In a message dated 5/31/2005 4:44:52 PM Central Daylight Time,
castleb@pulsenet.com writes:

> The MD chose to wait until the celebrity returned and then
> started the masquerade late. I’m not sure that was the proper course of
> action.

I have heard of that sort of thing happening, but have never experienced it.

A few years ago at WindyCon in Chicago, the Fan GoH’s were Masq judges. They
were husband and wife and that made for a major delay in the middle of the
masquerade.

Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

This is a hazy memory (meaning I’d have to go and check my records and
my facts), but I am recalling that we budgeted dollars for feeding at
least the Historical judges dinner the day of the masquerade at CCXV. I
don’t think we extended the courtesy to the SF panel, mostly because
they weren’t judging all weekend.

I could be wrong. Your mileage may vary. Et cetera…

-b

>Our worst experiences here in Salt Lake have been three:

>1. The “no-show” GoH, where we quickly substituted a Guild member on the
>panel at show time

2. The GoH who remarked during the event “if I see another d***ed kid in a
Star Wars outfit…” right after the child’s performance. I am not sure if
it was something they had for dinner or just weary of seeing similar costumes.

In the latter case, there wasn’t anything to do but continue the show, then
provide reassurance to the entrant about the outburst.

3. The GoH who just _knew_ how judging should happen and pulled rank on
everyone to make the judging go their way.

All we could do here was to add their name to the informal “Never Ask
Again” List (anyone else out there have such a list? Might be interesting
to share notes.)

Often, the ConCom likes to include the GoH(s) as a way of enhancing
participation in the masquerade. (The thinking is, I believe that they are
the GoH and getting an award from them should mean much more than getting
one just from some local costumers.)

Dave Doering

On May 31, 2005, at 2:55 PM, David Doering wrote:

> All we could do here was to add their name to the informal “Never Ask
> Again” List (anyone else out there have such a list? Might be
> interesting
> to share notes.)

I think this is a quiet and private enough list that we could post
these sorts of comments here without incident.

Artists (since I tend to get ArtGOHs on panels with me)
Theresa Mather: Total joy to judge with
Jael: Total joy to judge with
Frank Wu: Good judge, not sure he was really having fun with it, but
good

Authors:
Karen Anderson: Good judge, but she hates doing it, so don’t ask her.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.bovil.com/
“It’s not pink; it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.” –Manfred Pfirsich
Marie Rommel

On May 26, 2005, at 11:46 AM, Bruno wrote:

> I had one of the young anime costumers that came out from CO, write up
> some feedback on her impressions and experiences at CC. The first
> part is directed at other cosplayers, but does provide some insight on
> how this generation thinks and feels about costuming. I’m sure that
> there are some nuggets of wisdom here, which can be used to help
> bridge the gap between the CC and Cosplay generations.

Can someone get back to her that actually, most of us are fans? We’re
just not all anime fans, and those of us who are anime fans aren’t
exclusively anime fans.

Jack Krolak made a comment when we were riding the shuttle back to the
airport, and I think this somewhat supports it. Cosplayers expect to be
mobbed in the halls by adoring fans. They expect to be stopped for
photographs in the halls every 10 feet.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

read the FAQ… Ridicule: http://www.idiots-r-us.org/
read the FAQ… IBMWR: http://www.ibmwr.org/faq-files/
read the FAQ… AirList: http://www.airheads.org/faq.html
read the FAQ… Hoaxes & Urban Legends: http://urbanlegends.about.com/

On May 31, 2005, at 6:08 PM, Betsy Delaney wrote:

> This is a hazy memory (meaning I’d have to go and check my records and
> my facts), but I am recalling that we budgeted dollars for feeding at
> least the Historical judges dinner the day of the masquerade at CCXV. I
> don’t think we extended the courtesy to the SF panel, mostly because
> they weren’t judging all weekend.

Feed judges. Doesn’t matter what panel. Better to spend a few bucks
than find during the masquerade you’ve got hungry judges.

Judges’ Dinner (for both F&SF panels) is a good time to have a judges’
meeting with the MD and clerks to discuss the judging instructions and
rules.

For historical, the judges and clerks are going to be together most of
the weekend, so it should be possible to discuss instructions and rules
at some other time, but they’re going to be together all weekend, and
they need to make sure they’re not judging on low blood-sugar.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
hand
Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet

A friend’s teen daughter noted that too, last night (Mon) at dinner.

2 pictures were taken of her at Baycon.

She was stopped before she even got in the doors of Fanime and continued
to be stopped for pictures for all the time they were there.

JohnO

http://www.baycon.org – SF Bay area mainstream con.
http://www.fanime.com – SF Bay area anime con.

Andrew T Trembley wrote:

> Jack Krolak made a comment when we were riding the shuttle back to the
> airport, and I think this somewhat supports it. Cosplayers expect to be
> mobbed in the halls by adoring fans. They expect to be stopped for
> photographs in the halls every 10 feet.
>

Andy, Kevin,

Please P.M. me at kathnbiz@telusplanet.net re: costume-related programming and promotion of CC at Westercon.
I apologise for using this forum, but I don’t have an e-mail address for either of you.

— Katherine Bonham

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew T Trembley
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 31, 2005 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Feeding judges

On May 31, 2005, at 6:08 PM, Betsy Delaney wrote:
> This is a hazy memory (meaning I’d have to go and check my records and
> my facts), but I am recalling that we budgeted dollars for feeding at
> least the Historical judges dinner the day of the masquerade at CCXV. I
> don’t think we extended the courtesy to the SF panel, mostly because
> they weren’t judging all weekend.

Feed judges. Doesn’t matter what panel. Better to spend a few bucks
than find during the masquerade you’ve got hungry judges.

Judges’ Dinner (for both F&SF panels) is a good time to have a judges’
meeting with the MD and clerks to discuss the judging instructions and
rules.

For historical, the judges and clerks are going to be together most of
the weekend, so it should be possible to discuss instructions and rules
at some other time, but they’re going to be together all weekend, and
they need to make sure they’re not judging on low blood-sugar.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
hand
Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Last weekend, someone who won an award at Costume-Con (international level)
competed their costume again at Balticon (regional level).

This practice was dubbed “competing down” in the 1980’s, and is generally
considered Very Poor Form. (Up is always OK, sideways is OK if you don’t do
10 conventions in the same year and bore everyone, down is a no-no.)

In defense of the contestant, I’m not even sure they knew this, although
they are a long-time costumer and should know better.

Unfortunately, it has never really been spelled out anywhere that once you
win at WorldCon or Costume-Con, you really should enter “Not In
Competition” if you want to show off your costume to the home crowd. There
has been an “honor system,” and most folks who are aware of it have adhered
to it, but nothing is formally written down.

I have suggested to Marty Gear that there be language in future Balticon
masquerade rules that
“If you’ve won a prize with your costume at Costume-Con or WorldCon, you
may show your costume in the masquerade, but must enter Not In Competition.”

This verbiage could certainly be applied to other large regionals such as
Arisia, Lunacon, Baycon, and Westercon.

Conversely, to help reinforce the idea, it would help if WorldCon and
Costume-Con had verbiage somewhere that “After you’ve won an award in our
masquerade, you should enter your costume as Not In Competition if you want
to go home and show off your work in your local or regional convention.”

When Balticon was on Easter weekend, it typically fell BEFORE Costume-Con
and costumers could “run up the ladder” with an entry over a period of
several months (competing at Balticon – Costume-Con – WorldCon). Now that
Balticon is on Memorial Day weekend, the sequence is out of order in terms
of the scale of the convention.

There’s a similar problem on the West Coast, where Costume-Con is in the
wrong order with respect to both Baycon and Westercon. So you can do
Costume-Con – Worldcon or Baycon – Westercon – Worldcon.

Let’s see what we can do to get some consistent verbiage into Costume-Con
pubs / masquerade rules on this subject.

–Karen

I’ve always referred to it as “sandbagging”.

The exception to what you are suggesting (and I agree, it is Very Poor
Form) is if you won an award in one of the “protected”
divisions and re-entered it in a more open division.

At a small convention, even that would be VPF, but at Baycon, with 2400
attendees, someone who won a (non-Best-in-Division) Novice or self-made
Young Fan award at CC and chose to enter it at BayCon in the
Open/Advanced division (Baycon only has 2 adult divisions) might not be
sandbagging at all.

A few years ago we had a WORLDCON winner entered at Baycon. She didn’t
win an award, but we did give her one of the SF art books donated by the
dealer’s room as inspirational source material (I’ll note that we had a
LOT of prize donations for that particular masquerade, so giving her one
did not prevent us from giving award winners merchandise prizes as well).

Kevin

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>Last weekend, someone who won an award at Costume-Con (international level)
>competed their costume again at Balticon (regional level).
>
>This practice was dubbed “competing down” in the 1980’s, and is generally
>considered Very Poor Form. (Up is always OK, sideways is OK if you don’t do
>10 conventions in the same year and bore everyone, down is a no-no.)
>
>In defense of the contestant, I’m not even sure they knew this, although
>they are a long-time costumer and should know better
>
>

<remainder elided for brevity>

>Let’s see what we can do to get some consistent verbiage into Costume-Con
>pubs / masquerade rules on this subject.
>
>–Karen
>

I think we have an example of what Kevin is saying, at our recent CONduit.

One of the CC-23 (I’d have to look up the award details) took the same entry, and competed at “Masters” catagory (which I am also now forced to compete at — and I know she’s comparable to my level) — but she is not “Masters” at Costume-Con.

We had no problem with her competing with that costume (at that level) at CONduit. And she added to the show in the advanced divisions, since many of the rest of us were taking a break (or running the masquerade).

But we have had to help inform our locals, what level they need to compete in, both in CONduit, and in CC-23. I don’t think it is always immediately obvious to them.

Charles

—– Original Message —–
From: Kevin Roche
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 1:07 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Competing Down

I’ve always referred to it as “sandbagging”.

The exception to what you are suggesting (and I agree, it is Very Poor
Form) is if you won an award in one of the “protected”
divisions and re-entered it in a more open division.

At a small convention, even that would be VPF, but at Baycon, with 2400
attendees, someone who won a (non-Best-in-Division) Novice or self-made
Young Fan award at CC and chose to enter it at BayCon in the
Open/Advanced division (Baycon only has 2 adult divisions) might not be
sandbagging at all.

A few years ago we had a WORLDCON winner entered at Baycon. She didn’t
win an award, but we did give her one of the SF art books donated by the
dealer’s room as inspirational source material (I’ll note that we had a
LOT of prize donations for that particular masquerade, so giving her one
did not prevent us from giving award winners merchandise prizes as well).

Kevin

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>Last weekend, someone who won an award at Costume-Con (international level)
>competed their costume again at Balticon (regional level).
>
>This practice was dubbed “competing down” in the 1980’s, and is generally
>considered Very Poor Form. (Up is always OK, sideways is OK if you don’t do
>10 conventions in the same year and bore everyone, down is a no-no.)
>
>In defense of the contestant, I’m not even sure they knew this, although
>they are a long-time costumer and should know better
>
>
<remainder elided for brevity>

>Let’s see what we can do to get some consistent verbiage into Costume-Con
>pubs / masquerade rules on this subject.
>
>–Karen
>

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 12:07 PM 6/2/2005 -0700, you wrote:

>The exception to what you are suggesting (and I agree, it is Very Poor
>Form) is if you won an award in one of the “protected”
>divisions and re-entered it in a more open division.

Balticon entrant entered in the same division as at CC-23, and it was NOT
Craftsman/Master/Open/Advanced.

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

http://bovil.livejournal.com/

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.bovil.com/
“It’s not pink; it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.” –Manfred Pfirsich
Marie Rommel

Service Mark Holder says:

“Please don’t use a skill division scheme using ‘Open’ as the name of the
unprotected division at any convention called Costume-Con.”

I’ll write it into the ConStitution if I have to. Please don’t make me.

Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced are fine names if we can’t live with
Novice, Journeyman, and Master anymore.

But “Open” is trying so hard not to be a politically and emotionally loaded
name that I feel it is too far in the other direction–it is meaningless
and even more confusing. “I got an award in the Open Division” requires a
lot of additional explanation to friends and relatives, when “I got an
award in the Master or Advanced Division” says a lot more in one sentence
about the difficulty of the competition and the skills required to get a
prize, even to people unfamiliar with our community, or people unfamiliar
with costuming within the S/F community.

–Karen

Is this already addressed in the ICG guidelines? Is that enough, or is it
felt that it needs to be dictated to each MD at the International level by
the Con Chairs? Most of those International venues are usually run by Guild
people, who should know better. Just throwin’ that out there…

Bruce

Bruce –
I’m one of those people who “invented” the Division system and
contributed to the initial version of the ICG guidelines. For several
reasons I missed it at a masquerade that I have been running for 25
years and pretty much by the “ICG guidelines” since they were first
promulgated. I really think that it should be “carved in stone” so that
it isn’t accidentally missed.

Marty

Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:

>Is this already addressed in the ICG guidelines? Is that enough, or is it
>felt that it needs to be dictated to each MD at the International level by
>the Con Chairs? Most of those International venues are usually run by Guild
>people, who should know better. Just throwin’ that out there…
>
>Bruce
>
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The ICG Masquerade Guidelines do include the following: “11. A costume that has won a major award at the international level [defined as Worldcons and Costume-Cons] is no longer eligible to compete at any level.” This provision was included, I believe, out of a concern for fairness to entrants at regional and local masquerades; however, masquerade directors by and large seem not to have accepted/adopted this recommended policy. That suggests that it may not be in tune with the present day in running regional masquerades, which is where the problem occurs (rather than at the international level). Is Andy’s committee retaining a similar provision in the proposed re-write of the ICG Guidelines?

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Ricky & Karen Dick<mailto:castleb@pulsenet.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 2:18 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Competing Down

Last weekend, someone who won an award at Costume-Con (international level)
competed their costume again at Balticon (regional level).

This practice was dubbed “competing down” in the 1980’s, and is generally
considered Very Poor Form. (Up is always OK, sideways is OK if you don’t do
10 conventions in the same year and bore everyone, down is a no-no.)

In defense of the contestant, I’m not even sure they knew this, although
they are a long-time costumer and should know better.

Unfortunately, it has never really been spelled out anywhere that once you
win at WorldCon or Costume-Con, you really should enter “Not In
Competition” if you want to show off your costume to the home crowd. There
has been an “honor system,” and most folks who are aware of it have adhered
to it, but nothing is formally written down.

I have suggested to Marty Gear that there be language in future Balticon
masquerade rules that
“If you’ve won a prize with your costume at Costume-Con or WorldCon, you
may show your costume in the masquerade, but must enter Not In Competition.”

This verbiage could certainly be applied to other large regionals such as
Arisia, Lunacon, Baycon, and Westercon.

Conversely, to help reinforce the idea, it would help if WorldCon and
Costume-Con had verbiage somewhere that “After you’ve won an award in our
masquerade, you should enter your costume as Not In Competition if you want
to go home and show off your work in your local or regional convention.”

When Balticon was on Easter weekend, it typically fell BEFORE Costume-Con
and costumers could “run up the ladder” with an entry over a period of
several months (competing at Balticon – Costume-Con – WorldCon). Now that
Balticon is on Memorial Day weekend, the sequence is out of order in terms
of the scale of the convention.

There’s a similar problem on the West Coast, where Costume-Con is in the
wrong order with respect to both Baycon and Westercon. So you can do
Costume-Con – Worldcon or Baycon – Westercon – Worldcon.

Let’s see what we can do to get some consistent verbiage into Costume-Con
pubs / masquerade rules on this subject.

–Karen

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/<http://www.costume-con.org/procedure/runacc/>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

(Andy may post this, too)

From our current working draft, in the section “General Competition
Guidelines”: (these are guidelines for the Masquerade Director)
——————————————————

Masquerade audiences (and directors and judges) rarely like to see the
same costume over and over again year after year. To prevent this from
happening, it’s not uncommon for masquerade directors to implement some
version of the “rerun rule.” It’s not just audience boredom, though,
that drives masquerade directors to do this; there are questions of
fairness associated with it.

It’s unsporting to enter a costume that has won a major award in a
larger masquerade with relatively stiff competition in the same division
at a smaller masquerade with less competition. This is often
disparagingly referred to as “sandbagging.”

As masquerade director, it’s your decision that will determine whether a
costume can be entered in your masquerade. We feel that there are
circumstances where costumes may be entered in multiple competitions:

* A costume that has not won an award in competition may be entered
in another masquerade.
* A costume that has won a major award may be entered again in a
competition of similar size at the discretion of the masquerade
director (usually if the audience, judges and slate of competitors
are significantly different).
* A costume that has won a major award in competition may be entered
again in a larger competition.

A costume that has won a competitive award (see Judging Guidelines) in
international competition should not be entered in competition at any
other masquerade.

Fairness concerns about repeat entries may be offset if the competitor
is willing to enter the costume in a more experienced skill division.

