Thank you. I appreciate you amending that comment.

Dawn McKechnie – President – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada

Hi, all,

I trust that most of you are home and recovering from CC33 in Charleston.  I won the bid for CC36 as most of you know because you were there.

Today, I’ve spent the day setting up a staff website for Costume Con 36. A lot of you are far away and may know that I have set an organizational meeting for June 14, 2015 at 2 p.m. PDT at my house. I’m not sure how skype works but we’ll see what we can get going on that front.

If you’re interested in looking at what I have set up, let me know because I’ll have to send you an invitation to join.  We are looking for people to mentor a younger generation in the various masquerades and contests. That’s not to say if you want to run one, I will say no but we do need to get the young’uns involved.

You can reach me at Rebecca8175@gmail.com or on the phone at (858) 245-8170.

I look forward to your feedback.

WhileI live on the East Coast, and cannot participate in meetings, I”d
be happy to help by sending lists of program topics, panels, workshops,
demos…..I had a lot of suggestions that were not able to configure, and
I have done costume track programming for other CC’s as well as all our
long-running East Coast cons. I’d love to be able to view the program as
it develops.

Yours in costuming, Lisa A

On 27 May 2015 19:48:38 -0700 “beckieboo817@yahoo.com [runacc]”
<runacc@yahoogroups.com> writes:

Hi, all,

I trust that most of you are home and recovering from CC33 in Charleston.
I won the bid for CC36 as most of you know because you were there.

Today, I’ve spent the day setting up a staff website for Costume Con 36.
A lot of you are far away and may know that I have set an organizational
meeting for June 14, 2015 at 2 p.m. PDT at my house. I’m not sure how
skype works but we’ll see what we can get going on that front.

If you’re interested in looking at what I have set up, let me know
because I’ll have to send you an invitation to join. We are looking for
people to mentor a younger generation in the various masquerades and
contests. That’s not to say if you want to run one, I will say no but we
do need to get the young’uns involved.

You can reach me at Rebecca8175@gmail.com or on the phone at (858)
245-8170.

I look forward to your feedback.

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

The reality of CostumeCons is that many, if not most, of our staff are scattered throughout the US & Canada.  Lisa & I are just a couple of them.  However, the on-site core members will be doing the most meeting for at least this first year.  Ideally someone can set up a live, on-line meeting for us for later.  Skype is only one way, or so I’ve been told.  I plan to drive out a few times a year, especially whenever She Who Must Be Obeyed needs me.

Elaine

Having never produced or run a folio or its accompanying show, my opinion  is strictly from the point of view as a producer of the costumes.  I can neither create a design on paper nor by computer.  I’m a “maker.”

I find it easier to translate line drawings into costumes because they are leaving lots of the detail up to me.  I love figuring out what I need to do to recreate that drawing.

I’m also thinking that the quality of a computer rendering vs a drawing – no matter how detailed – might skew a judge’s opinion.  I’m also thinking that it might lead to a two-part competition – drawn and computer-generated.

Please come up with some logical suggestions in time for CC 36!

Elaine

7th Floor.

Sandy

At 08:21 AM 5/31/2015, you wrote:

 

Which floor was the business
level?

Nora

From: runacc@yahoogroups.com
[
mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, May 31, 2015 6:13 AM
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [runacc] Re: CC33 review is coming

We haven’t chimed in on our hotel stay experience, but I would like to at
least comment on our guest room.

Our room was on the alleged ‘Business Level’ (because we wanted a room
with a fridge). To use the term ‘Business’ for rooms on this floor is a
joke. There was no desk area at all, nor were there any adjacent outlets
to the low dresser/TV shelf. When I called the front desk and asked about
this anomaly, I was told that ‘Business Level’ just meant that it came
with a fridge & microwave (not that rooms on this floor were equipped
for anyone who might plan to actually do some business). After shifting
the furniture a bit, I was able to discover that there was a power strip
behind the dresser/TV shelf, so we were able to manage our electronics
(printer & computer, which were needed for the SF&F Masquerade).
Still, to have to work hunched over a surface that was several inches too
low for comfort was a pain.

Furthermore, in a two-bed room, there was only one chair. We requested a
2nd chair so we could both have a place to sit, but what was provided was
simply a function room chair, not comfortable guest seating at
all.

