uh-oh

[jazzfish]

. . . wait, Technicon, in addition to being in McBryde instead of an actual convention center, is shutting down at eleven PM?

I want to go this year: a couple days of solid gaming, plus Mr Martin and Ursula Vernon. It's growing more and more difficult to justify the time and expense, though.

Comments

[tirani.livejournal.com]

There's a reason we're not going and I told the staff why. This is going to be the death of Tcon if they're not really really careful.

[jazzfish]

I totally understand why y'all aren't going. For me it's more about the late-nite gaming and a small handful of people, and it seemed like both of those were still going to be available . . .

This is going to be the death of Tcon if they're not really really careful.

TFTFY.
Seriously, though. I don't know how they ever expect to get guests again once word gets out from Mr Martin about the general ridiculousness of con this year.

[vond.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree that this will be the last Technicon, we don't have the manpower to continue to run a con anyway (as it is we're outsourcing a lot already), but Madicon at JMU just had Jim Butcher at an on-campus non 24-hour con and I doubt he's complaining. I highly doubt "Mr Martin" will badmouth Technicon that much, he's going to see a small college con, he doesn't know the history so isn't going to be comparing it to pior technicons.

[jazzfish]

You may be right. I was thinking of whether he'd been invited with the expectation of being at a full-scale hotel-based con and was instead getting, well, I-fest.

[vond.livejournal.com]

To be honest, only anterus can answer that. Typically when we invite guests before we have a hotel contract we don't say anything about the facility, we just say "we're a con in Blacksburg, run by VT students, we have ~200 attendees, please honor us with your presence, we'll pay for your travel" and leave it at that.

[anterus.livejournal.com]

That'd be an accurate enough summary of how I represented the con. There's no point in talking about the facility with guests until we get things finalized.

I think he'll think we're a small college con. At this point, we are. I think I said ~300, which might have been accurate, had we been able to stay in a 24-hour facility this year. Still, it's not a big difference. 200 vs. 300 is just plain small.

[tirani.livejournal.com]

We are doing a gaming afternoon that saturday if you want to come over and hang out :)

[jazzfish]

It's a possibility, thanks. :)

[jsciv.livejournal.com]

Well, the T'con 26 chair knows this and I think will be doing as much as he can to try and get things back on track, so there is at least that. :/

[tirani.livejournal.com]

I'll hope, but I'll tell you I'm not hopeful, if you get my meaning. Tcon was a place to go to once a year to see friends, see folks I don't see often, to hang out and to game. With the number of folks not going this year and the restrictions on the what and hows of con, it's just not worth it for us this year.

The final straw was the Microtel in C'burg.

[anterus.livejournal.com]

I'm, myself, not too hopeful about next year, either. There's serious staff burnout, and a disgusting lack of places to actually hold a con in-town. Let me run it down for you, real quick.

Here're the places with at least a moderate amount of function space (not just one room):
The Ramada - barely in town at all, crappy location, facility's under new management, so it might not suck near so much any more...hopefully.

The Holiday Inn University - Blacksburg - Well, it was a nice facility last year, but now they want 4.5 times (yes!) what they asked for last year, and we wouldn't even be able to get the suite, since some of the new owners live there now. And I'm under the impression they'd be leery, if they allowed it at all, of moving furniture to clear room space.

The Inn at Virginia Tech - Gorgeous facility, hideously expensive, and a completely wonky billing setup (per head per room. Great for business cons, not for us). nius got a quote from them when we were planning for TCon 23, the lowest they could come up with was $30,000. Plus, the rooms there are at least as pricey as the HI, minimum price I've seen is $120/night during the off season (and you may have noticed, but March is pretty crowded, these days).

On-Campus - You know why this is a suboptimal option. Space is free, but the facilities aren't that great and they're not open 24 hours.


There, that's it. Four options that are actually local to Blacksburg. Cburg hotels aren't any better, they all max out at one, maybe two 'function' rooms, which really just isn't enough, the way we're expected to do things. Maybe, if we're real lucky, the new Courtyard at Marriot that just went up might be a viable option. It wasn't available for this year. I don't know what its prices would be. Hell, I still don't really know where it is.

So there, see why things are just fucked up this year? Why they'll probably stay fucked up? There's no real market in this town for a proper convention facility, as everything convention-like happens on campus, and for limited hours. Convention space is really only available in Roanoke, and that's not local. Hell, then it's just ShevaCon.