If you determine it would not be fair to enter a costume in competition
in any division, please consider allowing the entrant to present the
costume as an exhibition entry.

—————————————————————–

Byron Connell wrote:

>The ICG Masquerade Guidelines do include the following: “11. A costume that has won a major award at the international level [defined as Worldcons and Costume-Cons] is no longer eligible to compete at any level.” This provision was included, I believe, out of a concern for fairness to entrants at regional and local masquerades; however, masquerade directors by and large seem not to have accepted/adopted this recommended policy. That suggests that it may not be in tune with the present day in running regional masquerades, which is where the problem occurs (rather than at the international level). Is Andy’s committee retaining a similar provision in the proposed re-write of the ICG Guidelines?
>
>Byron
>
>
>

Answer 1: The guidelines revise does not rename divisions. Renaming
divisions won’t happen in this submission. It may never happen. Don’t
worry about it now.

Answer 2: The guidelines revise does still cover sandbagging, in a bit
more detail than the current version.

Here’s our difficulty, and it’s a general logistical issue, not a
Costume-Con or a ICG issue. Neither the ICG nor Costume-Con has
ownership over regional and local competitions.

Person competes at Costume-Con. Masquerade rules say no sandbagging.
Fine. Just about the only thing that would violate that rule would be
something that won a big award at WorldCon or a previous CC. Costume
entered wins “best novice.”

Person competes again at Balticon. Masquerade rules say nothing about
sandbagging. Entering in BaltiCon with the CC winner isn’t against the
rules, even though we believe it’s unethical. The CC rules don’t apply
at Balticon. The Balticon rules apply at Balticon.

I agree that the Balticon rules (and Westercon rules, and BayCon rules)
should include these clauses. But we’re back to the logistical issue.
In most conventions, the concom doesn’t care about much more than how
long the masquerade will take, how much space it needs and what the
tech budget is. Rules can shift greatly when a new MD comes in. Rules
do shift greatly in traveling cons, they even shift a bit each year at
CC as new MDs rewrite them. Most concoms don’t want to try to balance
between the MDs creative freedom and maintaining continuity even if
they knew what they were doing.

Many of us, particularly when asked to judge locally, do push the MDs
to add these clauses if we don’t see them. Afterwards, we point out to
the MD when we make a decision we’re not happy with because someone
does something questionable that’s not a rule violation. Or we just
make a decision on the ethics of the situation, and let the MD know
afterwards.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.bovil.com/
“It’s not pink; it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.” –Manfred Pfirsich
Marie Rommel

I agree.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Ricky & Karen Dick<mailto:castleb@pulsenet.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] “Open” Division

Service Mark Holder says:

“Please don’t use a skill division scheme using ‘Open’ as the name of the
unprotected division at any convention called Costume-Con.”

I’ll write it into the ConStitution if I have to. Please don’t make me.

Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced are fine names if we can’t live with
Novice, Journeyman, and Master anymore.

But “Open” is trying so hard not to be a politically and emotionally loaded
name that I feel it is too far in the other direction–it is meaningless
and even more confusing. “I got an award in the Open Division” requires a
lot of additional explanation to friends and relatives, when “I got an
award in the Master or Advanced Division” says a lot more in one sentence
about the difficulty of the competition and the skills required to get a
prize, even to people unfamiliar with our community, or people unfamiliar
with costuming within the S/F community.

–Karen

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/<http://www.costume-con.org/procedure/runacc/>

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a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

The problem isn’t at the international-level masquerades; it’s at the regional/local level masquerades. A Worldcon or CC Masquerade Director has no power to control what a winner at that masquerade may do at some later event. If there is a need to control sandbagging — and it does appear that there is such a need — it has to be done through the rules adopted by regional and local MDs. The ICG Guidelines do explicitly address this; however, regional and local MDs appear not to have adopted that recommended practice. How do we educate them on the need to do so?

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Bruce & Nora Mai<mailto:casamai@sbcglobal.net>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Competing Down

Is this already addressed in the ICG guidelines? Is that enough, or is it
felt that it needs to be dictated to each MD at the International level by
the Con Chairs? Most of those International venues are usually run by Guild
people, who should know better. Just throwin’ that out there…

Bruce

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/<http://www.costume-con.org/procedure/runacc/>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

As Andy has pointed out, the revised Guidelines do discuss this topic.
And they are specifically designed so that MDs who are not at the
International level may also choose to use them.

I recommended this before and I will do so again: The current revision
(not submitted yet to the BOD for approval) is at

http://www.costume.org/guidelines-committee/draft2.html

Andy and I are working on the third/final draft, to be presented to the
ICG BOD very soon for approval. Once we present our draft to the BOD,
they will have to determine what to do with it. As a BOD member, it’s my
intention to move that the ICG adopt the revised document, replacing the
existing version.

So, if you have an opinion regarding what this document has to say, now
would be a Very Good Time to provide your input. Like, now!

Once the new document is out there, it will then be the ICG’s
responsibility to deal with getting the word out. The ICG Newsletter
will help, in that regard, but individual ICG members must also bear
some responsibility, since they are the ones who are involved in the
cons that may choose to employ the guidelines in managing masquerades.

As for the individual in question… Did Balticon’s masquerade rules
have a stipulation against competing costumes in this way? If not, then
the costumer in question may have employed questionable ethics but
violated no actual rules. It’s an important distinction. Sitting on the
Devil’s side of things for a moment: If the rules aren’t there, but
there’s an “unwritten” rule against something, how is one to know if one
has not been active in costuming for a while?

In this particular case (yes, I know who it was), I know she’s been out
of costuming for the better part of 10 years. And when she was active,
she wasn’t one of the folks I’d call Active (with a big A). She’s just
getting back in again. Do we casually mention the subject on ICG-D and
thus cause potential ickiness? Nah, I don’t think so. Can we assume that
everyone who competes knows the unwritten rules? Uh-uh. That’s what
masquerade rules are for.

So, as I said, it would be a Real Good Time to read what we’re proposing
so that people are clear on the concept. After we propose, the changes
may well replace what’s there now, and that could happen by the end of
this coming July.

Going back to finishing my last three big projects before catching up
the CC site…

Betsy

Byron Connell wrote:

> The problem isn’t at the international-level masquerades; it’s at the regional/local level masquerades. A Worldcon or CC Masquerade Director has no power to control what a winner at that masquerade may do at some later event. If there is a need to control sandbagging — and it does appear that there is such a need — it has to be done through the rules adopted by regional and local MDs. The ICG Guidelines do explicitly address this; however, regional and local MDs appear not to have adopted that recommended practice. How do we educate them on the need to do so?
>
> Byron
>
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: Bruce & Nora Mai<mailto:casamai@sbcglobal.net>
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Thursday, June 02, 2005 6:14 PM
> Subject: Re: [runacc] Competing Down
>
>
> Is this already addressed in the ICG guidelines? Is that enough, or is it
> felt that it needs to be dictated to each MD at the International level by
> the Con Chairs? Most of those International venues are usually run by Guild
> people, who should know better. Just throwin’ that out there…
>
> Bruce
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/<http://www.costume-con.org/procedure/runacc/>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

At 05:50 PM 6/2/2005 -0700, you wrote:

>I agree that the Balticon rules (and Westercon rules, and BayCon rules)
>should include these clauses. But we’re back to the logistical issue.
>In most conventions, the concom doesn’t care about much more than how
>long the masquerade will take, how much space it needs and what the
>tech budget is. Rules can shift greatly when a new MD comes in. Rules
>do shift greatly in traveling cons, they even shift a bit each year at
>CC as new MDs rewrite them. Most concoms don’t want to try to balance
>between the MDs creative freedom and maintaining continuity even if
>they knew what they were doing.

On the east coast, there is a very consistent “pool” of MDs, and I believe
it would not be hard to implement a written “no sandbagging” rule at a lot
of conventions. In fandom, if you do something three times, it tends to
become tradition, so each MD just has to make sure the “no sandbagging”
clause gets into the masquerade rules three years in a row.

I am blessed/cursed with my dad’s ability to see the “big picture,” often
in utopian terms, and that is why some of the issues discussed here have
broader implications than Costume-Con. I’m hoping that if I throw something
out there that’s worthy of consideration, some of you who are also present
or future masquerade MD’s at whatever con ( as well as being
committeepeople from Costume-Con) will look at it and say, “Hey, that’s a
good idea and I’ll try implementing it at THIS con.”

Fans being fans, and fancons being fancons, this will *never* be
standardized, and I know it, but I’ve always been concerned with the ethics
of masquerades and competitions and trying to make things as fair as
possible for the competitors. And this just seems like it should be a “gimme.”

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I agree that the international level competitions do not typically have
sandbagging problems.

However, they *create* masquerade winners that have the potential to become
sandbagging problems at local and regional cons.

In the spirit of cooperation, and as a favor to the “feeder system” of cons
that supply them their entrants, it would not hurt either WorldCon or
Costume-Con to publish a couple of lines in the Masquerade section of their
PRs about not sandbagging your local con after you’ve won at this one. I
know it’s talking about future actions and therefore not binding. But maybe
it’ll plant the seeds in people’s heads so it doesn’t come as a surprise
when they see a “no sandbagging” rule at their local or regional con back home.

I really want to do a “costuming ethics” panel at some future CC, but I
swear it would be ill-attended because it is not a “fun” topic. But it is
so badly needed…

–Karen

At 05:14 PM 6/2/2005 -0500, you wrote:

>Is this already addressed in the ICG guidelines? Is that enough, or is it
>felt that it needs to be dictated to each MD at the International level by
>the Con Chairs? Most of those International venues are usually run by Guild
>people, who should know better. Just throwin’ that out there…
>
>Bruce
>
>
>
>View the Document:
><http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/>http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
>
>
>———-
>Yahoo! Groups Links
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> *
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/
> *
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> *
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>
> *
> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the
> <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I’ve just been reading on this topic, not contributing, so far. However…

(my 2 cents worth): when Sue DeG. was beating the bushes for costumes
several years ago for Lunacon, I agreed to display my Harlequin costume that
had won a novice (best recreation) award at CC8, as an “out of competition”
costume. At the time, there were some questions from some of the audience
because it didn’t get an award. It would be helpful, if a costume is
entered “out of competition,” if the MC or someone could make it clear that
there is a reason for doing so (i.e., it won a major award elsewhere).
We’ve also displayed Byron’s costume from the (Best in Show) Amber group at
Toronto Worldcon at our local con (Albacon) out of competition, because,
again, they really wanted stuff up on stage. In that instance, we made
sure that it was explained that it had won elsewhere, and was for display
purposes.

Frankly, I think that it would be good for the costuming and con-attending
community if more people could get a look at “international” winning
costumes, since a lot of fans don’t make it to WorldCon and/or CC. What
they need to know is that it is for their enjoyment, not for the ego-boo of
the costumer trying to win another award.

Tina

Absolutely agree with everything you said.

–Karen

At 11:39 PM 6/2/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>IFrankly, I think that it would be good for the costuming and con-attending
>community if more people could get a look at “international” winning
>costumes, since a lot of fans don’t make it to WorldCon and/or CC. What
>they need to know is that it is for their enjoyment, not for the ego-boo of
>the costumer trying to win another award.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

And then there was the Midwest costumer who entered Minicon (regional –
when it still had a masquerade) as a novice, and won, then brought it to
CC, entered in Journeyman, and won, then took it to Worldcon, entered it in
Master, and won. Novice to Master in 5 months. And I don’t think any of
them was sandbagging, in retrospect, given the other costumes entered and
the relative size. Yes, CC and WC are technically equal, but some are more
equal than others (small CC and large WC).

Just an observation.

Sandy

At 02:07 PM 6/2/2005, you wrote:

>The exception to what you are suggesting (and I agree, it is Very Poor
>Form) is if you won an award in one of the “protected”
>divisions and re-entered it in a more open division.
>
>At a small convention, even that would be VPF, but at Baycon, with 2400
>attendees, someone who won a (non-Best-in-Division) Novice or self-made
>Young Fan award at CC and chose to enter it at BayCon in the
>Open/Advanced division (Baycon only has 2 adult divisions) might not be
>sandbagging at all.
>Kevin

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed to Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly —
Why They Are Simply Doomed.

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

That wasn’t sandbagging, that was “competing upward,” which is how it’s
supposed to work.

Competing it the other direction would have been sandbagging.

–Karen

At 11:50 PM 6/2/2005 -0500, you wrote:

>And then there was the Midwest costumer who entered Minicon (regional –
>when it still had a masquerade) as a novice, and won, then brought it to
>CC, entered in Journeyman, and won, then took it to Worldcon, entered it in
>Master, and won.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Tina Connell wrote:

> Frankly, I think that it would be good for the costuming and con-attending
> community if more people could get a look at “international” winning
> costumes, since a lot of fans don’t make it to WorldCon and/or CC. What
> they need to know is that it is for their enjoyment, not for the ego-boo of
> the costumer trying to win another award.

I like it!

That’s the kind of thing that would encourage some people to present
exhibition. Show it, and say that it won at WorldCon, CC or whatever
other large venue it presented at.

It’s also the kind of thing that will help keep WorldCon and CC in
peoples’ minds.

The trick now is to seed regionals with exhibition pieces. Unfortunately
for us, our most prolific and coolest entrants somehow seem to put
together new entries for nearly every masquerade of regional level or
higher that they can get to.

andy

We’ve shown our Costume-Con pieces (Crimson King) Not In Competition at
Balticon.

The only reason we didn’t do it this year is that Cait wanted to compete a
solo for the first time on her own, plus we couldn’t get the two West-Coast
members of Ascension to the con.

This is a good way to get masquerade numbers up even if you don’t have
anything new to compete, and people love seeing the costumes in person. (We
did wear our Ascension uniforms in the halls, and got a lot of comments.)

–Karen

At 11:03 PM 6/2/2005 -0700, you wrote:

>Tina Connell wrote:
> > Frankly, I think that it would be good for the costuming and con-attending
> > community if more people could get a look at “international” winning
> > costumes, since a lot of fans don’t make it to WorldCon and/or CC. What
> > they need to know is that it is for their enjoyment, not for the
> ego-boo of
> > the costumer trying to win another award.
>
>I like it!
>
>That’s the kind of thing that would encourage some people to present
>exhibition. Show it, and say that it won at WorldCon, CC or whatever
>other large venue it presented at.
>
>It’s also the kind of thing that will help keep WorldCon and CC in
>peoples’ minds.
>
>The trick now is to seed regionals with exhibition pieces. Unfortunately
>for us, our most prolific and coolest entrants somehow seem to put
>together new entries for nearly every masquerade of regional level or
>higher that they can get to.
>
>andy
>
>
>View the Document:
><http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/>http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
>
>
>———-
>Yahoo! Groups Links
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> *
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/
> *
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> *
> <mailto:runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> *
> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the
> <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Do you know, if this is this a “open letter” that can passed on to
other venues, possibly public ones?

Or do we need contact her to see about passing it on to other CC
committees, MDs, and/or Costume Panel coordinators?

JohnO

— In runacc@yahoogroups.com, “Bruno” <bruno@s…> wrote:
> I had one of the young anime costumers that came out from CO, write
up some feedback on her impressions and experiences at CC. The first
part is directed at other cosplayers, but does provide some insight on
how this generation thinks and feels about costuming. I’m sure that
there are some nuggets of wisdom here, which can be used to help
bridge the gap between the CC and Cosplay generations.
>
>
> Michael
>
> —– Original Message —–
>
>
> I’m a cosplayer who survived her first CostumeCon! Or atleast
that’s how I felt when I cam back from CostumeCon 23. It was highly
educational but there were some things that were not very enjoyable.
As one of the younger generation into costuming but coming at it from
a cosplay sort of view, here are my thoughts about what cosplayers
should know about CostumeCon and what CostumeCon should know about
cosplayers.

{{{snip}}}

Hi, John!

As ICG Newsletter Editor and Costume-ConNections site manager, I already
contacted the author, and I have her permission to reproduce on both the
Costume-Con.org site (under CC23 – reviews), and in the next Newsletter
(this August).

Once I have the time to update the site – sometime next week the work
begins), I’ll be including her article. I think if you want to forward
the link, that’s okay. It’ll be public info at that point. But she took
pains to adjust some of her writing, so please don’t use the version
Mike sent.

Thanks!

Betsy

johalloran wrote:

> Do you know, if this is this a “open letter” that can passed on to
> other venues, possibly public ones?
>
> Or do we need contact her to see about passing it on to other CC
> committees, MDs, and/or Costume Panel coordinators?
>
> JohnO
>
>
> — In runacc@yahoogroups.com, “Bruno” <bruno@s…> wrote:
>
>>I had one of the young anime costumers that came out from CO, write
>
> up some feedback on her impressions and experiences at CC. The first
> part is directed at other cosplayers, but does provide some insight on
> how this generation thinks and feels about costuming. I’m sure that
> there are some nuggets of wisdom here, which can be used to help
> bridge the gap between the CC and Cosplay generations.
>
>>
>>Michael
>>
>>—– Original Message —–
>>
>>
>> I’m a cosplayer who survived her first CostumeCon! Or atleast
>
> that’s how I felt when I cam back from CostumeCon 23. It was highly
> educational but there were some things that were not very enjoyable.
> As one of the younger generation into costuming but coming at it from
> a cosplay sort of view, here are my thoughts about what cosplayers
> should know about CostumeCon and what CostumeCon should know about
> cosplayers.
>
> {{{snip}}}
>
>
>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

no problem.