Although we did receive daily room servicing, it was generally quite
late, and we had to call to ask if anyone was going to do our room on a
couple of days (“Oh, did you want someone to clean your room?,”
in a surprised tone of voice, in response to one of those calls). The ‘Do
Not Disturb’ sign was off of our door by 8:30 am each day, so it wasn’t
as though they thought we didn’t want our room serviced. Housekeeping was
a bit casual about replacing important supplies (toilet paper) a couple
of times.

The room itself was a case in point for why this place lost i

International Costumers’ Guild Archivist

http://www.costume.org/gallery2/main.php

“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

 

Bruce wrote:

Dawn McKechnie – President – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada

Of course I’ve not run one or even submitted a design, but I’ve always wanted to. I’ve always eyeballed the rules every single year, but it turns out I just don’t have a design bone in my body. I do have the perspective of someone who would create one of the designs if one grabbed me, someone who is a replicator.

Yes, collaging in the general sense is still “art.” There is nothing wrong with creating “art” in that mien, with the possible exception of using other people’s copyrighted material without permission. However, as I understand the Future Fashion Design Contest, we’re not out to create ART, we’re out to design clothing that hasn’t been conceived of before, which costumers can then build from the design. So, “but this is the future of artistic expression!” is a moot argument.

As a replicator, when I’m trying to research and dissect a costume design, I NEED the black and white sketches to help me figure out where seams are, what’s clothing and what’s not, so on and so forth. Particularly with 2D art, when the final rendering includes reflection lines, textures, etc, which can be mistaken for seams or layers if looked at incorrectly. From a practical creator’s standpoint, the B&W lineart is absolutely necessary. Color pages are nice, as are indications of texture, but that’s a later phase of re-creation. The first phase is understanding the shape, fit, and structure of the design.

From another POV, the FFF has always seemed, from the outside, to be an analog to a fashion designer creating a seasonal catalog of their new clothing styles, which would then be created for the runway show. I don’t know if anyone can answer this, but is “collaging” from existing images used in the fashion industry to create new clothing lines? Is Fashion Week full of designers who no longer sketch out their own unique designs whether with a pencil or a tablet? If yes, then maybe this argument would hold more water, but if the fashion industry itself is still running on designs drawn from scratch, then that seems like a valid model to follow. Or, for another example, do movie studios still draw base sketches of the shape of costumes, which the costume department has to interpret into a garment? Maybe they do have to render that costume into 3D for CG animation later, but for the scenes where the actors need to be clothed, does the costume department require B&W or basic simplified drawings (paper or tablet) from which they can work to draft the costumes? I don’t know if anyone knows and can explain how these other clothing/costuming industries work, but if they can, I’d love to hear it. And then point to that as an example of why the FFF is structured the way it is.

I don’t care if someone is using a photo to sketch out a base shape but then completely altering that shape, because they feel like their drawing skills aren’t up to drawing the shape of a boot around a croquis’ foot. It seems like they’re focusing too much on having a perfect drawing rather than communicating their design ideas, but it’s not egregious. But the less alteration there is, the more this method skews away from actual design and more toward compiling an outfit out of extant garments – and extant garment shapes – and then you run into the issue of having to try to fine-tune rules to try to explain exactly what percentage of change to the original image constitutes “original design.” That would be so fiddly as to be a nightmare to try to police. For sheer logistics’ sake it’s easier to just say “this is what we want, take it or leave it.” You don’t want to charge the director with the extra task of doing reverse image searches in google to verify that the base images have actually been altered or re-designed.

I get you though, Bruce, that second paragraph just reads like…I don’t know. “You don’t understand my vision which can only be communicated by my own method!” But I would have to see an example of one of these design images before I could say one way or the other, whether this is a good design technique for communicating original designs, or if it’s just one person’s idea of how clothing should be designed based on nothing but their own technology, versus actually understanding the core concepts of garment design and construction and using them to create entirely new ideas. It’s like saying you know how to tailor a Victorian tailcoat even though you’ve only ever looked at pictures of Victorian tailcoats without ever actually draping one on a body and seeing how the seams inform the shape and fit. Maybe a bad example but that’s how it’s coming across to me.

Stace

A agree with you Stace. ^_^

Dawn McKechnie – President – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada

Could a compromise be made that one could submit a more complicated drawing as long as they ALSO submitted a line work version? Maybe then both ideas would be satisfied?

