So after having talked to a bunch of people this weekend, I wanted to
put some things up here that we discussed. Not everything here is -
my- opinion, so don't flame me specifically if you don't like the
commentary. I'm just trying to keep the lines of communication open
from the panel and moving forward. (video to come at some point once
I find a place to let me put of 20 gb of video or so... I might just
have to put it onto a video DVD and put an iso online for people to
download instead...)
note: keep in mind that some of the things here have already been
publicly stated by the Ybor committee that they are things they are
doing, but are here just for conversational continuity.
1. Laminate costs and what they include, specifically regarding events
that people may not care about.
Convergence is about the a.g community being in one place at one
time. The fact that we're all a part of the same sub-culture
inevitably means that we all have interests that are similar in what
me might want to do to "go out." This does not mean that you should
have to pay for events that you don't go to. i.e. say this last
weekend you really didn't care the bands playing on night {x}, and
want to just go for a leisurely stroll through the park in downtown.
you should not be obligated to pay for the cover charge of a 3-band
concert that you don't even want to go to.
One alternative: when the bands are finalized for the night, you
announce them on the c* website, and perhaps as an email ping to the
registered laminate-holders, that this event is going to happen and it
will cost $x - (laminate discount) to see the show and that at point y
the concert will have tickets sold to the general public for $x in
order for the venue to still make their money. This way the cost of
the laminate has -=no bearing=- on the evening financially-expensive
events.
2. Information in the event pamphlet/brochure about the competing bids/
winning bid for the next year.
Depending on cutoff time, you could include all the the bids for the
following year with a disclaimer of "by the time you get this, voting
will have happened but since you have come this year you are eligible
to help pick c(now+2)'s location. If the bid is already happened, you
could find out if the people that put in bids that didn't win wanted
to put in event information to do their own thing outside of the scope
of the Convergence name, and put that in there in lieu of that if the
vote has already not taken place.
3. Information/advertisement in the event pamphlet/brochure either
(1) not including vendors/ads for business outside of 1. the city and
2. the event-attending-merchants
(2) having the outsider-ads located in a different spot and have the
'vendor fee' include they having an informational blurb of the same
size for every vendor there in one section for everyone to see who is
there (perhaps with an option to do a larger sized blurb with an
additional fee or something)
This shouldn't be a spot that is marketed to an outside audience.
People might like to know that the vendors exist, especially if they
have an online presence that can be accessed one attendees get home,
but it should be not a place for revenue when the idea is not about
money either.
4. Lounge areas.
It was remarked during the Farewell Party that this was the only c-
planned where you could actually sit and converse without having the
music so loud it made your ears bleed, and the only place that had a
"comfortable" aspect to it where you could sit down and just chat.
5. Hotel blocked-off section for c* attendees
This is not always anything that can truly be controlled by the c*
committee, but if the attendees that were staying in a hotel were all
on the same floor(s), it would make it very easy to chat with any one
person who is there for c*. Also in terms of noise complaints for
late-night room parties, if you had, say, the top 5 floors, you could
designate the top 2 as "party floors" and have insulation of the rest
of the floors between the hotel proper and the c* floors.
6. Hotel-located events
If there is space in the hotel for doing things, you should be able to
do some events right there (unless it's a small hotel that doesn't
have "ballroom" sized space for accommodating 800 people in it).
7. Event interest that is driven by the attendees, and that the
attendees has input on the time-frame of before it is carved into
stone.
Why have a weekend full of events that "the committee thinks you would
like" that is jam-packed of events that are happening concurrently and
overlapping in time if you cannot have some kind of input of the
people who will be going there. Especially if you find out that two
events that you originally schedule at the same time have 90%
attendance-interest when people say what they are most interested in-
that would show you need to re-adjust things some.
8. Free wi-fi in the area of the hotel.
What self-respecting net.goth really travels without 1 (or 2)
computers with them? How can we post back to the people not fortunate
enough to have made it out if they don't have computer access?
~Oct'avian
(I think there was more, but I can't think of it right now... )
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