JohnO

Betsy Delaney wrote:

> Hi, John!
>
> As ICG Newsletter Editor and Costume-ConNections site manager, I already
> contacted the author, and I have her permission to reproduce on both the
> Costume-Con.org site (under CC23 – reviews), and in the next Newsletter
> (this August).
>
> Once I have the time to update the site – sometime next week the work
> begins), I’ll be including her article. I think if you want to forward
> the link, that’s okay. It’ll be public info at that point. But she took
> pains to adjust some of her writing, so please don’t use the version
> Mike sent.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Betsy
>
> johalloran wrote:
>
> > Do you know, if this is this a “open letter” that can passed on to
> > other venues, possibly public ones?
> >
> > Or do we need contact her to see about passing it on to other CC
> > committees, MDs, and/or Costume Panel coordinators?
> >
> > JohnO
> >
> >
> > — In runacc@yahoogroups.com, “Bruno” <bruno@s…> wrote:
> >
> >>I had one of the young anime costumers that came out from CO, write
> >
> > up some feedback on her impressions and experiences at CC. The first
> > part is directed at other cosplayers, but does provide some insight on
> > how this generation thinks and feels about costuming. I’m sure that
> > there are some nuggets of wisdom here, which can be used to help
> > bridge the gap between the CC and Cosplay generations.
> >
> >>
> >>Michael
> >>
> >>—– Original Message —–
> >>
> >>
> >> I’m a cosplayer who survived her first CostumeCon! Or atleast
> >
> > that’s how I felt when I cam back from CostumeCon 23. It was highly
> > educational but there were some things that were not very enjoyable.
> > As one of the younger generation into costuming but coming at it from
> > a cosplay sort of view, here are my thoughts about what cosplayers
> > should know about CostumeCon and what CostumeCon should know about
> > cosplayers.
> >
> > {{{snip}}}
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> > Yahoo! Groups Links
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
> ————————————————————————
> *Yahoo! Groups Links*
>
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/
>
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
> <mailto:runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>
>
> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of
> Service <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>.
>
>

Re Byron:

> The problem isn’t at the international-level masquerades; it’s at the

regional/local >level masquerades. How do we educate them on the need to
do so?

That’s a very good question, because there’s always the danger of our
appearing to be “dictating” again, despite the fact that we actually have a
legitimate concern.
Karen’s “throwing it out there” is about the best approach we can hope for.
Of course, this provides that an MD will be receptive to input. Some are –
some aren’t, as we all know.

Re Karen: > I really want to do a “costuming ethics” panel at some future
CC, but I > swear it would be ill-attended because it is not a “fun” topic.
But it is

> so badly needed…

I’d go to it. I love that sort of crap. 🙂 These kinds of issues don’t
usually get discussed except in private bull sessions, and really should be.
The key to take some angle to the subject matter and at least make the title
sound interesting. Maybe people will stay anyway.

Re Tina and Andy’s comments: Archon has worked this out fairly well. They
refer to the entries as in the “Exhibition Class”. I can’t remember if they
specifically say they are not in competition (I don’t think so). But they
have mentioned that the costumes won X award(s) at a Worldcon. I don’t
think we’ve actually had anyone demo a CC entry, though.

As it’s been mentioned, we’re usually too busy working on the next project
to show something “old”. As Karen has stated, we’ve got all these ideas
that have to get out and have finite time and venues to get them out in
front of people.

Bruce

In a message dated 6/3/2005 10:51:36 PM Central Daylight Time,
casamai@sbcglobal.net writes: >

> Re Byron:
>
> >The problem isn’t at the international-level masquerades; it’s at the
> regional/local >level masquerades. How do we educate them on the need to
> do so?

Speaking for us here in the Metro Milwaukee/Chicago area that run masquerades
at smaller cons, we are doing the best we can about that. Which is why I do
volunteer to run or help with masquerades in the area.

We are also doing what we can to encourage people to compete at all! next
weekend at Duckon 14, I am “running” the Hall Costume Masquerade, basically Hall
Costumes. Last year, I turned the masquerade into a show, which everyone in
the audience enjoyed, due to lack of entries.

Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On Jun 3, 2005, at 8:52 PM, Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:

> re Tina and Andy’s comments: Archon has worked this out fairly well.
> They
> refer to the entries as in the “Exhibition Class”. I can’t remember
> if they
> specifically say they are not in competition (I don’t think so). But
> they
> have mentioned that the costumes won X award(s) at a Worldcon. I don’t
> think we’ve actually had anyone demo a CC entry, though.

It’s not like we haven’t had “exhibition” class forever, it’s just Tina
came up a way with making it desirable…

—
Andy Trembley, Bull-in-Drag
The Bovine Illuminati (It’s the Cows, Inc.)
http://www.bovil.com/
Moo!

While looking for a certain dealer of Cowboy clothing, I found this site:
http://www.curtrich.com/costume.html. I know that the Cowboy crowd has their own
contests, but this is the first time I have found a web page devoted to it.

Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010
e-mail CC2010Milw@cs.com for more information

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

We’re trying to make a decision on how much to charge for dealers table for
CC25. Right now, we’re considering making tables $105 for a table (less for
additional tables) and memberships about $65 for one and additional
memberships at a slightly reduced rate.

We heard that CC24 has a rather low rate of $50 per table (no membership
included). Is this correct?

We’d like opinions and stats on what the other committees have charged/will
charge and whether our rates are too high, or about right.

Bruce

A seperate dealers room issue:

Janet has supposedly offered to bring her business to CC25 if we can give
her a seperate room. We’re trying to maintain a balance between Exhibits
and Dealers. As it is, we’re probably going to have to split up our
Exhibits into 2 rooms, because I believe it’s extremely important to give K
& R as much space to represent the Con’s history as we can.

I think our dealers rep has plans for something like 20 tables. I believe
we have a yet-to-be stated policy of a limit of 2 tables per dealer. Given
that people would really like to see her bring her shop, since she has some
of the best selection and variety, how does one address the issue of limited
availabilty? Pierre seems to recall she had 6 at CC23. It’s difficult to
give any kind of committments too far in advance, since we would like to get
as many dealers to come as possible. I’m not entirely certain we have a
room to spare for just one dealer, important as she is.

If we accomodated Janet with more tables, then there’s the issue of the
other dealers seeing a double-standard.

Your input is welcome.

Bruce

Does your $105 include one membership?

–Karen

At 05:07 PM 6/19/2005 -0500, you wrote:

>We’re trying to make a decision on how much to charge for dealers table for
>CC25. Right now, we’re considering making tables $105 for a table (less for
>additional tables) and memberships about $65 for one and additional
>memberships at a slightly reduced rate.
>
>We heard that CC24 has a rather low rate of $50 per table (no membership
>included). Is this correct?
>
>We’d like opinions and stats on what the other committees have charged/will
>charge and whether our rates are too high, or about right.
>
>Bruce
>
>
>
>View the Document:
><http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/>http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
>
>
>———-
>Yahoo! Groups Links
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> *
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/
> *
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> *
> <mailto:runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> *
> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the
> <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

First and foremost, don’t be afraid to say “no” to Janet if the logistics
are not good for you. She’s a businessperson; she should understand. But if
you can accommodate her, she is always a popular draw as a dealer.

Is there a suite, breakout rooms not being used for panels, or something
similar in the hotel where Janet can put her dealer stuff, have her own
key, and set her own hours? Don’t be afraid to charge her a rate
commensurate with the amount of space she takes up. (Maybe you can parlay
this into extra favors from the hotel, as you’d be renting more space and
giving them more $$$.)

From Janet’s standpoint, it is expensive for her to drive her inventory
that far across country to a convention, so she wants to bring EVERYTHING
so she can make as many sales as possible to make up for her expenses.
(Been there, done that with our now defunct clown business and totally
understand where she’s coming from.)

She may have overlap in wares with some of your other dealers, and that may
cause issues. She can take up lots of space, so if you have to put
everybody in one dealer’s room, that may severely limit how many other
dealers you can have. And you already mentioned the problem with letting
her have more space/tables if other dealers are only allowed two.

If there’s some other logical place in the hotel where Exhibits can move
(that is secure and does not require breakdown every night), that may be an
option, too. We’ll just have to make sure there’s good signage, etc. so
people don’t overlook it.

Pierre–is Janet dealing at Des Moines? If so, how are you handling it?

Henry, how did you deal with Janet at Chicago? (I know there was talk of a
separate room, but security was an issue.)

Dave and Henry, how did the other dealers feel about Janet having so much
dealer space?

–Karen

At 05:20 PM 6/19/2005 -0500, you wrote:

>A seperate dealers room issue:
>
>Janet has supposedly offered to bring her business to CC25 if we can give
>her a seperate room. We’re trying to maintain a balance between Exhibits
>and Dealers. As it is, we’re probably going to have to split up our
>Exhibits into 2 rooms, because I believe it’s extremely important to give K
>& R as much space to represent the Con’s history as we can.
>
>I think our dealers rep has plans for something like 20 tables. I believe
>we have a yet-to-be stated policy of a limit of 2 tables per dealer. Given
>that people would really like to see her bring her shop, since she has some
>of the best selection and variety, how does one address the issue of limited
>availabilty? Pierre seems to recall she had 6 at CC23. It’s difficult to
>give any kind of committments too far in advance, since we would like to get
>as many dealers to come as possible. I’m not entirely certain we have a
>room to spare for just one dealer, important as she is.
>
>If we accomodated Janet with more tables, then there’s the issue of the
>other dealers seeing a double-standard.
>
>Your input is welcome.
>
>Bruce
>
>
>
>View the Document:
><http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/>http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
>
>
>———-
>Yahoo! Groups Links
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> *
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/
> *
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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> <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Bruce, and all,
FYI, the deal we ended up cutting with Janet back at CC21 basically
almost paid for the room we set her up in. We took a bit of a bath on the cost,
but we thought the draw of Janet/Alteryears was worth it.
I didn’t hear anything negative from the other dealers about the
arrangement, but it is something to consider.
At CC23, Janet had about 1/4 to 1/3 of the Dealers Room, and filled it
to the brim with her stuff. I do remember Dave Doering shooting me e-mail
about the deal we gave her at 21. I told him the pro’s and con’s that I could
think of, which are basically the draw of Alteryears/Janet vs. more dealers. I
side towards the first. In addition, I think Janet brings a good vibe to the
con.
Henry Osier
PS And talking of dealers for your CC, Bruce, I’d love to see
Clearwater Hats again!

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>In discussing Alteryears arrangements for CC23, I should note:

1. Because of the relatively small size of Atlanta’s dealers room, we opted
not to set a specific limit to the number of tables one dealer could have
as a way of encouraging more dealers to come. The thought being that if we
way over-sold, we always could use 1/3 of the ballroom as an alternate
dealer’s room. (giving us about two times the space we did have).

So if Janet was willing to pay for the space, we were willing to have her
take up more.

2. We offered one table with one full membership for $120, two tables/two
memberships for $200. Additional tables did not include additional
memberships. We were willing to offer a discounted membership to any dealer
who needed more, but no one asked for one, so that didn’t come up. We
probably would have gone for a $50 rate on those.

3. Rates were set at 1 for $120, 2 for $200, 3 for $270, and 4 for $330.

4. For Janet, we measured out the space and found that the south end of the
room was approximately six 8′ tables–about 1/4 of the room. (It was
convenient that the doors allowed for that end of the room to kind of be
its own space.) So we cut her a deal for $450.00 for this space. This may
seem low, but we did want her there, did want other dealers to know about
this draw (Janet is both a competitor and a draw for buyers), and since the
hotel rental fee was low (about $200/day for that space), we thought this
deal worth it.

To be honest, there were several challenges working with Janet.

First, she can be tough to get a hold of. It could be weeks or even several
months before she would answer e-mail. I finally got her cellphone number
after seeing her at Costume College, but even then, I might go a week or
two with just the answering service picking up.

Second, she appeared to suffer from cash-flow problems. So even though we
set a low fee for her, she still struggled to arrange for the money to pay
for that. It was only after I gave her a drop-dead date weeks after
everyone else and said that if I did not have the money in by the end of
that business day, I would sell the space to another dealer, that I finally
got a check from her.

The reason that this definitely concerned me was that it was a cascading
problem: if Janet couldn’t afford the $450, how would she be able to afford
new merchandise for the show? How would she afford travel expenses? What
about any contingencies, such as a flat tire on the road?

Fortunately, she came through with flying colors. But it was a concern.

Third, because of the communications issues, I had to resend at least three
times the dealer’s packet to Janet. There wasn’t an acknowledgement on
either of the first two times, and I actually had to talk on the cellphone
to her before confirming the third. By not hearing from her, I wasn’t sure
if she was declining our invitation, mulling it over, out of town, changed
address, etc.

Finally, she appeared understaffed for the quantity of goods she had–so
she wanted to start setup on Thursday PM to be ready by noon on Friday.
However, that would have cost more to rent. So we ended up having the hotel
open the room at 6AM so Janet could bring in her goods.

The same issue came up on Monday. In order to reach the 6PM deadline for
teardown, several volunteers had to pitch in so she could be packed up
ready to go. (The inside scoop is that the hotel’s staffer was going
off-duty at 7PM and needed to get the room vacuumed prior to his leaving.)
Fortunately, in the tradition of CC, there were plenty of us willing to
dive in to do the packing, for which I am grateful, so the job got done.

That said, I had no problems with Janet on site. There was no complaining
about size/arrangement of space. Nor did I hear any issues from other
dealers about size, etc. for Alteryears. Given that any dealer could have
purchased six tables worth of space if they wanted to, I think everyone
felt it fair if one did.

We did discuss with various dealers about using suites/function space for
one dealer’s exclusive use. The primary objection, if it is one, being that
these spaces were almost always off the beaten track–hence would get less
or even no traffic during the con compared to the dealers room. As happened
in Chicago, Alteryears made this arrangement work. However, for Ogden,
there wasn’t really a separate space close by to use for this option, so we
never really pursued it.

Dave Doering

>Bruce, and all,
> FYI, the deal we ended up cutting with Janet back at CC21 basically
>almost paid for the room we set her up in. We took a bit of a bath on the
>cost,
>but we thought the draw of Janet/Alteryears was worth it.
> I didn’t hear anything negative from the other dealers about the
>arrangement, but it is something to consider.
> At CC23, Janet had about 1/4 to 1/3 of the Dealers Room, and
> filled it
>to the brim with her stuff. I do remember Dave Doering shooting me e-mail
>about the deal we gave her at 21. I told him the pro’s and con’s that I could
>think of, which are basically the draw of Alteryears/Janet vs. more
>dealers. I
>side towards the first. In addition, I think Janet brings a good vibe to the
>con.
> Henry Osier
> PS And talking of dealers for your CC, Bruce, I’d love to see
>Clearwater Hats again!
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>View the Document:
><http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/>http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
>
>
>———-
>Yahoo! Groups Links
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> *
> <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/
> *
> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> *
> <mailto:runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
> *
> * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the
> <http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/>Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dave, this is GREAT information you provided, and I hope Bruce finds it
helpful. I certainly found it enlightening, although I’m not sure if this
will be a concern for CC-27 (Baltimore is probably too far for Janet to
drive her wares and still have it be cost-effective.)

I, too, have had problems (for *years*) with contacting Janet by email
(it’s like dropping notes into a black hole, never to be seen again), so
don’t feel bad. So this is definitely a concern for anyone trying to
contact her.

–Karen

At 02:48 PM 6/20/2005 -0600, you wrote:

> >In discussing Alteryears arrangements for CC23, I should note…

<snip>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

What this discussion has been about has to a certain extent hinged on Janet
vs. other dealers and how they feel about her.

As a customer, I don’t think that there’s a lot of conflict. She carries a
good number of specialty items that most other dealers don’t offer. She
also has a primo selection of books and patterns, including some rather
esoteric ones. However, I bought my corset supplies from the corset dealer,
not her (Farthingales’ prices were better than Janet’s), and likewise
fabric, beads and trims from other dealers. For a newbie costumer, or for
someone who does not have any local access to exotica, she’s a treasure!
And she’s always willing to be helpful, make suggestions (even if they don’t
result in a sale), talk to newbies, and so forth, so she’s a resource, not
just a dealer.

As long as the rest of the room is fairly well balanced, I would not expect
there to be a conflict. Most of the established dealers already know her.
If a brand new dealer wanted in, you might want to explain the situation if
their stock-in-trade was likely to compete directly.