Kevin wrote: “Perhaps it could be clarified by noting to the artist who is protesting that the line drawing is like the view on the back of a pattern envelope.”

AWESOME way of explaining it Kevin! 🙂

Dawn McKechnie – President – Fibre Fantasy Artists of Canada

So, time one
again for a review of the most recent Costume-Con.   Our group likes to thoroughly analyze a con
in anticipation of the next one.  We discuss
what we liked and didn’t like and then I bring it here to add to the runacc list “knowledge
base”, spark discussion and hopefully help future organizers avoid common
mistakes.   These are merely our
opinions, and observations made not just based on what was experienced as convention
attendees, but also convention veterans who have run a CC and/or have served on
multiple concoms.   By no means are our opinions the “final word”, but we’ve been told we’re generally accurate and always an interesting read.

This year’s
CC was in stark contrast to last year’s CC32 record attendance.
We can’t help but believe that this was partly due to frequent and
different breakdowns of communication at both the staff and convention
interaction level.  Granted, some of the
problems were beyond the concom’s control, but many problems could have been
easily avoided.  

So, let’s start with pre-con
stuff.    The Committee heads, if you remember, were a trio of
“old school” costumers who only moved to Charleston, SC about a year
ago.   They are not very social media savvy, despite having a FB
page.   Promotion of the con was woefully inadequate.  Because
they were relative newcomers, they hadn’t had much time to put down very deep
roots in the local fan population.  A long time ago, when we ran CCs 16
& 25, we realized that most of a convention’s attendees will be made up of
people within a 300 mile radius of the host city.   Yet, when we got
to the con, it  looked to us as though there were very few locals or
regional people.   It looked like a smaller version of an East Coast
CC from the 1990s.  That’s good, but also bad. 

Facebook is a
great tool for promotion, and yet,  the CC33 page was
underutilized.   As near as we can tell, they expected people to go
out to the convention website to get most any information.  That’s where
the occasional updates were and that’s where the Progress Reports were
found.  The Facebook page could have been used to get news out – they
really didn’t do much of that until around December last year – that’s out of
the three years between the site selection and the event.  The rest of the
time, the page was mostly about funny stuff about the con officers or
tourist stuff about Charleston.  We’ve said this in the past – con
committees should have a “communications officer” whose sole job is to
constantly come  up with content and be comfortable with social
media.  No attempt was made to ever get on Cosplay.com or other
forums.    The website was updated infrequently, and sometimes
was missing info.   Case in point: Apparently, rules Nora had written
for the Folio Show were missing until Karen pointed it out.   To
their credit, at least they fixed the problem quickly, but still…..

(Side note: it’s
been a problem for years that the Costume-Con.com site does not update for the
next year’s countdown.  Not sure how that works, but Karen Schnaubelt
ought to just put it out of its misery and use the .org site.   It’s
just a placeholder, anyway.)

The Progress
Reports were only electronic, as has been the case for the past few
years.  But as near as we can tell, it was never announced when each
one was posted.   Not on the FB page, not on the D list –
nowhere.   Maybe they sent notices to those who were
registered?   The PR#3 had the most pertinent content – the rest was
mostly fluff.

Promotion of the con was woefully inadequate.  As near as
we can tell, there appeared to be a great reliance on word of mouth to bring in
new members.   This opinion is based on what
appeared to be a low newbie to veteran ratio.
A long time ago, when we ran
CCs 16 & 25, we realized that most of a convention’s attendees will be made
up of people within a 300 mile radius of the host city.   Yet, when we got to the con, it  looked to us as though there were very few
locals or regional people.   It looked
like a smaller version of an East Coast CC from the 1990s.  That was nice in some ways, because we got to see some friends we only see once a year, but it’s also not good. 

As near
as we can tell, it was expected that people should go out to the convention website
to get most any information.  That’s
where the occasional updates were and that’s where the Progress Reports were
found.  The convention website was updated infrequently, and sometimes was missing info.    At times, it was a struggle for some staff to get it updated, even when the webmaster was notified.  

 (Side note: it’s been a problem for years that the Costume-Con.com site does not update for the next year’s countdown.  Not sure how that works, but maybe it ought to just put it out of its misery and use the .org site.   It’s just a placeholder, anyway.)

