A Con update

[drwex]

We survived, but just barely. This got long, so a-cutting I shall go.

The bed in our original room was awful so despite being a good doobie and trying to get to sleep around 1 AM (not that late for me) I did not sleep well Friday or Saturday nights. Child waking me up multiple times early Sat AM did not help. We were not on a quiet floor so moved to one for Sunday night since the room next door was scheduled to have a DJed party. The bed up there was better, but I still slept fitfully.

My panels were "meh". The early-Friday one was 5 panelists and 3-4 people in the audience, which is always a bad sign. Bad timing and a limited interest topic. The Saturday gaming panel was the best; props to dkap for excellent moderation. That panel was five old farts who've been GMing forever (I counted over a century of gaming on the panel) giving tips and advice to a decent audience with good questions and interests. Sadly no one was able to give me a real answer to my own personal GMing dilemma. I credit woodwardio for encouraging me to sign up for gaming panels - that was a good idea. The Sunday panel was more or less ruined for me by a moderator who was WAY TOO LOUD AND RUDELY INTERRUPTING OF EVERYONE. The discussion was good and I only had to tell Stallman he was nuts twice. He has mellowed a lot with age.

Panels I attended were also "meh". The panel on using photography in art was sparsely attended and turned into "here are 17 wonderful things about Photoshop". Which was OK in itself, but not what I'd come to hear. The GoH events were good but severely disorganized. As loose Q&As they were only as good as the questions. I would rather have heard something like a real presentation or interview. I deliberately avoided attending poly panels so as not to provoke extra bile, and the one panel of Pygment's that I wanted to see was opposite one of my own so I couldn't go to that.

The attendee experience was also "meh". We didn't get the con crud but we had a variety of low-level health issues, not least of which is that Pygment did something to her arm for which I'm taking a day off since she can't drive and we're going to her doc in about 20 minutes. I bitched at the current con chair about some of the issues (bless his heart for standing still and listening) all of which I attribute to "Arisia has outgrown its volunteer staff and is being hosed by its hotel." There are related problems, such as many areas not having trained up replacements to fill in for people who burn out or nerdrage out or whatever. All of these are long-term and systemic and not easy to fix. They certainly can't be fixed intra-con and it's not clear they can be fixed by next year. I did volunteer to next year's con chair that I will do any job she needs done; I owe her more favors than I can count. But after next year I may be through with Arisia unless the attendee experience changes dramatically.

I thought the attempt to expand the dealer's room was a mild success. There were certainly lots of new and interesting vendors, but the forced close at 7PM was a real bummer. I talked to several vendors who wanted control over their own hours and I hope the con+hotel can figure a way to make that happen. The revamped Con Suite and Green Rooms were also meh, with just no place for a nice sit-and-chat plus too much stuff hidden. I talked to several other panelists who only discovered the "back half" of the Green Room on Monday morning. The masquerade seemed to be a great success with a full list of presenters, awarding two Best in Shows, and generally getting good reviews from everyone I listened to. I also heard good reports all around about the imported new Con security crew; Pygment had several positive interactions with them. My sole complaint is that both they and hotel security showed up in Fast Track asking a lot of questions and not explaining why, which led to a number of worried parents. In the end all was good, particularly given they were a new crew.

Comments

[tigira.livejournal.com]

I also found this a less-than-stellar con. In the last few years my issues at Arisia were totally mine, not really related to programming and hotel issues. This year, though, the issues were with scheduling of panels (ones I wanted to attend were when I was committed elsewhere), or the fact that I "moderated" the Sunday geeky play date - so I had to be there to let in the one kid. I let her watch Fraggle Rock on my iPad for a bit because I felt bad that there were no other kids around for her. I could certainly have done with being less committed.

Then again, there weren't many panels I even wanted to go to this year.

I think food, next year, will be planned to be more "serve yourself," too, so that if I want to go to something that's at a meal time (as long as someone else gets F fed), I'll be able to do that.

[drwex]

We greatly appreciate your letting us shoehorn in on the food plan, particularly at the last minute. We still owe you a check, too.

[caulay.livejournal.com]

On the GoH panels, the one set of GoHs specifically requested Q&A panels, they rejected doing a presentation, an interview or even pre-screening the questions at the Q&A. So that much was their choice and not that of the convention. They, at least, were quite happy with how things went.

[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry I couldn't make it to the Steve Jobs panel with Stallman. I figured that would have been a special kind of fireworks.

[c1.livejournal.com]

I came out of this year's con a bit bummed as well. The hotel strikes me as more of a PITA than an asset -- something I've never said about a hotel before. I've felt better vibes in almost every other Arisia hotel, but this one just strikes me as not getting it. I blame their culture on the attached massive convention centre, presuming that they're accustomed to huge corporate events where the AmEx Platinum cards are tossed around like candy, and not to the kind of frugal financial decisions made by a social convention. The disjointed architecture doesn't help either. I never knew where my panels were, and it always felt like I was having to walk all the way across the building to get to anything.
The big disappointment for me was noticing that the food in the consuite was often times better than the stuff that was in the Green Room. Isn't that supposed to be the other way around? What's up with that?

[drwex]

The hotel has Arisia over a barrel and they know it. Right now there are three facilities in all of Boston that can handle Arisia's needs (room #s/prices, ballroom space, function spaces) and one of those three is absolutely not interested in the fan/freak business. So we're down to two.

My sense is that the hotel's front-line staff are excellent. Everyone I interacted with personally from the hotel was doing a great job, or at least trying their best given the situation. Hotel corporate is a different matter.

I'm not sure who was handling food for Con/Green this year. I believe that the problem with Green was as I'd posted - something like half of it was hidden and many guests didn't know it was there to use.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

I was pleasantly surprised that that 'participant ribbon' I was handed in exchange for dressing in very little and soliciting blood donations got me into the green room -- I found this out when someone pointed out that coffee was just an escalator ride away, and then there was no caffeine coffee in the first room found and someone pointed me to the one without the great big table (and if not for that I'd not have run into someone who goes Way Back, but anyway). During the weekend I showed a number of other folk the, well, main Green Room.

There were different sorts of meats and cheeses and I think stews and pasta and such. I remember putting some manner of bean soup over pasta at one point.

The front desk staff, at least, seemed to be enjoying our presence a lot. The architecture did get difficult, and I managed to miss almost everything I kinda wanted to go to.

[drwex]

Oh dear me. How did I miss this? (You at the NN table, that is. The coffee is not my thing.)

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

I never staffed the table, but instead wandered about with a clipboard. OTOH one could always find me at the table - I was September in the calendar.

[drwex]

Pix or it didn't happen?

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

scroll back a couple posts in my journal; I added you to the filter :)

(I have many better pics but they're still on the camera)

[drwex]

Ah yes, did not see you. Would have remembered, for sure.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

:)

[c1.livejournal.com]

There were different sorts of meats and cheeses and I think stews and pasta and such.

Meats, yes, there were. Three days of cheese sandwiches get tiresome, though, to the vegetarians.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Maybe I just had preternaturally good timing, (although actually I /didn't/ eat there much - just I would be wandering through for the heck of it, or in search of emergen-c or something) but I remember thick bean soups and tomato saucce for pasta and boiled eggs other stuff.