Tina

—– Original Message —–
From: <osierhenry@cs.com>
To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, June 20, 2005 12:26 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Dealing with Janet Wilson-Anderson

> Bruce, and all,
> FYI, the deal we ended up cutting with Janet back at CC21 basically
> almost paid for the room we set her up in. We took a bit of a bath on the
> cost,
> but we thought the draw of Janet/Alteryears was worth it.
> I didn’t hear anything negative from the other dealers about the
> arrangement, but it is something to consider.
> At CC23, Janet had about 1/4 to 1/3 of the Dealers Room, and filled
> it
> to the brim with her stuff. I do remember Dave Doering shooting me e-mail
> about the deal we gave her at 21. I told him the pro’s and con’s that I
> could
> think of, which are basically the draw of Alteryears/Janet vs. more
> dealers. I
> side towards the first. In addition, I think Janet brings a good vibe to
> the
> con.
> Henry Osier
> PS And talking of dealers for your CC, Bruce, I’d love to see
> Clearwater Hats again!

I realized when I saw Gaylene vending in Reno, that limiting vendor’s to two tables (which we might tend to do at CONduit), might not work for CC-23.

Many of our vendors were going to be driving in from out-of-area. What we wanted, was a good variety, but not so many vendors that none of them would make any money. In the case of both Gaylene (fabric from Oregon), and Janet Wilson-Anderson (CA), we knew they would both be loading up a truck, and it didn’t really make sense for them to bring in only half a truck load.

I know Kathy Evans (Seattle area) could have brought more stuff, but I think she had a pretty good idea of what the other vendors were going to bring, and she was used to custumizing her wares to each market.

We were reluctant to totally over-fill the room too early, since there may be some special opportunity pop up at the last minute.

When we actually had the room finalized, I was actually a bit surprised at how few vendors we really had, but I thought we had mananged to cover the important areas quite well. (Fabric, trim, beads, books, patterns, and other do-dads). The room was quite adequate for these vendors. When we did first set-up, some vendors wondered what Janet’s space was (how many tables / how much money) since it was the largest allocation, and they were re-assured that she had been charged extra.

I should point out that a number of the vendors wanted a “space/area” (and electrical outlets), and the simple fixed-fee-per-table-maximum-of-two (like we do at CONduit), simply would have not been a good policy. We needed to determine what their space area would be, not just a fixed table design. (and there was some last minute adjusting)

As it was, most of the vendors did adequately well, which was a concern given the fairly small numbers of attendees for the event.

Charles

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 04:56 PM 6/20/2005 -0600, you wrote:

>I should point out that a number of the vendors wanted a “space/area” (and
>electrical outlets), and the simple fixed-fee-per-table-maximum-of-two
>(like we do at CONduit), simply would have not been a good policy.

Re “space/area.” This is an interesting concept, and one used frequently at
trade shows. You don’t get “tables,” you get a 10×12 (or whatever
dimensions) space, and set up within that space according to your needs
(maybe tables, maybe not). Vendors request tables and chairs if they need
them; otherwise, the floorspace is blank when they arrive. I know when
Ricky and I are vending, we don’t want to “hide” behind a table and
typically want a space/area arrangement where we can set up a big “U” with
racks and maybe one table.

Whether you are selling tables or “spaces,” make sure you have room for
adequate aisles to keep your fire marshal happy. If you are selling
“spaces” vs. tables, you may need to go through the room and mark off the
“spaces” on the floor with a roll of masking or drafting tape so your
vendors don’t end up spilling into the aisles. (Again, this is what they do
at the trade shows, and you are politely asked to reconfigure your booth if
it is “over the line.”

–Karen

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

>Charles wrote about numbers of dealers and such.

Yes, I forgot to mention that Charles and I discussed at length the need to
balance the expected number of attendees with the number of dealers. We
realized that a concerted marketing effort might bring 15-20 dealers in,
but would leave most with little profit for the weekend. We didn’t want
that or the bad PR it would bring to CC’s in general. (Hey, don’t do CC,
you can’t make money there.)

We would have liked to have known something of other CC dealers rooms,
particularly number of dealers compared with attendance. It’s probably
impossible to find out, but trying to get some feedback from dealers as to
“was it worth it?” might be key here. Can a 250-person CC support six
dealers, eight dealers, what? What can a 500-person con do?

Also, as Charles says, we had a lengthy discussion on space vs. tables
approach. Most CC dealers have their own racks/display arrangements, so a
typical con “table” layout isn’t the most useful. However, we opted to stay
with it because it is a universal (an 8′ table with two chairs and space
behind). If we had gone with a “you are renting 550 sq ft” it would be
harder to lay out.

Finally, it would have been impractical to try and figure out a price per
square foot and try to work all this out with each dealer _and_ fit it into
the actual room.

I really would prefer to do what they did at Costume College, with a
clearly laid out floor plan that takes into consideration the odd shape of
their room to make the most space available to dealers. (They even go so
far as to masking tape the floor of the room for setup!) However, since
College uses the same space year to year, it is easier to come up with
those arrangements vs. the one-off of CC23.

In fact, Kathy Evans was our unsung hero for the CC23 Dealer’s Room, as
discovered the table setup we found on Friday morning simply would not work
for the dealer’s room. Kathy stepped right in and made the floor
plan/tables work. (This by the way was not the hotel’s fault, but simply a
notion by one of our staffers to try and “improve” the traffic flow. Again,
this is a problem when you have an all-volunteer staff with varying skill
levels.)

The other aspect that Charles mentioned was electricity. We mapped out the
available outlets, and found the room was underserved with only about ten
to fifteen outlets. This raised a concern if everyone wanted to run
high-intensity lighting, for example. Fortunately, not everyone wanted
electricity. But as we have discussed before on hotel electricity for the
masquerade, we can put too much demand on a circuit–potentially blowing
the fuse, so to speak.

Also, if we had done an island approach (dealers on the outside of the room
and some in the middle), we would have had to run an extension cord or two
across the aisles. This presents a tripping hazard, requires taping down,
and thus is an added hassle. Again, we didn’t have this as a problem
because we had only one unlighted display table in the middle.

All in all, the room turned out well, with Farthingales saying that this
was their best convention ever.

Dave Doering

(Replying to Dave’s comments)

In terms of what to charge the vendors for space…

I’m sure we charged the vendors enough to cover the cost of the room rental. And we certainly didn’t want to drop the price below what a membership cost. We did set the price a bit low, in the sense that we knew that they would be coming from out-of-area, and didn’t expect huge sales.

My point is that if there is a local vendor, who is trying for promotion leading to follow-on sales after the con, then they would be more willing to take a loss at the event. But at CC-23, most of the expected sales would be occuring right there at the event, based on who we expected the vendors to be.
—————–
The vendor-room actually had a pretty good supply of electrical outlets, but there was still the concern of trailing cable-cords, and possibly (if everyone wanted lots of power) maxing out the circuits (I never did know exactly how many circuits we had). Keep in mind, the number of circuits is not the same as the number of plug outlets. I think typically, there are about 3 or 4 electrical double-outlet boxes per circuit, each circuit set for 20 amps. If we had 9 double outlet boxes in that dealers room, I’d expect about three 20-amp circuits. But I might still need to know which outlets were on which circuit. This type of detail becomes even more important if you are trying to run stage-lighting from out of the room outlets (a room plug-outlet is typically rated at 15 amps, maybe 20 amps). But don’t try to run 15 or 20 amps through a light-weight extension cord.

Charles

—– Original Message —–
From: David Doering
>Charles wrote about numbers of dealers and such.

Yes, I forgot to mention that Charles and I discussed at length the need to
balance the expected number of attendees with the number of dealers. We
realized that a concerted marketing effort might bring 15-20 dealers in,
but would leave most with little profit for the weekend. We didn’t want
that or the bad PR it would bring to CC’s in general. (Hey, don’t do CC,
you can’t make money there.)

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 06:05 PM 6/19/2005, you wrote:

>Pierre–is Janet dealing at Des Moines? If so, how are you handling it?

As of this moment I don’t believe she’s contacted us.

Pierre

>Henry, how did you deal with Janet at Chicago? (I know there was talk of a
>separate room, but security was an issue.)
>
>Dave and Henry, how did the other dealers feel about Janet having so much
>dealer space?
>
>–Karen
>
>At 05:20 PM 6/19/2005 -0500, you wrote:
> >A seperate dealers room issue:
> >
> >Janet has supposedly offered to bring her business to CC25 if we can give
> >her a seperate room. We’re trying to maintain a balance between Exhibits
> >and Dealers. As it is, we’re probably going to have to split up our
> >Exhibits into 2 rooms, because I believe it’s extremely important to give K
> >& R as much space to represent the Con’s history as we can.
> >
> >I think our dealers rep has plans for something like 20 tables. I believe
> >we have a yet-to-be stated policy of a limit of 2 tables per dealer. Given
> >that people would really like to see her bring her shop, since she has some
> >of the best selection and variety, how does one address the issue of limited
> >availabilty? Pierre seems to recall she had 6 at CC23. It’s difficult to
> >give any kind of committments too far in advance, since we would like to get
> >as many dealers to come as possible. I’m not entirely certain we have a
> >room to spare for just one dealer, important as she is.
> >
> >If we accomodated Janet with more tables, then there’s the issue of the
> >other dealers seeing a double-standard.
> >
> >Your input is welcome.
> >
> >Bruce

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed to Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly —
Why They Are Simply Doomed.

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

On May 19, 2005, at 6:07 PM, Betsy Delaney wrote:

> I also agree with Andy – Chicago had such a rehearsal space. I know
> because I helped tape out the stage outline.

I forgot about that… then again, I was too busy freaking out while
waiting for Marty and Jennifer to fix the actual stage problems with
the hotel and then trying to catch up on rehearsals once those
logistics had been solved.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
…remaining .sig trimmed for better message/.sig ratio

At 08:48 PM 5/19/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>As a result, I dislike arbitrary limits on the number of awards the judges
>may give, either overall or by division.

I am not singling you out, Byron, as I can find something good in just
about every costume I see, and I have to restrain myself from going
overboard on awards, especially when I’m doing Workmanship. But I would
like to use your statement as a jumping-off point for another masquerade-
and judging-related discussion.

At what point (percentage of the entrants receiving awards) should the
judges just give up and award EVERYBODY? I’m asking this because I have
seen several masquerades (including both Costume-Con and WorldCon) where,
out of a large field, only a small percentage of the entries did not
receive awards. Not unexpectedly, many of those entries had their
self-esteem and their feelings hurt. (“Gee, how bad is my entry if 85% of
the other entries got awards and I didn’t?!!”)

I think we all agree that losing sucks. But losing sucks less if you are
one of 70% that didn’t make it vs. one of 15% that didn’t make it. (The
competition was tough–you regroup and try harder next time.) Just as
winning is more meaningful if only 30% of the overall field got awards.
(The competition was tough, and you were one of the survivors.)

I am all for awarding excellence, and “I’m OK, you’re OK,” but let’s not go
overboard. If we award everybody, then we essentially award nobody.

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

There was another consideration about Theater-space, that is sort of tech-geek, and was not discussed a lot going in.

With a black back-curtain, there is a bit more tolerance of bleed light on the back curtain. But with a cyc, bleed-light on the cyc can cause unwanted cyc-lighting. So often, when using a cyc, the stage-lights are focused off of the back, and the back-most section is not useful, since there’s no lighting on the face towards the very back.

The net effect is, that even if a stage is stated to be a certain size, it may be necessary to state what the effective useful size is.

Charles

—– Original Message —–
From: Les Roth
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 3:28 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Tech rehearsals from a geek point of view

For CC-24 we already have a space set aside for rehearsal in the green
room.

Our usable stage size will be 30 feet wide and 13 feet deep. Detailed
floor plans will be on the website soon.

Les

—

Live, never to be ashamed if everything you do is published around the
world. Even if what is published is not true. — Richard Bach

On May 19, 2005, at 9:51 AM, Betsy Delaney wrote:

> That space should be made available as part of the planning process
> when
> the hotel spaces are assigned. It’s not clear to me that this kind of
> space was provided at CC23 (I didn’t compete and wasn’t paying
> attention), but if it isn’t already a part of the space allotments for
> 24 on up, you may wish to reconsider the room layout and find a way to
> include it. Both the tech crew and the contestants will thank you later
> for it.

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

——————————————————————————
Yahoo! Groups Links

a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/

b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Actually, the green-room at the theater was pretty busy Saturday morning, with another event, or cleaning it up. And Sunday, with the FFS & Single Pattern in the morning, and Historical run-throughs in the afternoon.

And I think Dave was slightly wrong about the ball-room being available on Friday, or Saturday, since after talking to the hotel, I had the impression that the space was rented most of the day — as I was making up the pocket program. I didn’t worry much about Sunday rehearsals, since I thought most of those would not be as large or complex.

However, many demos have been done in past local conventions, outside in a roped area of the parking lot, and I didn’t even think of that. I think that would not have been a problem for our venue.

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew T Trembley
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 3:21 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Tech rehearsals from a geek point of view

On May 19, 2005, at 2:02 PM, Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:
>> The problem is a perception thing. And it can be cured by providing a
>> separate rehearsal space for the contestants, away from the main stage
>> space.
>>
>> That space should be made available as part of the planning process
>> when
>> the hotel spaces are assigned. It’s not clear to me that this kind of
>> space was provided at CC23
>
><snip>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

One of things I did very early on, was a large master check-list of what needed to be done for a Costume-Con. I didn’t just put down Masquerade: MD. I included such items as pro-photo, and fan photo. I broke up video into about 5 different pieces, even though I assumed it will almost all be covered by “one” person (Carl, do we have the ordering instructions?)

But Dave was correct when saying we realized in about January that the best thing was to coordinate ribbons with everyone, three (4) shows, & dolls, &? — even though my masquerade check-list very clearly has ribbons on the list.

Some of the things I did not want to forget, were items such as “Lifetime-achievement”, a birthday, and “passing the torch” If someone had told us in advance, about any new possible awards, I would have included that, as well.

I would group all this items into logical units: i.e. events, publications, operations, etc. I then tried to link a specific person to each task, so that each action could be covered. Then, towards the last few weeks, I would double check that list, and make sure were were getting all of it done, with Dave (and Keri) making their own versions off of my recommendations.

Charles

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew T Trembley
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 5:26 PM
Subject: [runacc] What does the MD do? (was Re: Tech rehearsals from a geek point of view

On May 19, 2005, at 3:32 PM, David Doering wrote:
> This points out one of the challenges that even RUNACC can’t always
> address–answering the questions that no one has asked or thinks to
> ask.
> For example, the question of “who orders the ribbons?” didn’t occur to
> me
> until Mid-January–my initial impression being that this was an MD’s
> responsibility and not the chair’s.

This may be an unpopular position (having watched some MDs be very
territorial about things), but my opinion is that as much logistical
work as possible should be offloaded from the competition directors at
a Costume-Con.

There are a lot of shared services used by multiple competitions. Stage
crew, house crew, tech crew and green room are the most obvious, but
pubs/printing (as in certificates) is another that’s a slam-dunk, and
Dora showed that having a common records clerk could streamline some
processes. Having an events/entertainment/hospitality group
coordinating half-time shows for the directors would also be nice.

Oh, and ribbons? The con treasurer has the checkbook. It’s cheaper and
easier to do one large ribbon order rather than separate orders from
each competition director.
<snip>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At CC-23, the program said that one of the panel rooms would be available
as rehearsal space after programming was done for the day, but we found
that room locked up tight in the evenings.
(And it would probably have been a pain to move the chairs out of the way
and then re-set them.)
We ended up practicing in the parking lot, and it was fine, aside from
dodging the occasional car. It would NOT have been fine if it had been raining.

Practice space may be crucial for some contestants who (a) have not been
able to practice in advance of the con, or (b) may not have been able to
practice with all members of their group in advance of the con. I do agree
that the tech rehearsal time is NOT the time to be creating a presentation
from scratch; an entry should already have a pretty good idea of what
he/she/they are doing.

–Karen

That’s an interesting suggestion Byron, but when we started our bid, we recieved wildly differing estimations of attendance, and we had to ask for a counting of every single con, and their geographical location, and then come up with our own estimate. When many of the smaller conventions came up with numbers close to 200, we set our lower limit there. But for an upper limit, we wanted space for 350. And we mananged to find a space that could handle that range — but we would have needed an extra 50 pre-registrations in order to secure the additional ballroom space — pre-registrations required, before the space got sold out to other events. Recall, that we had a few minor (or not-so) events like a depression, 9-11, and possible air-line closures, between when we first bid in 2000, and won (actually awarded) in 2002, and finally held the event in 2005.

Neither Dave nor I could have absorbed an extra grand (out of our pockets) — even with the Chicago and Atlanta donations (thank you!)