Facebook is a great tool for promotion, and yet,  the CC33 FB page was underutilized.  No attempt was made to ever get on Cosplay.com or other forums (although, this may be less important these days).  The CC33 Facebook page could have been
used to get news out – but that didn’t really happen until around December last
year – that’s in the three years between the site selection and the
event.  The rest of the time, the page
was mostly about funny stuff about the con officers or tourist stuff about
Charleston.   

We’ve said
this in the past – con committees should have a “communications officer” whose
sole job is to constantly come up with content and be comfortable with social
media.    So far, CC34 has been making some efforts – they’ve even been producing some online promotional
video content.  

Progress
Reports:  As near as we can tell, it was never
announced when each one was posted to the website.   Not
on the FB page, not on the D list – nowhere.
Maybe they sent notices to those who were registered?

Recommendations for future concoms :  

Make greater use of social media, especially, when trying to reach new members.

Have a staffer whose specific task is to come up with content – preferably someone not doing anything else major at the con, either.   They should function as sort of a newsletter editor, constantly looking for content to post.   They should build up a store of news items from the major department heads that they can “squirt out” every so often.   Either that, or have the event heads be sure to post something of interest every so often.   Many people are not familiar with CC – put some factoids out there, so that new people aren’t coming in not knowing what to expect.

BROADCAST INFO OVER ALL PLATFORMS: Twitter, FB, the website, the ICG-D list, etc.   Don’t ignore any opportunities to promote anything new and get people talking, and don’t favor one platform over another.  

Have staffers on Facebook share any posts off the convention FB page.   This way, you’re not only reaching those who follow the page, but it also broadcasts it to all their friends who may only be on the fringe of the costuming community.  Staffers should also invite their FB friends to Like the convention FB page.  Also, find and join costuming related FB pages so you can share info about CC.   In recent talks with the CC34 staff, it’s been determined that communications among cosplayers has decentralized, and now there are FB pages dedicated to the regions or venues where they are most likely to attend.   As an example, “STL Cosplayers Unite” (St. Louis area) has 621 members.   There are lots of Steampunk groups out there that should be investigated, too.  Don’t forget that huge following of people on the Historical clothing Yahoo Group, either.   Did you know there is a specific FB page  called the “Future Fashion Design Center”?

CC34 has come up with some really nice full color post card sized flyers.   These seem to work better than the old school 8″x10″ ones these days, and are more eye-catching   They’re also not as expensive to print as they use to be.

Speaking from experience, running a Costume-Con in a city with little to
no ICG presence is very difficult, let alone running one in a city
several states away from where the con-chairs live. I had three long
years of local convention promotion at about a half dozen conventions
per year, in a city where I had been a convention regular for over 10
years. Granted most locals did not seriously consider attending CC31
until about a year out. People who are accustomed to only attending the
same local conventions from year to year, only make plans a year out.
And people who have never voted on a convention are completely flumoxed
by concept. Based on my experiences, a year out of local promotion
could have been enough time to drum up local interest, if they had
already had an established presence in the local community.

Social Media has become a huge job, even more so than just an
Advertising person in the past. The internet is too vast for one person
to monitor and update across all social media platforms and forums.
There are tools like HootSuite to automate posting across multiple
social media platforms, but it’s still a huge job for one person. In
one of our ConCom meetings, one person asked if I had posted anything
about the convention on a specific forum for new mothers which she
belonged to, because many women on there make costumes for their kids.
Before I could answer, another committee member chimed in that it should
be the responsibility of every committee member to promote the
convention in the places that they frequent, whether that is in person
or on the internet.

