that I've had have been more about the communication and less about the money. (Having to pay for the hotel room two years ago being the sole exception that I can think of.) This year, it sounds like all the problems were on our end, but it's still hard to get out of the "Con screwed up" mindset. The fact that it wasn't intentional doesn't mean it doesn't cause friction.

Thanks for talking. I *do* appreciate it.

[(Anonymous)]

As I said, it felt more like an offer of "if you want to fight for this room, let me know" and no one in the room wanted to fight for it. It's a difficult room for us, mostly in the fact that we need more publicity in order to use it to what I'd consider to be the benefit of Con, and no one was there who was interested in committing to answer that problem. Nor did anyone there have the want to + capable of to fight for it. Had I known for certain how you felt, Tucker, I would have spoken up on your behalf, but all conversations about TCon tend to turn into general useless bitch sessions and/or TCon-lovers vs. ex-lovers brawls. And, you have to remember my spouse was among those who had personal detailed plans for the room. I didn't want to fight him for something when I didn't think (due to the publicity non-volunteers) that it might not be in the interest of the Con for me to win.

Very interesting, useful, rational discussion by the way. Congrats & thanks all.

--Kayla

[zerblinitzky.livejournal.com]

Dave wants the room for a LAN party, and Spiel wants the room for games. We both ask for it and neither of us get it. Had we worked together, one of us could have gotten it.
Hm. Dr. Nash would be proud...

[vond.livejournal.com]

I was hoping (and actually did some leg-work with appropriate parties) for a LAN party too, but if you'll recall, the LAN party idea was scrapped due to lack of appropriate power facilities, not lack of lobbying the right people. After all, if as you say I have the attention of the "old boys' club" and I was slapped down due to electricity reasons...

OTOH I didn't lobby for or against Spiel having anything, other than reminding Jesse about a month ago that Spiel hadn't actively said anything to the con org yet.

[wyrdone.livejournal.com]

Power issues aside. (And after my own investigation of the facilities at RLI....there is more than enough power in fest hall if you take into account the 220V 40Amp circuit feeding the stoves. And I have access to a 220V to 110V breakout box.)

The real issue, James dunson didn't want a "Lan Party", he wanted a bunch of communal machines people could play games on. I personally don't own that many stations (I could have ponied up 4 usable stations and could have possibly scraped together a couple more) and most everyone else won't donate a personal machine for public access. James did not want anyone to be able to bring their own machine and sit down and be able to play. 99% of LAN gamers won't come to event if you tell them they cannot bring their boxes with them.

Anyhoo, It's a moot point since I am going to be running a Lan Party on campus in Squires on Feb 22nd. And it will be a Free event that noone will have to ponie up a dime to get in the door. (Thank you Spiel!)

[vond.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah, there was that too. The whole "con facilities should serve everyone, not just people who lug their machines in" thing. That's actually a good idea I think. There is a volunteer group that puts on that sort of thing in the area, but the machines they provide are really substandard (a lot of them are Macs, which just aren't optimized for FPS gaming to begin with). Too bad I can't attend the one in Squires, maybe next time. By the way, you might want to contact Vince Rivellino at CS - he's been planning for a long time to try to run bigger events in conjunction with the LUUG.