For the record, I’d say that 200 attendees should be considered a minimum number to make an event like this economically viable, and it also seems to about what can be expected from the general pool of attendees. Larger metropolitan areas may get larger local attendee counts. Chicago and NorthEast seem to have a pretty good drawing area for attendees, within a days drive. Utah doesn’t really, although in theory Denver and CA are a days drive.

Charles

—– Original Message —–
From: Byron Connell
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 6:25 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Tech rehearsals from a geek point of view

This is why a con — as a function-heavy event — needs to plan on and budget for taking all the hotel’s function space for the duration of the con.

Byron

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

> This is why a con — as a function-heavy event — needs to plan on and
> budget for taking all the hotel’s function space for the duration of the con.
>
> Byron

It may not be possible for Cc to take over all the function space of a
hotel. Depends on the size of hotel, and depends on the attendance numbers
of the CC.

Yes, ideally, we don’t want to share function space with others. Depends if
the budget can bear it. We are a *VERY* space-intensive convention for the
number of attendees we draw, especially in recent years.

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I imagine this would only work in an area where rain isn’t expected….

9-)

Betsy

Charles wrote:

> However, many demos have been done in past local conventions, outside in a roped area of the parking lot, and I didn’t even think of that. I think that would not have been a problem for our venue.

This has been for the CONduit conventions, which very often is not raining during it’s typical season — Mother’s day to Memorial day.

Umm… and think I see your point — not every locale and season (and year) is that cooperative. My thoughts were only based on our local history.

And yes, I was very relieved when it stopped raining for CC-23.

Charles

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, May 20, 2005 12:19 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Tech rehearsals

I imagine this would only work in an area where rain isn’t expected….

9-)

Betsy

Charles wrote:

> However, many demos have been done in past local conventions, outside in a roped area of the parking lot, and I didn’t even think of that. I think that would not have been a problem for our venue.

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In fact, at Calgary, three of the four entrants in the Single Pattern Contest received awards. Tina was the fourth. Of course, it felt awkward.

In the FFS/Single Pattern contests there is a long-established pattern of making only a few specific awards. In SF&F and Historical masquerades, I think the matter comes down to the judges’ standards. If they’re sufficiently high, there will not be an undue level of awards. The panels I’ve been on have tended to follow this pattern:

First, identify the Best in Show candidates (two or three, usually, unless we’ve been wowed by one that is our pick).

Second, sort the remaining entries in each division into three categories:

1. Award worthy.
2. Undecided.
3. Definitely not award worthy.

We then discuss the award-worthy entries in each division in terms of which awards to make. After doing that, we look at the Undecided group. IIRC, the panels I’ve been on have not selected more than a very few of his group for an award — possibly an honorable mention rather than an award proper.

Across regionals, Worldcons, and CCs, my feeling — which I have not tested by reviewing data — is the the panels I’ve been on have made a smaller number of awards rather than a larger number. So, while your scenario of awards to 75 percent certainly is not impossible, in my experience it has tended not to happen if the judges are sufficiently rigorous in applying high standards for each division. (Of course, this assumes that there is overall agreement among the judges on what the standard for a division ought to be, which I generally have found to be the case.)

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Ricky & Karen Dick<mailto:castleb@pulsenet.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 9:45 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] More on Judging

At 08:48 PM 5/19/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>As a result, I dislike arbitrary limits on the number of awards the judges
>may give, either overall or by division.

I am not singling you out, Byron, as I can find something good in just
about every costume I see, and I have to restrain myself from going
overboard on awards, especially when I’m doing Workmanship. But I would
like to use your statement as a jumping-off point for another masquerade-
and judging-related discussion.

At what point (percentage of the entrants receiving awards) should the
judges just give up and award EVERYBODY? I’m asking this because I have
seen several masquerades (including both Costume-Con and WorldCon) where,
out of a large field, only a small percentage of the entries did not
receive awards. Not unexpectedly, many of those entries had their
self-esteem and their feelings hurt. (“Gee, how bad is my entry if 85% of
the other entries got awards and I didn’t?!!”)

I think we all agree that losing sucks. But losing sucks less if you are
one of 70% that didn’t make it vs. one of 15% that didn’t make it. (The
competition was tough–you regroup and try harder next time.) Just as
winning is more meaningful if only 30% of the overall field got awards.
(The competition was tough, and you were one of the survivors.)

I am all for awarding excellence, and “I’m OK, you’re OK,” but let’s not go
overboard. If we award everybody, then we essentially award nobody.

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/<http://www.costume-con.org/procedure/runacc/>

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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I agree that tech rehearsal is not a time to rehearse the presentation. At Torcon, we rehearsed daily until the masquerade. In one group I was in, many years ago, we used the hotel’s roof to rehearse!

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Ricky & Karen Dick<mailto:castleb@pulsenet.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 19, 2005 10:10 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Tech rehearsals

At CC-23, the program said that one of the panel rooms would be available
as rehearsal space after programming was done for the day, but we found
that room locked up tight in the evenings.
(And it would probably have been a pain to move the chairs out of the way
and then re-set them.)
We ended up practicing in the parking lot, and it was fine, aside from
dodging the occasional car. It would NOT have been fine if it had been raining.

Practice space may be crucial for some contestants who (a) have not been
able to practice in advance of the con, or (b) may not have been able to
practice with all members of their group in advance of the con. I do agree
that the tech rehearsal time is NOT the time to be creating a presentation
from scratch; an entry should already have a pretty good idea of what
he/she/they are doing.

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/19/2005 8:44:21 PM Central Daylight Time,
castleb@pulsenet.com writes:

> At what point (percentage of the entrants receiving awards) should the
> judges just give up and award EVERYBODY?

In my opinion, if you have only about ten to 15 entries, either try to really
limit yourself, like one each best in their division and one BIS, unless you
have too many divisions, or everybody gets something. I was exposed to the
thought “Make sure ALL the kids get something,” but, if there are many kids, 20+,
that could be hard. I think that when you get to about 20 non-kid entries,
that’s about when to hit the point where not everybody wins. Unless, all but two
got something. Then I’d say be creative and come up with some award title.
Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/19/2005 9:15:53 PM Central Daylight Time,
cgalway@xmission.com writes:

> but when we started our bid, we recieved wildly differing estimations of
> attendance, and we had to ask for a counting of every single con, and their
> geographical location, and then come up with our own estimate.

I like to plan a convention on the thought of “Expect X, but plan for X+50%”
If you plan for more than show up, you won;t be scrambling at the last minute
for supplies.
Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

In a message dated 5/19/2005 11:01:25 PM Central Daylight Time,
cgalway@xmission.com writes:

> And yes, I was very relieved when it stopped raining for CC-23.

You weren’t the only one! I had many contestants asking me about shuttle
possiblities.
Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

‘k, this is just a CC26 thing, but it should be exciting for Carl,
Betsy and others into archiving and our history on video.

Last week we did “Guest of Honor” interviews with the BayConTV people
for this weekend. Christine said that they would be more than willing
to run a TV station for us at CC26.

As soon as we’ve got other infrastructure issues taken care of, we’re
going to be confirming with them. What does that mean?

Well, it means not having to worry about whether there’s a VCR or DVD
player available, or if there’s enough room after the masquerade to run
the video. We’re talking all-day programmed closed-circuit broadcasts
over the hotel cable system. They’re willing to run masquerade videos,
perhaps replay retrospective slidehows and videos and also run the new
masquerade videos through the closed-circuit.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.irlm.org/ – mailto:webmaster@irlm.org
“Anybody who takes this seriously deserves to”
— Donna Barr

At 12:30 PM 5/23/2005 -0700, you wrote:

>’k, this is just a CC26 thing, but it should be exciting for Carl,
>Betsy and others into archiving and our history on video.

At CC-6, we took over one of the cable channels in the hotel and ran “CCTV”
all weekend.
Don’t remember what all we ran, but a lot of costume epic films (and maybe
some masquerades)?

This is a really GREAT thing if you can pull it off, but like you said, it
may be a CC26 thing only. Not all hotels will let you monkey with their
cable TV systems.

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Isaac Mizrahi once said he thought the whole fashion industry was
created and driven by sleep-deprivation, and at least exhaustion is
working for me here. Damned if I know where this idea came from, but
I’m thinking it might be a way to drive folio entries.

Project:Folio

Entrants register for Project:Folio in advance. It’s judged earlier
than the regular folio entries.

5 design briefs are written up for the Project:Folio challenges
(following dates are just dates)
Design briefs are released on the web and emailed to entrants on August
1 (yes, if they’re not online they’ll have to get friends to download
or receive the briefs for them).
Each entrant must complete a design based on each brief in a week.
Entries must be mailed or emailed by midnight, August 7

Folio judges choose a winner for each challenge and an overall winner
for the competition.

It may actually make sense to run this June or May depending when the
preceeding CC is scheduled. Probably easier to get entrants if it’s
being pimped at CC.

—
Andy Trembley, Bull-in-Drag
The Bovine Illuminati (It’s the Cows, Inc.)
http://www.bovil.com/
Moo!

In a message dated 5/23/2005 2:55:29 PM Central Daylight Time,
attrembl@bovil.com writes:

> Damned if I know where this idea came from, but
> I’m thinking it might be a way to drive folio entries.
>
> Project:Folio

I like the idea. Different and daring!
Henry

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

We also checked into cable access at the Ogden Marriott for broadcasting
the archives, etc. Unfortunately, the age of their system didn’t allow this
option for sending out our own programming. Sigh.

Dave Doering

Dave–

You can’t have everything. And trying to handle “CCTV” on top of an already
full convention schedule can overtax a committee. Andy is lucky to have
another local group where he can farm it out.

The CC-26 “CCTV” program was not without its flaws. Randy Neff had to run
up to the cable room on the top floor of the hotel and change VHS tapes
every two hours, 24 hours a day. Brings new meaning to “sleep deprivation.”

We ran films with subtitles (Kurasawas’s “Ran”), which was a HUGE mistake,
as the poor folks sewing and beading in their rooms and watching TV wanted
the films as background “white noise,” and trying to read subtitles was
distracting.

The schedule got out of whack (as it inevitably does), and there was no
“slop time” programmed in so we could try to “synch up” the schedule again.

Some of the east-coast mainstream S/F conventions (Arisia?) have been able
to run their film programs on the hotel cable system.

–Karen

At 03:01 PM 5/23/2005 -0600, you wrote:

>We also checked into cable access at the Ogden Marriott for broadcasting
>the archives, etc. Unfortunately, the age of their system didn’t allow this
>option for sending out our own programming. Sigh.
>
>Dave Doering
>
>
>
>View the Document:
><http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/>http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
>
>
>———-
>Yahoo! Groups Links
> * To visit your group on the web, go to:
> *
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> * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
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[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

We also toyed with doing live internet-casting of at least the masquerades
if not more of the con. I had all the equipment to do it, but the issue was
the need for a high-speed connection–which was available but extremely
pricey at the convention center/theater as well as the hotel.

I do realize that these are not essentials, like the color zine, but would
be really cool to have.

Dave D.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Interesting. How much would you put in the brief?

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew T Trembley<mailto:attrembl@bovil.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 3:53 PM
Subject: [runacc] folio idea

Isaac Mizrahi once said he thought the whole fashion industry was
created and driven by sleep-deprivation, and at least exhaustion is
working for me here. Damned if I know where this idea came from, but
I’m thinking it might be a way to drive folio entries.

Project:Folio

Entrants register for Project:Folio in advance. It’s judged earlier
than the regular folio entries.

5 design briefs are written up for the Project:Folio challenges
(following dates are just dates)
Design briefs are released on the web and emailed to entrants on August
1 (yes, if they’re not online they’ll have to get friends to download
or receive the briefs for them).
Each entrant must complete a design based on each brief in a week.
Entries must be mailed or emailed by midnight, August 7

Folio judges choose a winner for each challenge and an overall winner
for the competition.

It may actually make sense to run this June or May depending when the
preceeding CC is scheduled. Probably easier to get entrants if it’s
being pimped at CC.

—
Andy Trembley, Bull-in-Drag
The Bovine Illuminati (It’s the Cows, Inc.)
http://www.bovil.com/<http://www.bovil.com/>
Moo!

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

An idea I had for boosting fashion show entries would be to have a “Featured
Designer” competition. Entrants would submit their sketches for a
collection, under the agreement that if they are selected as the featured
designer, they will show their collection of X number of pieces at the
fashion show. Non-winning collections will be thrown in with the folio.
The Featured Designer does not have their collection in the folio, to
inspire curiosity for people to attend the show.

Yes, it’s a lot of work for the Featured Designer, but it would boost the
show.

Bruno

—– Original Message —–
From: <osierhenry@cs.com>
To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 2:11 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] folio idea

> In a message dated 5/23/2005 2:55:29 PM Central Daylight Time,
> attrembl@bovil.com writes:
> > Damned if I know where this idea came from, but
> > I’m thinking it might be a way to drive folio entries.
> >
> > Project:Folio
> I like the idea. Different and daring!
> Henry
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> —
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.15 – Release Date: 5/22/2005
>
>

—
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.15 – Release Date: 5/22/2005

On May 23, 2005, at 5:28 PM, Byron Connell wrote:

> Interesting. How much would you put in the brief?

I was thinking of a cross between the Project:Runway briefs (relatively
short) and the design assignment briefs that Jenni posted. Probably no
more than a paragraph per brief, some much shorter.

For example, a really short brief:
Challenge #1 is to design a formal gown to wear to the royal coronation
of an aquatic principality.

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen – http://www.bovil.com/
San Jose, CA – ’72 R75/5 ’86 R100 (mine) – ’92 K75sa ’03 R1150R
(Kevin’s)
“It’s not pink, it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.”
–Manfred Pfirsich Marie Rommel

2nd most important safety device on my bike: the one beneath my right
hand
Most important safety device on my bike: the one inside my helmet

Cool is in the eye of the beholder. Internet-casting of CC 23 events would be for the purpose of connecting the con with those not attending rather than with the attendees. That could be valuable publicity for costume-cons in general or for the next cc’s down the line. Would the con’s model releases have covered making images available publicly on the Internet?

I’m not sure there’s a great deal of utility to showing major events like masquerades live over the hotel’s video system. We want to encourage cc members to attend those events and fill the audience, not sit in their rooms where the entrants don’t hear their reactions. At Worldcons and big regional sf cons, on the other hand, the auditorium may not be big enough for the potential attendance and a live video feed would be better than an overflow room.

Using the hotel video system to replay tapes of the masquerades makes more sense, especially for those of us who are so exhausted at the end of an event that all they want to do is crash. (That’s me! I almost never get to the immediately post-event screening. The last time I felt up to doing so, I was not able to even get into the room, let alone see the screen.)

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: David Doering<mailto:dave@techvoice.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 23, 2005 5:31 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] cool offer

We also toyed with doing live internet-casting of at least the masquerades
if not more of the con. I had all the equipment to do it, but the issue was
the need for a high-speed connection–which was available but extremely
pricey at the convention center/theater as well as the hotel.

I do realize that these are not essentials, like the color zine, but would
be really cool to have.

Dave D.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

On May 23, 2005, at 6:10 PM, Byron Connell wrote:

> I’m not sure there’s a great deal of utility to showing major events
> like masquerades live over the hotel’s video system. We want to
> encourage cc members to attend those events and fill the audience, not
> sit in their rooms where the entrants don’t hear their reactions. At
> Worldcons and big regional sf cons, on the other hand, the auditorium
> may not be big enough for the potential attendance and a live video
> feed would be better than an overflow room.

You’ve got that right.

In addition to doing the interview, we also recorded some “bumps” which
reflect BCTV’s attitude about where they fit in the grand scheme of the
convention:

“BCTV! Don’t watch it!”
“BCTV! Surely you have something better to do!”
“BCTV! Help keep us in the Nielsen basement!”
“BCTV! Finish your sewing, and get back to the con!”

They do replays of a few major events (GoH presentations, masquerade
and such) and a few special programs but no simulcasts and mostly just
provide filler for when you’ve got to be in your room for a while.

—
Andy Trembley, Bull-in-Drag
The Bovine Illuminati (It’s the Cows, Inc.)
http://www.bovil.com/
Moo!

Most of you probably read this on ICG-D, but Kayta offered up a
fascinating format for a project-based workshop that, rather than
taking up a programming room for a large period of time, would be
distributed across the day or the weekend. I could see this applied to
any number of things besides dolls; for example a blackwork or smocking
panel where the end-result is a small sampler that can later be used
for reference.