Michael
CC31

On 2015-06-05 20:58, casamai@sbcglobal.net [runacc] wrote:
> So, time one again for a review of the most recent Costume-Con. Our
> group likes to thoroughly analyze a con in anticipation of the next
> one. We discuss what we liked and didn’t like and then I bring it
> here to add to the runacc list “knowledge base”, spark discussion
> and hopefully help future organizers avoid common mistakes. These are
> merely our opinions, and observations made not just based on what was
> experienced as convention attendees, but also convention veterans who
> have run a CC and/or have served on multiple concoms. By no means are
> our opinions the “final word”, but we’ve been told we’re generally
> accurate and always an interesting read.
>
> This year’s CC was in stark contrast to last year’s CC32 record
> attendance. We can’t help but believe that this was partly due to
> frequent and different breakdowns of communication at both the staff
> and convention interaction level. Granted, some of the problems were
> beyond the concom’s control, but many problems could have been
> easily avoided.
>
> So, let’s start with pre-con stuff. The Committee heads, if you
> remember, were a trio of “old school” costumers who only moved to
> Charleston, SC about a year ago. They are not very social media savvy,
> despite having a FB page. Promotion of the con was woefully
> inadequate. Because they were relative newcomers, they hadn’t had
> much time to put down very deep roots in the local fan population. A
> long time ago, when we ran CCs 16 & 25, we realized that most of a
> convention’s attendees will be made up of people within a 300 mile
> radius of the host city. Yet, when we got to the con, it looked to us
> as though there were very few locals or regional people. It looked
> like a smaller version of an East Coast CC from the 1990s. That’s
> good, but also bad.
>
> Facebook is a great tool for promotion, and yet, the CC33 page was
> underutilized. As near as we can tell, they expected people to go out
> to the convention website to get most any information. That’s where
> the occasional updates were and that’s where the Progress Reports
> were found. The Facebook page could have been used to get news out –
> they really didn’t do much of that until around December last year
> – that’s out of the three years between the site selection and the
> event. The rest of the time, the page was mostly about funny stuff
> about the con officers or tourist stuff about Charleston. We’ve said
> this in the past – con committees should have a “communications
> officer” whose sole job is to constantly come up with content and be
> comfortable with social media. No attempt was made to ever get on
> Cosplay.com or other forums. The website was updated infrequently, and
> sometimes was missing info. Case in point: Apparently, rules Nora had
> written for the Folio Show were missing until Karen pointed it out. To
> their credit, at least they fixed the problem quickly, but still…..
>
> (Side note: it’s been a problem for years that the Costume-Con.com
> site does not update for the next year’s countdown. Not sure how
> that works, but Karen Schnaubelt ought to just put it out of its
> misery and use the .org site. It’s just a placeholder, anyway.)
>
> The Progress Reports were only electronic, as has been the case for
> the past few years. But as near as we can tell, it was never announced
> when each one was posted. Not on the FB page, not on the D list –
> nowhere. Maybe they sent notices to those who were registered? The
> PR#3 had the most pertinent content – the rest was mostly fluff.
>
> Promotion of the con was woefully inadequate. As near as we can tell,
> there appeared to be a great reliance on word of mouth to bring in new
> members. This opinion is based on what appeared to be a low newbie to
> veteran ratio. A long time ago, when we ran CCs 16 & 25, we realized
> that most of a convention’s attendees will be made up of people
> within a 300 mile radius of the host city. Yet, when we got to the
> con, it looked to us as though there were very few locals or regional
> people. It looked like a smaller version of an East Coast CC from the
> 1990s. That was nice in some ways, because we got to see some friends
> we only see once a year, but it’s also not good.
>
> As near as we can tell, it was expected that people should go out to
> the convention website to get most any information. That’s where the
> occasional updates were and that’s where the Progress Reports were
> found. The convention website was updated infrequently, and sometimes
> was missing info. At times, it was a struggle for some staff to get it
> updated, even when the webmaster was notified.
>
> (Side note: it’s been a problem for years that the Costume-Con.com
> site does not update for the next year’s countdown. Not sure how
> that works, but maybe it ought to just put it out of its misery and
> use the .org site. It’s just a placeholder, anyway.)
>
> Facebook is a great tool for promotion, and yet, the CC33 FB page was
> underutilized. No attempt was made to ever get on Cosplay.com or other
> forums (although, this may be less important these days). The CC33
> Facebook page could have been used to get news out – but that
> didn’t really happen until around December last year – that’s in
> the three years between the site selection and the event. The rest of
> the time, the page was mostly about funny stuff about the con officers
> or tourist stuff about Charleston.
>
> We’ve said this in the past – con committees should have a
> “communications officer” whose sole job is to constantly come up
> with content and be comfortable with social media. So far, CC34 has
> been making some efforts – they’ve even been producing some online
> promotional video content.
>
> Progress Reports: As near as we can tell, it was never announced when
> each one was posted to the website. Not on the FB page, not on the D
> list – nowhere. Maybe they sent notices to those who were
> registered?
>
> Recommendations for future concoms :
>
> Make greater use of social media, especially, when trying to reach new
> members.
>
> Have a staffer whose specific task is to come up with content –
> preferably someone not doing anything else major at the con, either.
> They should function as sort of a newsletter editor, constantly
> looking for content to post. They should build up a store of news
> items from the major department heads that they can “squirt out” every
> so often. Either that, or have the event heads be sure to post
> something of interest every so often. Many people are not familiar
> with CC – put some factoids out there, so that new people aren’t
> coming in not knowing what to expect.
>
> BROADCAST INFO OVER ALL PLATFORMS: Twitter, FB, the website, the ICG-D
> list, etc. Don’t ignore any opportunities to promote anything new and
> get people talking, and don’t favor one platform over another.
>
> Have staffers on Facebook share any posts off the convention FB page.
> This way, you’re not only reaching those who follow the page, but it
> also broadcasts it to all their friends who may only be on the fringe
> of the costuming community. Staffers should also invite their FB
> friends to Like the convention FB page. Also, find and join costuming
> related FB pages so you can share info about CC. In recent talks with
> the CC34 staff, it’s been determined that communications among
> cosplayers has decentralized, and now there are FB pages dedicated to
> the regions or venues where they are most likely to attend. As an
> example, “STL Cosplayers Unite” (St. Louis area) has 621 members.
> There are lots of Steampunk groups out there that should be
> investigated, too. Don’t forget that huge following of people on the
> Historical clothing Yahoo Group, either. Did you know there is a
> specific FB page called the “Future Fashion Design Center”?
>
> CC34 has come up with some really nice full color post card sized
> flyers. These seem to work better than the old school 8″x10″ ones
> these days, and are more eye-catching They’re also not as expensive to
> print as they use to be.
>