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Carolyn Kayta Barrows <Kayta@FunStuft.com>
> Speaking both as a dollmaker who could give such a class as you
> mention,
> and as the person running the doll show/contest at CC26, I think your
> idea
> has merit. But I think it could not be run the way it is run at doll
> conventions because CostumeCon is a different animal.
>
> At a CC it would have to be a really simple doll, there’d have to be a
> kit,
> and the whole thing would have to fit into a regular panel/workshop
> slot. (You might have to call the doll a “Fashion Baby”, or whatever
> the
> name is for those historical dolls that pre-dated printed fashion
> magazines.) You’d just about have time to pass around a sample of the
> doll
> to be made, to get people started on their kits, and to answer a few
> questions. Then the panel would be over. The instructor would have to
> arrange to be available, like in the Con Suite, at specific times in
> the
> evenings, to answer further questions (entirely do-able). And the kit
> would have to be designed for maximum portability, like with the entire
> pattern already printed on a single piece of fabric. But at a CC it
> would
> be entirely possible to expect people to already have their own
> needles,
> thread, pins, and scissors.
>
> Stuffing such a doll, at a convention, would be the only real problem.
> I
> can’t see people wanting to drag around a pillow-sized bag of stuffing
> all
> day. But this too could be provided at the Con Suite in the evenings,
> as
> an optional part of the kit for people actually doing the sewing at the
> Con. And a no-cost stuffing tool can be made from a drinking straw.
>
> I like the idea, and think I’ll try it at CC26 (Committee willing and
> the
> creek don’t rise…).
>
> CarolynKayta Barrows
> dollmaker, fibre artist, textillian
> www.FunStuft.com
>
> //// \\\
> ////-@@\\\
> (((( 7 )))
> ((( <> ))))
> ) ((((((
> /—-\ /—\))
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

—
andy trembley, Bitchy Design Queen
http://www.bovil.com/
“It’s not pink; it’s peach-colored. Pink is tacky.” –Manfred Pfirsich
Marie Rommel

At 11:45 AM 5/25/2005 -0700, you wrote:

>Most of you probably read this on ICG-D, but Kayta offered up a
>fascinating format for a project-based workshop that, rather than
>taking up a programming room for a large period of time, would be
>distributed across the day or the weekend. I could see this applied to
>any number of things besides dolls; for example a blackwork or smocking
>panel where the end-result is a small sampler that can later be used
>for reference.

It might work for beading or ribbonworking projects, too. Or cartridge
pleating. Anything that can be hand-sewn vs. machine sewn.

Sounds like an interesting concept.

As the competitions and Fashion Shows at Costume-Con have evolved (with
associated tech rehearsals, dress rehearsals, pre-judging, etc.), more and
more of the competitors’ time is eaten up with these items instead of
panels, and, sadly, trying to keep a large block of time open to attend a
workshop is virtually impossible for people intending to compete. We always
try to support the competitions, as they are the “backbone” of Costume-Con,
but we like to learn new things, too, so it can be a hard choice.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to do workshops. But we should keep
a watchful eye on attendance to see if they are a “worth it” item.

The ribbonwork class I took from Candace Kling at CC-12 was very much
“worth it.”

–Karen

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I want to bring up the CC23 experience with various topics as part of the
pool of knowledge here on RunACC. First, the hotel contract.

I note that in this week’s Meeting News, the newspaper for professional
meeting planners, they highlight the growing trend towards “standardized
contracts” (like Marty Gear’s CC template). Major corporations such as IBM,
Bank of America, Pfizer, etc. now present hotels with their own contracts
(customized to their needs) rather than use the hotel’s.

This should mean that our presenting the CC template contract in the future
should not come as so great a surprise to hotel sales managers as it has in
the past. (Like what happened to Bruce Mai).

Second, I should mention that in our case, our sales manager wasn’t as well
versed in contracts as she might have been. This became clear after I
pointed out some absurd items (mentioned below) and she wasn’t even aware
of them.

So I took it that we have to be like partners with the hotel in working out
the agreement, rather than an “us vs. them” attitude. Because it could just
be that the sales manager really doesn’t understand the contract and needs
to review it.

We presented the CC template contract to the hotel and had a meeting with
them using the contract as talking points. In the end, we used various
parts of the template to modify their “standard contract” to match our
specific needs.

I had only a minor push-back by the sales manager in arranging this
meeting. She agreed that we should meet and make the contract work when I
explained to her the following:

“We both know the turnover in the hospitality industry. Everyone on staff
today may not be here a year from now. The hotel may have a new management
company as well. Also, Charles and I might not be in the picture (for
health reasons or otherwise). So doesn’t it make sense that the contract
stand on its own, to express what you and I agree to without you and I
having to explain what an item means, especially if you and I aren’t here
by then?”

With that, she agreed to sit down and modify her contract. As it was,
neither she nor her successor were on hand at the hotel for Costume-Con.
Instead, it was their replacement–so it was worthwhile to have things
settled ahead of time.

The absurd items I mentioned were quick to deal with. The “standard”
contract forbade us from showing their logo, linking to their site, or even
to show the hotel map to anyone without express written permission.
Finally, the “standard” contract required the con to make good on
“unsettled guest charges”.

No one at the hotel could explain why such provisions were in the contract,
since they clearly hurt our ability to hold meetings or otherwise made us
responsible for charges we shouldn’t be held accountable for.

So these provisions were crossed out or modified to correctly express our
usage needs.

On several items I ended up not fighting over. For example, the final
contract did not include the template’s provision on ice machines. I took a
survey of the existing machines, and, since it appeared that all the
machines were in good repair and clearly working, I decided that bringing
it pointedly to the attention of the hotel was enough.

The 24-hour hot tub privilege also wasn’t included because it was simpler
to agree to inform Hotel Security and the Night Manager about our using the
hot tub late nights than make a contract issue of it. As it was, no one
stayed in the hot tub later than 1 or 1:30AM, so it never became a problem.

We did include the “no corkage” provision for the consuite as well as
outside food and beverage for the dealers room. (In fact, the hotel ended
up doing us one better by sending a waiter into the room to take orders
from the dealers.)

We also agreed not to have any construction going on or elevator
maintenance scheduled. Unfortunately, they would not agree to have a
24-hour-available maintenance person, primarily because Ogden doesn’t have
a 24-hour service locally. We also figured that since the hotel only has
eight floors, and because we had put the consuite on the ground floor,
(eliminating much of the up/down work during party hours) we figured that
the provision for elevator failures was less of a priority.

I’ll follow up on room block and attrition next.

Dave Doering

CONduit ran into a similar provision in their recent standard hotel contract — where it sounded like it was not permitted to use the name of the hotel in things like publicity flyers.

The late-night hot-tub was a bit of a multi-faceted issue. Part of what made the late night tub possible, was the blocking of rooms surrounding the tub, plus the very late-night hours that the exercise room was normally open — hence access to the tub. In our very first discussion with the hotel they had said “no” on the late tub hours. But new manangement, plus the collections of conditions, allowed for extended hours.

When I have worked with hotel liason for CONduit (not recently), I try to understand what they are comfortable offering. I have the impression that the first sales-person I talk to hates to say “no”. But they might come back with extra fees, or wind up not being able to come through with everything. With something like late-night hot-tub, it helps to double-check, as time passes. In one case, the week-end manager (usually not the sales-manager) may let folks stay out later, if they don’t bother anyone.

I get uneasy if there is a reliance on just a “contract”. An example is if the hotel is sold, and new manangement doesn’t really want you there. The contract could still be binding, but they may still find a way to add costs, or make things uncomfortable. In the case of CC-23, they did want us there (the hotel was never sold), and we were able to make our expectations clear enough that neither side came out with painful surprises.

It did take us a number of iterations to get the contract written the way we wanted, and at one point they were pushing us to get it signed ASAP. But we think it was because one person was leaving, and the reason we were not rushing, is they had not been adquately cleaning up the spots that needed to be fixed. i.e. it was partly their own system slowing us down.

Someone at CC-23 pointed out that cons basically never take contracts as first written.

Charles

—– Original Message —–
From: David Doering
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 25, 2005 6:58 PM
Subject: [runacc] Hotel Contract

I want to bring up the CC23 experience with various topics as part of the
pool of knowledge here on RunACC. First, the hotel contract.

I note that in this week’s Meeting News, the newspaper for professional
meeting planners, they highlight the growing trend towards “standardized
contracts” (like Marty Gear’s CC template). Major corporations such as IBM,
Bank of America, Pfizer, etc. now present hotels with their own contracts
(customized to their needs) rather than use the hotel’s.

This should mean that our presenting the CC template contract in the future
should not come as so great a surprise to hotel sales managers as it has in
the past. (Like what happened to Bruce Mai).

Second, I should mention that in our case, our sales manager wasn’t as well
versed in contracts as she might have been. This became clear after I
pointed out some absurd items (mentioned below) and she wasn’t even aware
of them.

So I took it that we have to be like partners with the hotel in working out
the agreement, rather than an “us vs. them” attitude. Because it could just
be that the sales manager really doesn’t understand the contract and needs
to review it.

We presented the CC template contract to the hotel and had a meeting with
them using the contract as talking points. In the end, we used various
parts of the template to modify their “standard contract” to match our
specific needs.

I had only a minor push-back by the sales manager in arranging this
meeting. She agreed that we should meet and make the contract work when I
explained to her the following:

“We both know the turnover in the hospitality industry. Everyone on staff
today may not be here a year from now. The hotel may have a new management
company as well. Also, Charles and I might not be in the picture (for
health reasons or otherwise). So doesn’t it make sense that the contract
stand on its own, to express what you and I agree to without you and I
having to explain what an item means, especially if you and I aren’t here
by then?”

With that, she agreed to sit down and modify her contract. As it was,
neither she nor her successor were on hand at the hotel for Costume-Con.
Instead, it was their replacement–so it was worthwhile to have things
settled ahead of time.

The absurd items I mentioned were quick to deal with. The “standard”
contract forbade us from showing their logo, linking to their site, or even
to show the hotel map to anyone without express written permission.
Finally, the “standard” contract required the con to make good on
“unsettled guest charges”.

No one at the hotel could explain why such provisions were in the contract,
since they clearly hurt our ability to hold meetings or otherwise made us
responsible for charges we shouldn’t be held accountable for.

So these provisions were crossed out or modified to correctly express our
usage needs.

On several items I ended up not fighting over. For example, the final
contract did not include the template’s provision on ice machines. I took a
survey of the existing machines, and, since it appeared that all the
machines were in good repair and clearly working, I decided that bringing
it pointedly to the attention of the hotel was enough.

The 24-hour hot tub privilege also wasn’t included because it was simpler
to agree to inform Hotel Security and the Night Manager about our using the
hot tub late nights than make a contract issue of it. As it was, no one
stayed in the hot tub later than 1 or 1:30AM, so it never became a problem.

We did include the “no corkage” provision for the consuite as well as
outside food and beverage for the dealers room. (In fact, the hotel ended
up doing us one better by sending a waiter into the room to take orders
from the dealers.)

We also agreed not to have any construction going on or elevator
maintenance scheduled. Unfortunately, they would not agree to have a
24-hour-available maintenance person, primarily because Ogden doesn’t have
a 24-hour service locally. We also figured that since the hotel only has
eight floors, and because we had put the consuite on the ground floor,
(eliminating much of the up/down work during party hours) we figured that
the provision for elevator failures was less of a priority.

I’ll follow up on room block and attrition next.

Dave Doering

View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/

——————————————————————————
Yahoo! Groups Links

a.. To visit your group on the web, go to:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/runacc/

b.. To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com

c.. Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I had one of the young anime costumers that came out from CO, write up some feedback on her impressions and experiences at CC. The first part is directed at other cosplayers, but does provide some insight on how this generation thinks and feels about costuming. I’m sure that there are some nuggets of wisdom here, which can be used to help bridge the gap between the CC and Cosplay generations.

Michael

—– Original Message —–

I’m a cosplayer who survived her first CostumeCon! Or atleast that’s how I felt when I cam back from CostumeCon 23. It was highly educational but there were some things that were not very enjoyable. As one of the younger generation into costuming but coming at it from a cosplay sort of view, here are my thoughts about what cosplayers should know about CostumeCon and what CostumeCon should know about cosplayers.

I’ll start with what cosplayers should know about CostumeCon. First of all, this is not an anime convention where you can sit for hours watching anime. All day long there are panels on costuming, which are amazing, but are panels nonetheless. If you are not interested in learning about how to make a better costume, CostumeCon is probably not for you.

Secondly, it isn’t a fan-con, so there are going to be many more original costumes than you are used to. Why this may not seem important, take heed. Just because your Inu Yasha costume has absolutely perfect seams and your wig is JUST right does not mean you are going to beat the lady in the huge sparkly dress with working wings, or the giant mascot costume of the Charmin Bear that has a workable jaw. If you plan on competing, be ready to have your costume looked at as JUST a costume, not a character.

Thirdly, as I said before, this isn’t a fan con, so if you want to meet people, it is probably smarter to take the initiative and talk to people. I promise, the man with the sixteenth century military uniform will love to explain to you how he made his hat. You do have something in common with everyone at the con, and that is creativity. Everyone is happy to talk about their own creativity, so try not to be shy.

Next, when they have a panel that says, “Entering your first masquerade” that should translate to you: “Entering Your First Masquerade at a
Non-fan-con.” GO TO IT. Even if you are used to competing with elaborate skits, the nature of cosplay skits and costume presentations are pretty different. If nothing else, it will ease any anxieties you have about the different setting.

Why do CostumeCon people care about this? Well, if you want to focus on cosplayers, putting a little FAQ on the web sight for the con, or on a flyer you plan to pass out at an anime convention will be a very good idea. Which brings me to the stuff you really care about, how to get cosplayers to come to CostumeCon?

The major thing is to talk it up as early as possible. Since cosplay is a much younger crowd, they have to take finances into consideration to a much higher extent. Not only is registration cheaper the earlier you register for CostumeCon, but cosplayers tend to map out at the beginning of the year or earlier what conventions they are going to do. Randomly adding a convention even a year before hand, especially since the registration cost for CostumeCon are well over any anime con’s cost, is not going to garnish very good results. Outreach programs are the way to go, both online and at actual conventions. Seeing if you can stick a flyer in AnimeExpo and Otakon’s registration goody bags(AnimeExpo is in July, Otakon is in February) for the CostumeCon the following year would be a good idea and would reach tons of cosplayers.

However, once you start advertising early enough, you will have no problem appealing to cosplayers. Many cosplayers want to get better at what they do and don’t find very much satisfaction in panels at anime conventions, because they are normally catered to novices. Also, there are a few cosplayers already going to CostumeCon that know the cosplaying community. Utilize them to single out specific cosplayers who they know would like to come. There is a definite hierarchy in cosplay, along with massive online communication. If one key cosplayer goes to CostumeCon and loves it, a lot more will go simply because that one person recommended it.

The biggest problem CostumeCon is going to have is not getting cosplayers to come, but making them want to come back. The atmosphere of an anime con is so vastly different from CostumeCon that I felt secluded and very out of place as a cosplayer at CostumeCon. I know my friend who went to CostumeCon with me also felt the same way. I’ll try to explain the feeling and differences as much as I can, and how CostumeCon can make the transition a bit easier for young cosplayers.

The first thing that puts the cosplayer as unease is that CostumeCon and cosplayers have very different views of costuming. For cosplayers, you are recreating the character with as much accuracy as possible, while at CostumeCon, it is to create the best costume you can. Suddenly a cosplayer’s costume that was the biggest hit at their anime con is completely outclassed by almost everyone around them. That in itself is a very frightening feeling. A young cosplayer might feel even more hesitant because it comes off that the people of CostumeCon are a very tight knit group who know everyone else. Add to the fact that the vast majority are their elders by many years, young cosplayers feel very alone.

That feeling of insecurity is compounded by the attitudes of the costumers. At an anime convention, there is so much energy. If people don’t know who your costume is, they will come up and ask. Because not everyone at an anime convention cosplays, those that do cosplay, whether
their costume is the best at the con or not, will get atleast one or two compliments and questions about it.

At CostumeCon, unless the costume is particularly jaw dropping, no one asks anything about the costume. Neither my friend nor I were asked who our characters were when we were in our cosplay costumes, or commented on the costume. This gives off the impression that no one else at the convention is interested in either the costume or costumer.

If you really want to understand just how different a situation cosplayers are used to, go to your local anime convention for a Saturday. I can almost guarantee there is one near you; just this year alone seven new anime conventions were created in the US. Just type in your state and anime convention on google and see what pops up. www.fansview.com has a pretty good list of the convention dates and locations through out the year. A step even better is to volunteer at the anime convention as a craftsmanship judge for the masquerade. Most conventions are always hurting for qualified judges. Or, if you don’t want to actually go to a convention or you can’t find one near you, go download some of the cosplay masquerade tapes at www.cosplaymemories.com to also get a taste of what a cosplayers is used to.

This is not meant to sound accusatory of the people at CostumeCon. I completely understand that it’s hard to be interested in something that you know nothing about, but it does give off the wrong impression that cosplayers aren’t welcomed. This all leads to the main thing that CostumeCon can do to keep cosplayers coming back. It is both simple and yet I have no idea exactly how you would implement it.

CostumeCon needs to help cosplayers feel like they are welcomed there. To do that, it might take some educating among CostumeCon goers themselves. Not about anime or video games, but that cosplayers are coming into a very different situation than they are used to. That talking to them, making them atleast feel noticed and appreciated that they are new to the field and what they have done is a good start. I’m sure many of you have seen people who you know are new and have that look of slight fear in their eyes. Go talk to them! Tell them about your funny stories of the masquerade and ask them where their from. Especially ask them about their costume. Panels like “Meet the Novices” are all well and good, but at the end of the panel, very few people stay to actually talk with the novices, and even fewer say hello to them at another panel, or check to see how they are doing later in the con.

I am actually very optimistic about CostumeCon being a new place for cosplayers to go to learn from older and more experienced costumers. I enjoyed all of the panels that I attended at CC23. I was also lucky enough to meet Marty Gear and he kept talking with me and checking in with me throughout the convention. Even a smile across the hall was very nice. If more people had come talk to me, I think I would have had an even better time. I am planning on going to CC24, with a feeling that I have a much better understanding of what I am getting into, and determined to bring more cosplayers with me this time! You guys just be ready for us!

———-

No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.17 – Release Date: 5/25/2005

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Sadly, this would make two of us. The coordinator for the Single Pattern
Contest/Future Fashion Show has not provided me with a list of entries,
or of awards. I wasn’t in the audience – I was in the green room, and
with no video feed, there was no way to know who got what.

I’m going to have to get this information off of the video, assuming I
receive one…

As I requested before the con, the Costume-Con Archivist requires this
information for our records.

The same info is needed for the other competitions as well. To date, the
only one who has provided complete information (all entries and all
awards) is the Pettingers for the doll contest.

I know I have seen some of the information in the at-con newsletters,
but it isn’t complete (the SF participants are listed for the
non-awarded entries, but their entries are not).

I already have the photos in my hands. These lists are essential to the
building of the archives. If I have to get the info off the video, I can
NOT promise proper spelling of the names.

Masquerade directors: PLEASE get this information to me ASAP! And Con
Chairs: If the directors aren’t on this list, PLEASE pass this request
on to them ASAP!

I’m working on the site as soon as the newsletter goes out.

Thanks,

Betsy

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: [ICG-D] help
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 13:36:43 -0400
From: C. D. Mami <c.mami@verizon.net>
Reply-To: ICG-D@yahoogroups.com
To: <ICG-D@yahoogroups.com>

The Archives need help
We need to know the Name & proper spelling of the costume made and worn by
Dick & Julia Hyll in the single patern costest
Thanks
Carl

Yahoo! Groups Links

Excellent! What a great report. Thanks for getting this for us, Mike.
This person (name?) is someone I very much want to meet because they have
very clear and reasonable expectations. Please tell her/him how much we
appreciate the input.
May we (or will you) forward this to the CC25 list because we already have
some plans to attract the cosplayers and some fun ideas for greeting newbies
and making them comfortable.
And I’m especially glad to hear that they had a good enough time that
they’re planning on coming to CC24 (hopefully CC25 as well).

Nora

—– Original Message —–
From: “Bruno” <bruno@soulmasque.com>

> I had one of the young anime costumers that came out from CO, write up
some feedback on her impressions and experiences at CC. The first part is
directed at other cosplayers, but does provide some insight on how this
generation thinks and feels about costuming. I’m sure that there are some
nuggets of wisdom here, which can be used to help bridge the gap between the
CC and Cosplay generations.
>
>
> Michael
>
> —– Original Message —–
>
>
> I’m a cosplayer who survived her first CostumeCon! Or atleast that’s
how I felt when I cam back from CostumeCon 23. It was highly educational but
there were some things that were not very enjoyable. As one of the younger
generation into costuming but coming at it from a cosplay sort of view, here
are my thoughts about what cosplayers should know about CostumeCon and what
CostumeCon should know about cosplayers.
>
> I’ll start with what cosplayers should know about CostumeCon. First
of all, this is not an anime convention where you can sit for hours watching
anime. All day long there are panels on costuming, which are amazing, but
are panels nonetheless. If you are not interested in learning about how to
make a better costume, CostumeCon is probably not for you.
>
> Secondly, it isn’t a fan-con, so there are going to be many more
original costumes than you are used to. Why this may not seem important,
take heed. Just because your Inu Yasha costume has absolutely perfect seams
and your wig is JUST right does not mean you are going to beat the lady in
the huge sparkly dress with working wings, or the giant mascot costume of
the Charmin Bear that has a workable jaw. If you plan on competing, be ready
to have your costume looked at as JUST a costume, not a character.
>
> Thirdly, as I said before, this isn’t a fan con, so if you want to
meet people, it is probably smarter to take the initiative and talk to
people. I promise, the man with the sixteenth century military uniform will
love to explain to you how he made his hat. You do have something in common
with everyone at the con, and that is creativity. Everyone is happy to talk
about their own creativity, so try not to be shy.
>
> Next, when they have a panel that says, “Entering your first
masquerade” that should translate to you: “Entering Your First Masquerade at
a
> Non-fan-con.” GO TO IT. Even if you are used to competing with elaborate
skits, the nature of cosplay skits and costume presentations are pretty
different. If nothing else, it will ease any anxieties you have about the
different setting.
>
> Why do CostumeCon people care about this? Well, if you want to focus
on cosplayers, putting a little FAQ on the web sight for the con, or on a
flyer you plan to pass out at an anime convention will be a very good idea.
Which brings me to the stuff you really care about, how to get cosplayers to
come to CostumeCon?
>
> The major thing is to talk it up as early as possible. Since cosplay
is a much younger crowd, they have to take finances into consideration to a
much higher extent. Not only is registration cheaper the earlier you
register for CostumeCon, but cosplayers tend to map out at the beginning of
the year or earlier what conventions they are going to do. Randomly adding a
convention even a year before hand, especially since the registration cost
for CostumeCon are well over any anime con’s cost, is not going to garnish
very good results. Outreach programs are the way to go, both online and at
actual conventions. Seeing if you can stick a flyer in AnimeExpo and
Otakon’s registration goody bags(AnimeExpo is in July, Otakon is in
February) for the CostumeCon the following year would be a good idea and
would reach tons of cosplayers.
>
> However, once you start advertising early enough, you will have no
problem appealing to cosplayers. Many cosplayers want to get better at what
they do and don’t find very much satisfaction in panels at anime
conventions, because they are normally catered to novices. Also, there are a
few cosplayers already going to CostumeCon that know the cosplaying
community. Utilize them to single out specific cosplayers who they know
would like to come. There is a definite hierarchy in cosplay, along with
massive online communication. If one key cosplayer goes to CostumeCon and
loves it, a lot more will go simply because that one person recommended it.
>
> The biggest problem CostumeCon is going to have is not getting
cosplayers to come, but making them want to come back. The atmosphere of an
anime con is so vastly different from CostumeCon that I felt secluded and
very out of place as a cosplayer at CostumeCon. I know my friend who went to
CostumeCon with me also felt the same way. I’ll try to explain the feeling
and differences as much as I can, and how CostumeCon can make the transition
a bit easier for young cosplayers.
>
> The first thing that puts the cosplayer as unease is that CostumeCon
and cosplayers have very different views of costuming. For cosplayers, you
are recreating the character with as much accuracy as possible, while at
CostumeCon, it is to create the best costume you can. Suddenly a cosplayer’s
costume that was the biggest hit at their anime con is completely outclassed
by almost everyone around them. That in itself is a very frightening
feeling. A young cosplayer might feel even more hesitant because it comes
off that the people of CostumeCon are a very tight knit group who know
everyone else. Add to the fact that the vast majority are their elders by
many years, young cosplayers feel very alone.
>
> That feeling of insecurity is compounded by the attitudes of the
costumers. At an anime convention, there is so much energy. If people don’t
know who your costume is, they will come up and ask. Because not everyone at
an anime convention cosplays, those that do cosplay, whether
> their costume is the best at the con or not, will get atleast one or two
compliments and questions about it.
>
> At CostumeCon, unless the costume is particularly jaw dropping, no
one asks anything about the costume. Neither my friend nor I were asked who
our characters were when we were in our cosplay costumes, or commented on
the costume. This gives off the impression that no one else at the
convention is interested in either the costume or costumer.
>
> If you really want to understand just how different a situation
cosplayers are used to, go to your local anime convention for a Saturday. I
can almost guarantee there is one near you; just this year alone seven new
anime conventions were created in the US. Just type in your state and anime
convention on google and see what pops up. www.fansview.com has a pretty
good list of the convention dates and locations through out the year. A step
even better is to volunteer at the anime convention as a craftsmanship judge
for the masquerade. Most conventions are always hurting for qualified
judges. Or, if you don’t want to actually go to a convention or you can’t
find one near you, go download some of the cosplay masquerade tapes at
www.cosplaymemories.com to also get a taste of what a cosplayers is used to.
>
> This is not meant to sound accusatory of the people at CostumeCon. I
completely understand that it’s hard to be interested in something that you
know nothing about, but it does give off the wrong impression that
cosplayers aren’t welcomed. This all leads to the main thing that CostumeCon
can do to keep cosplayers coming back. It is both simple and yet I have no
idea exactly how you would implement it.
>
> CostumeCon needs to help cosplayers feel like they are welcomed
there. To do that, it might take some educating among CostumeCon goers
themselves. Not about anime or video games, but that cosplayers are coming
into a very different situation than they are used to. That talking to them,
making them atleast feel noticed and appreciated that they are new to the
field and what they have done is a good start. I’m sure many of you have
seen people who you know are new and have that look of slight fear in their
eyes. Go talk to them! Tell them about your funny stories of the masquerade
and ask them where their from. Especially ask them about their costume.
Panels like “Meet the Novices” are all well and good, but at the end of the
panel, very few people stay to actually talk with the novices, and even
fewer say hello to them at another panel, or check to see how they are doing
later in the con.
>
> I am actually very optimistic about CostumeCon being a new place for
cosplayers to go to learn from older and more experienced costumers. I
enjoyed all of the panels that I attended at CC23. I was also lucky enough
to meet Marty Gear and he kept talking with me and checking in with me
throughout the convention. Even a smile across the hall was very nice. If
more people had come talk to me, I think I would have had an even better
time. I am planning on going to CC24, with a feeling that I have a much
better understanding of what I am getting into, and determined to bring more
cosplayers with me this time! You guys just be ready for us!
>
> ———-
>
> No virus found in this outgoing message.
> Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
> Version: 7.0.322 / Virus Database: 266.11.17 – Release Date: 5/25/2005
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

Yes, this is an invaluable report and hopefully the start of a great bit of
improvement for us.

One comment from me where she states: “At CostumeCon, unless the costume is
particularly jaw dropping, no

>one asks anything about the costume.”

Sadly, this is all too true of fandom in general (but perhaps not Anime
cons). For years, the LASFS, the LA area’s big SF club, circulated a flyer
for their new members to say that these new members would be showered with
attention while they decided about joining. Once they did join, however,
the flyer said “you’ll be treated like a piece of the furniture”.

I have been to plenty of cons and club meetings where, if I didn’t make the
effort, no one said one word to me.

I am not sure why this is. Maybe it’s our shy natures that has driven us to
a hobby like costuming that excels at drawing attention. Yet when it comes
to saying hello, even a great costume isn’t enough to get us to move.

Personally, actually meeting people like Betsy, Pierre, Carl, Byron, et.
al. was intimidating as heck the first time. I knew them by great
reputation and I worried that a neo out of Utah wasn’t worth spending a
minute of time on, let alone pay attention to by these Ghods of Costuming.

So I can appreciate our new cosplayer’s feelings. And, curiously enough, it
was also Marty Gear’s kindness during ConFrancisco’s masquerade years ago
that wooed my wife and I to active costuming–like it may have for our
cosplayer. Thanks, Marty.

Dave Doering

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Betsy —

I have the names of the entrants in the Single Pattern Contest and the FFS; however, the lists I was given do not include the entry titles. I also have the running orders for SF&F and Historical. I’ll re-key them and send them to you off line.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney<mailto:bdelaney@hawkeswood.com>
To: Run a Costume-Con Mailing List<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Cc: C. D. Mami<mailto:c.mami@verizon.net>
Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 6:28 PM
Subject: [runacc] [Fwd: [ICG-D] help]

Sadly, this would make two of us. The coordinator for the Single Pattern
Contest/Future Fashion Show has not provided me with a list of entries,
or of awards. I wasn’t in the audience – I was in the green room, and
with no video feed, there was no way to know who got what.

I’m going to have to get this information off of the video, assuming I
receive one…

As I requested before the con, the Costume-Con Archivist requires this
information for our records.

The same info is needed for the other competitions as well. To date, the
only one who has provided complete information (all entries and all
awards) is the Pettingers for the doll contest.

I know I have seen some of the information in the at-con newsletters,
but it isn’t complete (the SF participants are listed for the
non-awarded entries, but their entries are not).

I already have the photos in my hands. These lists are essential to the
building of the archives. If I have to get the info off the video, I can
NOT promise proper spelling of the names.

Masquerade directors: PLEASE get this information to me ASAP! And Con
Chairs: If the directors aren’t on this list, PLEASE pass this request
on to them ASAP!

I’m working on the site as soon as the newsletter goes out.

Thanks,

Betsy

——– Original Message ——–
Subject: [ICG-D] help
Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 13:36:43 -0400
From: C. D. Mami <c.mami@verizon.net>
Reply-To: ICG-D@yahoogroups.com
To: <ICG-D@yahoogroups.com>

The Archives need help
We need to know the Name & proper spelling of the costume made and worn by
Dick & Julia Hyll in the single patern costest
Thanks
Carl

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Excellent, Byron! Thank you!!!

Any portion of information on this subject will help. Between the paper
notes and the video, I can usually put all the pieces together. All I
have right now are the newsletters, and while they are good, they aren’t
perfect!

Trivia: The CC site is constructed in running order, not in division
order. When I started doing it, the lists were based on the lists Pierre
(and Sandy?) had compiled of the entries as they appeared on the video
records. That’s why some of the name and entry spellings aren’t accurate
– hearing isn’t necessarily knowing. I’ve made at least two dozen
corrections over time to different entries as people have noticed the
errors.

I can do (and have done) similar lists, but my hearing is going, and
sometimes the sound on these tapes is simply dreadful, even for someone
with perfectly good ears. So a written record is absolutely essential.

Furthermore, there will come a time (in the not so distant future, now)
when I will not be collecting this information. Karen and Ricky will
eventually be taking the tasks over. Getting the process established now
will help when the transition takes place.

Hope this helps!

Betsy

Byron Connell wrote:

> Betsy —
>
> I have the names of the entrants in the Single Pattern Contest and the FFS; however, the lists I was given do not include the entry titles. I also have the running orders for SF&F and Historical. I’ll re-key them and send them to you off line.
>
> Byron
>
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: Betsy Delaney<mailto:bdelaney@hawkeswood.com>
> To: Run a Costume-Con Mailing List<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
> Cc: C. D. Mami<mailto:c.mami@verizon.net>
> Sent: Thursday, May 26, 2005 6:28 PM
> Subject: [runacc] [Fwd: [ICG-D] help]
>
>
> Sadly, this would make two of us. The coordinator for the Single Pattern
> Contest/Future Fashion Show has not provided me with a list of entries,
> or of awards. I wasn’t in the audience – I was in the green room, and
> with no video feed, there was no way to know who got what.
>
> I’m going to have to get this information off of the video, assuming I
> receive one…
>
> As I requested before the con, the Costume-Con Archivist requires this
> information for our records.
>
> The same info is needed for the other competitions as well. To date, the
> only one who has provided complete information (all entries and all
> awards) is the Pettingers for the doll contest.
>
> I know I have seen some of the information in the at-con newsletters,
> but it isn’t complete (the SF participants are listed for the
> non-awarded entries, but their entries are not).
>
> I already have the photos in my hands. These lists are essential to the
> building of the archives. If I have to get the info off the video, I can
> NOT promise proper spelling of the names.
>
> Masquerade directors: PLEASE get this information to me ASAP! And Con
> Chairs: If the directors aren’t on this list, PLEASE pass this request
> on to them ASAP!
>
> I’m working on the site as soon as the newsletter goes out.
>
> Thanks,
>
> Betsy
>
>
> ——– Original Message ——–
> Subject: [ICG-D] help
> Date: Thu, 26 May 2005 13:36:43 -0400
> From: C. D. Mami <c.mami@verizon.net>
> Reply-To: ICG-D@yahoogroups.com
> To: <ICG-D@yahoogroups.com>
>
> The Archives need help
> We need to know the Name & proper spelling of the costume made and worn by
> Dick & Julia Hyll in the single patern costest
> Thanks
> Carl
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Wow, Dave! Am I really that intimidating? I had no idea!!!

Watch out – this is a rambling post, but there are salient points.