I cannot stress enough how important promotions are no matter how big your local community is how many clubs there are.

I know the common mythology about CC32 is that we had high attendance because we have a large cosplay community in the

I of course meant “Meat an potatoes” .

Ah, I’m not seeing that when I look at it.   I just checked it twice..

Bruce

This
publication, distributed prior to the convention will be recorded as one of the
worst in the convention’s history.    As
near as we can tell, there must have been a heavy reliance on the convention regulars and
tradition to get the word out about it, because the only evidence we can find
of promotion was on the website and 1 email back in July.   There may have been promoting  elsewhere on other lists they belong to, but
FB and the ICG-D list are the primary forums for reaching a majority of the
potential attendees.   The only content
found about the rules for the Folio were on the website and PR #2.

This  lack of promotion HAD to have been a factor
in the serious lag in submissions, resulting in the submission deadline being pushed back
at least once.   Some people didn’t know
about the extension because that announcement was not made widely.  

While
selecting judges from 3 different time zones might be doable these days, thanks
to the Internet, there were coordination difficulties.  The Editor insisted on routing only one set of
the submissions to one judge at a time, rather than providing  them to all three simultaneously.    Once the judges had all finally made their
own reviews, they supposedly Skyped to confer.
This process, and then the time taken for publication, took until late
February.

The con
chairs should have been monitoring the situation and either replaced the
Editor  or advised them to come up with a
better solution like finding local judges in their area.  However, because one of the con chairs had their
own health issues, thus their co-chair/spouse was distracted. 

Finally, the
link to the finished Folio was sent out on March 6 – less than 10 weeks from
the convention.    There was no
announcement on the D list, no announcement on the FB page.   There
should have been a greater effort to get the word out about it – people are
lazy and won’t seek it out.  And once the
link was sent, not everyone could open the PDF file.   

As for the
content of the Folio, while there was a claim that there were “so many designs”, there were only 5 designers, with only 96 published pages, which
included some blanks to assure that it would print out formatted
correctly.   

The recognition
system of “you’re either in the Folio or not” was discarded in favor of 1st,
2nd and 3rd places and people didn’t like it.
Even when the Folio finally came out, most of the designs left people
uninspired – we heard this from several people at the con, not just our own
people.   (Maybe this is a panel for the
next CC – can design be taught?)    Many
of the designs were too complicated to be able to be completed in the short
amount of time left.    

Many
different opinions and experiences with the hotel.  It was certainly convenient to get to.   FREE PARKING(!).   The worst thing we had was Housekeeping was
sometimes a little slow delivering supplies.
The elevators were quick.   The
staff was all mostly friendly.   We
didn’t see the amount of wear others saw.

The hotel
food was not bad, the prices typical for the area.   But not everyone had the same experiences.

“I
didn’t particularly care for the attitude of the staff in the restaurant.
“We’re usually not open for lunch, we’re just doing this for your
group.”  Said with a kind of put-out tone of voice.  That really
put me off the place so we never ate there again.” 

Another commenter:

“Restaurant
was OK for breakfast. It was nice to be able to pay for the buffet in advance
so we could just leave when we were done, rather than waiting forever for the
check. We only ate there once for dinner (time crunch) and the buffet fare was
definitely not worth the $18 price. Staff was OK for us. We don’t usually eat
lunch at a con, so didn’t encounter the lunch problem.”

 While there were no restaurants within walking
distance, there were several within 5 minutes driving time.   Supposedly, the hotel shuttle would take you
anywhere you wanted to go within a 3 mile radius for free.  There was also one that would take you
downtown, to the visitor’s bureau.
There was no hot tub, but there was an indoor/outdoor pool.    Perhaps hot tubs are not as big a thing in
the South?

At least
some registration stuff was there to pick up Thursday evening, but there was
apparently some miscommunication about giving out the complete packets, so some
of people had to pick up the rest the next day.    

“This one really confused me. The swag
bags were ready. I know. I stuffed them all on Tuesday night. I’m not sure why
they weren’t available Thursday night.”

There were not enough people to man
Registration and we saw one person who appeared to be spending an awful lot of
time behind the table.  This seemed to be
a recurring indicator that the con was understaffed.  

To us the
“swag bag” was not much to write home about.
There was no map of the hotel, but the layout was relatively simple and
the few meeting rooms used were all together in one place, save for a board
room on the third floor (which was hard to find at first until someone posted a
handwritten sign).  

The program
book was minimal at best and had a number of errors, mostly regarding info
about the panels (missing descriptions or no description at all in one or two
cases). 

“The program book broke down as
follows:

32 pages including front
cover. 

2 blank pages (inside of front
cover and front side of back page). 

No back cover. 

Letter from con chairs 1
page. 

Panel descriptions 3 pages, some of
which had no description in the program book.

Harassment Policy: 2 pages

Bios – 6 pages

Ads – 3 pages, two half page
ads and 2 full page ads

Costume Con Constitution – 9 pages

Other articles – 6 pages (Miss
Lizzy’s Travelling Historical Fashion Show, Astronaut Quilt, Richard Man:
Transformations: Cosplay, List of past CostumeCons).

The two blank pages were a real
waste of space.  The letters from the Co-chairs could have been
photocopied onto the back of the front cover and the Rare Recorded Videos ad
moved up a page, saving a page.  I find it curious that there was no ad
space for any of the upcoming Costume Cons.  I think blank pages would be
better used by including some traceable human figures, one male and one female
and perhaps some info on the upcoming Future Fashion Folio.

The list of past CostumeCons was
nice and would have made the Con Chair’s toast at the dead dog party a lot
easier, if there had been a dead dog party.

Local
Guide – Not quite as helpful as one
would have liked.  We actually needed to find the Walmart listed on the
guide.  It took a lot of driving around on the other side of the
highway.  There are lots of signs there claiming the presence of a
Walmart, but none of them point you in the proper direction.  A simple
hand drawn map would have cleared all that up.  Another thing lacking on
the local guide is some useful info about laws in the area.  It took a
wasted trip to the liquor store to discover that liquor stores in SC are not
allowed to sell beer.”

The
programming schedule grid sheet was hard to read correctly, leading people to
misread start times by 30 minutes.
There ought to be a better software out there for these kinds of things.  If something exists, it could be shared from
year to year.

“This suffered from the usual lack
of basic knowledge of Excel.  It’s a simple thing to merge cells together
vertically and center the time so that you know for sure that this line means
9:00 and that line means 9:30.  There was some real confusion caused by
the pocket program about whether certain panels started at 1:00 or 1:30.
Having each day on its own page did make for some simple folding to display at
a glance what was coming up on that day.”

The pre-judging
time for the Single Pattern Contest was posted in the “stealth PR”.   At the con, in at least one case, a
contestant was told the rehearsal was 2:00 PM.
As it turned out, there did not appear to be a rehearsal and there was
some scrambling to get down to the ballroom for judging.   Bottom line: there should have been more
announcements about the first competition of the con.  In any case, the show went off without a
hitch, other than the MC mispronouncing
titles of entries.  Nora
picked up my pre-reg form because I was elsewhere, and she was told that the
rehearsal was at 2 PM.  When I found out it was actualy for
pre-judging, I had to scramble.   The only notice I found later about
the time was in the “stealth PR” #3.    This information should
have been announced on the FB page and the D list, like other info.