So, first, this article should be published somewhere. I’d be willing to
run it in the newsletter. It might also go well as a review on the
Archives site, though in both cases I’d like to attribute appropriately.
If the author was willing, I’d be happy to provide publication space in
both spaces.

Second, there are some very valid points, but I think it’s an endemic
problem. Some of it is shyness. Some of it is overload. The main things
I’ve found over time are that being a wallflower doesn’t necessarily get
you noticed, and that the only place where costumers aren’t approachable
in general is in the greenroom just prior to the masquerade. Outside of
those places, there are people everywhere who are happy to talk about stuff.

For me, I try to compliment whenever possible, especially if it’s
something I think is really well done, regardless of genre. And also
regardless of location. Found myself complimenting someone at the recent
Fairie fest down here (and whoops, but she’s a pro, and what do you mean
“costume”? Oh, just kidding….). I wasn’t in costume myself (having
determined that right now, it’s just too much trouble to get into stuff
and especially with weight gain, that everything I own makes me look
dumpy), so I looked the part of the admiring neo. I sometimes wonder if
wearing a badge that says “I know more than it looks like I do” would
help that attitude. Not sure.

Haven’t been to an Anime con yet. I generally don’t like the whole
genre, so I haven’t taken any pains to attend. But I do respect good
work and I do understand the character-is-all mindset that comes with
the territory. Even my stepson is deeply involved in the culture. So,
it’s hard to avoid it around here. I have been to other media cons,
though (and regardless of their opinion, a media con is a media con).

I’ve been thinking about putting a FAQ on the CC site for quite some
time now, so that people know what we’re on about, and how one becomes a
member. I’d be happy to start a list, or delegate that responsibility to
someone else on this list (which would work a heck of a lot better for
me right now), to that end.

-b

David Doering wrote:

> Yes, this is an invaluable report and hopefully the start of a great bit of
> improvement for us.
>
> One comment from me where she states: “At CostumeCon, unless the costume is
> particularly jaw dropping, no
>
>>one asks anything about the costume.”
>
>
> Sadly, this is all too true of fandom in general (but perhaps not Anime
> cons). For years, the LASFS, the LA area’s big SF club, circulated a flyer
> for their new members to say that these new members would be showered with
> attention while they decided about joining. Once they did join, however,
> the flyer said “you’ll be treated like a piece of the furniture”.
>
> I have been to plenty of cons and club meetings where, if I didn’t make the
> effort, no one said one word to me.
>
> I am not sure why this is. Maybe it’s our shy natures that has driven us to
> a hobby like costuming that excels at drawing attention. Yet when it comes
> to saying hello, even a great costume isn’t enough to get us to move.
>
> Personally, actually meeting people like Betsy, Pierre, Carl, Byron, et.
> al. was intimidating as heck the first time. I knew them by great
> reputation and I worried that a neo out of Utah wasn’t worth spending a
> minute of time on, let alone pay attention to by these Ghods of Costuming.
>
> So I can appreciate our new cosplayer’s feelings. And, curiously enough, it
> was also Marty Gear’s kindness during ConFrancisco’s masquerade years ago
> that wooed my wife and I to active costuming–like it may have for our
> cosplayer. Thanks, Marty.
>
> Dave Doering
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

At 02:24 PM 5/25/2005, you wrote:

>At 11:45 AM 5/25/2005 -0700, you wrote:
> >Most of you probably read this on ICG-D, but Kayta offered up a
> >fascinating format for a project-based workshop that, rather than
> >taking up a programming room for a large period of time, would be
> >distributed across the day or the weekend. I could see this applied to
> >any number of things besides dolls; for example a blackwork or smocking
> >panel where the end-result is a small sampler that can later be used
> >for reference.
>
>It might work for beading or ribbonworking projects, too. Or cartridge
>pleating. Anything that can be hand-sewn vs. machine sewn.
>
>Sounds like an interesting concept.
>
>As the competitions and Fashion Shows at Costume-Con have evolved (with
>associated tech rehearsals, dress rehearsals, pre-judging, etc.), more and
>more of the competitors’ time is eaten up with these items instead of
>panels, and, sadly, trying to keep a large block of time open to attend a
>workshop is virtually impossible for people intending to compete. We always
>try to support the competitions, as they are the “backbone” of Costume-Con,
>but we like to learn new things, too, so it can be a hard choice.
>
>This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try to do workshops. But we should keep
>a watchful eye on attendance to see if they are a “worth it” item.
>
>The ribbonwork class I took from Candace Kling at CC-12 was very much
>”worth it.”

I definitely agree with that. I still have my sample board around here
somewhere.

PIerre

>–Karen

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed to Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly —
Why They Are Simply Doomed.

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

Betsy wrote: “Wow, Dave! Am I really that intimidating? I had no idea!!!”

Your natural effervescence helped me overcome that!

Also, I made the mistake one time of complementing a Star Fleet officer at
a con for a particularly fine costume. He glared at me and said: “This is
NOT a costume! This is a _uniform_.”

Fortunately, you can bet anyone willing to go to a CC is not going to be so
literal.

Dave D.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Betsy, back at CC18, I saw a need for a little something along those lines
(we were expecting a bunch of people who hadn’t been to CC before, from
dance groups and such), and created the attached. Perhaps that might serve
as a starting point.

Tina

—– Original Message —–
From: “Betsy Delaney” <bdelaney@hawkeswood.com>
To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, May 27, 2005 12:49 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Fw: CostumeCon Cosplayer report!

> Wow, Dave! Am I really that intimidating? I had no idea!!!
>
> Watch out – this is a rambling post, but there are salient points.
>
> So, first, this article should be published somewhere. I’d be willing to
> run it in the newsletter. It might also go well as a review on the
> Archives site, though in both cases I’d like to attribute appropriately.
> If the author was willing, I’d be happy to provide publication space in
> both spaces.
>
> Second, there are some very valid points, but I think it’s an endemic
> problem. Some of it is shyness. Some of it is overload. The main things
> I’ve found over time are that being a wallflower doesn’t necessarily get
> you noticed, and that the only place where costumers aren’t approachable
> in general is in the greenroom just prior to the masquerade. Outside of
> those places, there are people everywhere who are happy to talk about
> stuff.
>
> For me, I try to compliment whenever possible, especially if it’s
> something I think is really well done, regardless of genre. And also
> regardless of location. Found myself complimenting someone at the recent
> Fairie fest down here (and whoops, but she’s a pro, and what do you mean
> “costume”? Oh, just kidding….). I wasn’t in costume myself (having
> determined that right now, it’s just too much trouble to get into stuff
> and especially with weight gain, that everything I own makes me look
> dumpy), so I looked the part of the admiring neo. I sometimes wonder if
> wearing a badge that says “I know more than it looks like I do” would
> help that attitude. Not sure.
>
> Haven’t been to an Anime con yet. I generally don’t like the whole
> genre, so I haven’t taken any pains to attend. But I do respect good
> work and I do understand the character-is-all mindset that comes with
> the territory. Even my stepson is deeply involved in the culture. So,
> it’s hard to avoid it around here. I have been to other media cons,
> though (and regardless of their opinion, a media con is a media con).
>
> I’ve been thinking about putting a FAQ on the CC site for quite some
> time now, so that people know what we’re on about, and how one becomes a
> member. I’d be happy to start a list, or delegate that responsibility to
> someone else on this list (which would work a heck of a lot better for
> me right now), to that end.
>
> -b
>
> David Doering wrote:
>
>> Yes, this is an invaluable report and hopefully the start of a great bit
>> of
>> improvement for us.
>>
>> One comment from me where she states: “At CostumeCon, unless the costume
>> is
>> particularly jaw dropping, no
>>
>>>one asks anything about the costume.”
>>
>>
>> Sadly, this is all too true of fandom in general (but perhaps not Anime
>> cons). For years, the LASFS, the LA area’s big SF club, circulated a
>> flyer
>> for their new members to say that these new members would be showered
>> with
>> attention while they decided about joining. Once they did join, however,
>> the flyer said “you’ll be treated like a piece of the furniture”.
>>
>> I have been to plenty of cons and club meetings where, if I didn’t make
>> the
>> effort, no one said one word to me.
>>
>> I am not sure why this is. Maybe it’s our shy natures that has driven us
>> to
>> a hobby like costuming that excels at drawing attention. Yet when it
>> comes
>> to saying hello, even a great costume isn’t enough to get us to move.
>>
>> Personally, actually meeting people like Betsy, Pierre, Carl, Byron, et.
>> al. was intimidating as heck the first time. I knew them by great
>> reputation and I worried that a neo out of Utah wasn’t worth spending a
>> minute of time on, let alone pay attention to by these Ghods of
>> Costuming.
>>
>> So I can appreciate our new cosplayer’s feelings. And, curiously enough,
>> it
>> was also Marty Gear’s kindness during ConFrancisco’s masquerade years ago
>> that wooed my wife and I to active costuming–like it may have for our
>> cosplayer. Thanks, Marty.
>>
>> Dave Doering
>>
>>
>> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>> Yahoo! Groups Links
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>

———-

�WPCX

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi, Tina!

Please send the attachment directly to me. I have attachments turned off
on the list (to protect the members from random virus attacks).

Thanks!

Betsy

Tina Connell wrote:

> Betsy, back at CC18, I saw a need for a little something along those lines
> (we were expecting a bunch of people who hadn’t been to CC before, from
> dance groups and such), and created the attached. Perhaps that might serve
> as a starting point.
>
> Tina

In a message dated 5/26/2005 2:26:19 PM Central Daylight Time,
bdelaney@hawkeswood.com writes:

> Masquerade directors: PLEASE get this information to me ASAP!

Betsy,
I forwarded this off to Dora. She has the lists for the SF&F and the
Historical in her computer. Let me know if you need her e-mail address.
Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 11:37 PM 5/26/2005, you wrote:

>Excellent, Byron! Thank you!!!
>
>Any portion of information on this subject will help. Between the paper
>notes and the video, I can usually put all the pieces together. All I
>have right now are the newsletters, and while they are good, they aren’t
>perfect!
>
>Trivia: The CC site is constructed in running order, not in division
>order. When I started doing it, the lists were based on the lists Pierre
>(and Sandy?) had compiled of the entries as they appeared on the video
>records. That’s why some of the name and entry spellings aren’t accurate
>- hearing isn’t necessarily knowing. I’ve made at least two dozen
>corrections over time to different entries as people have noticed the
>errors.

This is indeed very important and while I try to scarf up running lists and
any other data I can find at any masquerades. Sandy and I spent a lot of
time compiling the lists that we sent to Betsy many years ago, With
variable spellings, incorrect pronunciation, audio glitches and a host of
other problems, its amazing the information we compiled then was as
accurate as it was.

>I can do (and have done) similar lists, but my hearing is going, and
>sometimes the sound on these tapes is simply dreadful, even for someone
>with perfectly good ears. So a written record is absolutely essential.

As you say, even my hearing at 30 couldn’t catch everything correctly. At
48, it becomes harder.

Pierre

>Furthermore, there will come a time (in the not so distant future, now)
>when I will not be collecting this information. Karen and Ricky will
>eventually be taking the tasks over. Getting the process established now
>will help when the transition takes place.
>
>Hope this helps!
>
>Betsy

“Those Who Fail To Learn History
Are Doomed to Repeat It;
Those Who Fail To Learn History Correctly —
Why They Are Simply Doomed.

Achemdro’hm
“The Illusion of Historical Fact”
— C.Y. 4971

Andromeda

And thank GOD for those lists, Pierre, or the whole CC site may not have
existed at all!

I only *just* got the last of the videos this year. The site has
existed, in one form or another, since 1997.

You deserve a huge Thank You just for doing all the pre-site footwork!

Credit where credit is due and all that…

Betsy

Since we were talking about learning judges bias’s and helping each other
form balanced panels, here’s a quick list from Balticon 05 just past.

There are no value judgements here, and all 3 judges could easily be picked
again, as long as we keep these things in mind. These come from speaking to
judges and contestants this weekend

Amanda Allen– Long time costumer worldcon winner. Likes to give awards.
Has no problem with giving 100% of the Masq awards IF warranted. Fights
for the costume first, presentation second

Heidi Hooper– Convention Artist/ some time costumer– feels awards
should be limited understands both costume and presentation

Bob Eggleton– Art Guest of Honor- wants to party, wants a show, wants to
be in charge. Places presentation first and likes humorous entries above all

It seems with a proper MD all 3 can be useful if balanced properly and
firmly explained what is expected of them.

To that, Balticon used a their own draft of the Judges instructions that I
proposed a few weeks ago, and had no problems. While the judges made some
‘interesting choices’ that might seem contrary to the instructions, the MD
was in their with them, so it must be assumed that it was in the spirit of
debate that things came down the way they did.

There was not much grousing about awards at all ,other than an odd title
here and there. I’m not really clear on what percentage of entries got awards.

Ricky

Once I get the award list back from Steve or someone I will be happy to
give you all the stats. For reasons that some of you are aware of, I
did not stay at the con on Sunday to pick up all of the paperwork.

Regarding Ricky’s comments about the judges, here is my $0.02. Amanda &
Heidi balanced each other pretty well. Both are fair but come at the
judging from different perspectives. Bob Eggleton is one of my favorite
people and a great artist, but I would use him only sparingly. He
spotted a couple of things that the other two missed, particularly in
the anime costumes. I was in with the judges, I did give them each my
first pass at Ricky’s instructions which I phrased as my “Notes to the
Judges.” When we get the award list posted, you will note that they did
not award a “Best in Class” in the master division. This was because
there were three costumes that were totally different and equally strong
and they just didn’t want to play “paper-sissors-rock” to name one of
them Best-in-Class. For a number of reasons, I didn’t want to force the
issue so I let it go. Over all, I was quite satisfied with the judging,
and I think that giving the judges my “Notes” in advance was a good idea.

Marty

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>Since we were talking about learning judges bias’s and helping each other
>form balanced panels, here’s a quick list from Balticon 05 just past.
>
>There are no value judgments here, and all 3 judges could easily be picked
>again, as long as we keep these things in mind. These come from speaking to
>judges and contestants this weekend
>
>
>Amanda Allen– Long time costumer worldcon winner. Likes to give awards.
>Has no problem with giving 100% of the Masq awards IF warranted. Fights
>for the costume first, presentation second
>
>Heidi Hooper– Convention Artist/ some time costumer– feels awards
>should be limited understands both costume and presentation
>
>Bob Eggleton– Art Guest of Honor- wants to party, wants a show, wants to
>be in charge. Places presentation first and likes humorous entries above all
>
>
>
>
> It seems with a proper MD all 3 can be useful if balanced properly and
>firmly explained what is expected of them.
>
>To that, Balticon used a their own draft of the Judges instructions that I
>proposed a few weeks ago, and had no problems. While the judges made some
>’interesting choices’ that might seem contrary to the instructions, the MD
>was in their with them, so it must be assumed that it was in the spirit of
>debate that things came down the way they did.
>
>There was not much grousing about awards at all ,other than an odd title
>here and there. I’m not really clear on what percentage of entries got awards.
>
>Ricky
>
>
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

At 04:42 PM 5/31/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>Bob Eggleton is one of my favorite people and a great artist, but I would
>use him only sparingly.

Good artist-type masquerade judges usually have good/detailed costuming IN
THEIR ART.
(Examples: Michael Whelan, David Cherry.)

If you have an artist, author, or celebrity judge who is more eager to get
back to the hotel bar than the judging chamber, I suggest assigning them
the job of picking their favorite thing out of the masquerade (and giving
it “Judge’s Choice” or “Guest of Honor’s Choice” or whatever you want to
name it), and then letting the rest of the judging panel deal with
everything else. This works better if you started with a panel of 5 judges
vs. 3 judges.

If the artist, author, or celebrity judge is really into it and wants to go
through the whole process, then by all means go for it (with maybe some
gentle guidance from the head judge or MD if the celebrity is too far out
in left field).

–Karen

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Ricky,
Have you had any problems with GoH’s being Masq Judges, especially
with schedule conflicts?

Henry Osier
CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010

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The worst experience we’ve had (not as an MD, but as Toastmaster and Head
Judge at a media con) was a celebrity judge who went out to dinner with
friends and did not come back at the appointed time to judge the
masquerade. The MD chose to wait until the celebrity returned and then
started the masquerade late. I’m not sure that was the proper course of action.

Some cons take the whole judging panel out to dinner before the masquerade
so they KNOW where they are. Smaller cons may not be able to afford this,
but it does work.

Possible scheduling conflicts should be worked out with the GOH judge and /
or Programming BEFORE the con. And maybe somebody should ask the GOH or
celebrity judge if they reallyreallyreally want to judge, or are just
saying “OK” to be polite.

–Karen

At 05:29 PM 5/31/2005 -0400, you wrote:

>Ricky,
> Have you had any problems with GoH’s being Masq Judges, especially
>with schedule conflicts?
>
> Henry Osier
> CostumeCon 28 in Milwaukee in 2010
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>View the Document:
><http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/>http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>
>
>
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