Unfortunatlely, the choice for MC was not the best, resulting in awkward pauses
and mispronunciations.   Otherwise, the show went off without much of
a hitch.

As for the Social itself, the food spread was better
than some pasr CCs, and it did not run out of protein –always a good
thing.  Attendees did play along with the speakeasy theme,
costume-wise.    The bar had a selection of bad beer, bad wine
and bad soda.   Leftovers from the Social were moved to Hospitality –
including the huge amounts of leftovers of birthday sheetcake for one of the
co-chairs.   The spinning light gobos were annoying, but at least
seating was adequate and the house lights were not down too low.

As for the Social
itself, the food spread was better than some pasr CCs, and it did not run out
of protein –always a good thing.  (It
would have been nice if arrangements had been made so that the people backstage
didn’t miss out on some of that protein, though). 

Attendees
did play along with the speakeasy theme, costume-wise.    The bar had a selection of bad beer, bad
wine and bad soda.   Leftovers from the
Social were moved to Hospitality – including the huge amounts of leftover
birthday cake for one of the co-chairs.
The spinning light gobos were annoying, but at least seating was
adequate and the house lights were not down too low.

“I liked the free drink ticket.  It would
have been nice if there were something worth drinking for free.
Charleston has some fine microbreweries.  I don’t understand not having at
least one of them as a choice for a beer.  The food was the same stuff
from the con suite.  I have to resurrect a comment from a CC in the
past.  Deja Food.  Didn’t I just eat this.  Something that was a
little amusing was the drawing they kept trying to have, only to have the
person giving out the tickets scream that she was still handing them out.
Perhaps these tickets should have gone in the swag bag, like the drink
ticket.  Just a thought.”

There was also this:

“The
Friday Night Social was sold as featuring a variety of southern specialties. In
reality, there was nothing except cheese trays and peach cobbler..…” (Not strictly true – there were pulled pork
sandwiches, and the cobbler, for itself, was excellent)   “…Earlier on Friday, I heard
some members suggesting that they could opt to skip dinner; I hope they didn’t
do so.”

The
Programming person was noticeably distracted by personal events, leading up to
the last few months of the con. 

There were
misgivings about a peer having their way paid as guest – not sure what
precedent that might set in the future.
Opinions were mixed as to the variety of panels and demos, so there was
no consensus one way or another.    Most
people liked what they saw.   

“There was a decent variety, just
not enough of them. “

It’s hard to
strike that right balance of enough and not enough.   Not enough, people get bored.   Too many, then they complain about having to
choose between panels.   One possibility
might be to have more panels, but repeat some of them.

“Also, the staggered start and
end times were confusing and usually meant I either had to miss the last part
of one, or the first part of another.”

“My biggest issue was there was nowhere that said who was on what
panels – so if you were on a panel and didn’t know what name it was in the
program, you couldn’t find it. Also, if you were looking for someone in
particular, no way to find what panel they might be on so you could find them.”

The fact
that this was not a very big con probably explains why the Friday and Saturday
“My First Costume-Con” panels never had more than 5 people in them.  We believe they’re still an important panel
to have, and provide an important service to newcomers – especially to let them
know about Hospitality.   One of the
newbies came all the way from North Dakota, and we suspect we have a new
convert.   

Very few
panels had less than three attendees: apparently, the panel on how the Library
of Congress is now archiving masquerade video was surprisingly well
attended(!).

Before the end of CC33, CC34 handed me a folder of promotional materials and asked me to spread the word in my part of the world.  That was a great idea!  For CC30, we sent fliers far and wide, both hard copy & electronically.

Elaine

The “egg mcmuffins” the
SLCG sponsored Sunday morning in the Suite were appreciated, and several people
thanked us later for providing them.   At
least, those didn’t run out before most people who got up early enough didn’t
miss out on them.   However, had we been
reminded that the Brunch was supposed to be at 10:00 AM, we would have probably
chosen a different time to sponsor the Suite.

“The selection of food in the con suite got really
boring.  I’m sure this was written into the hotel contract, but those
sorts of things are always negotiable.  No hotel can make that an
absolute.  You can always go to another hotel.  Some groups did
manage to sneak some extra stuff into the room though.  I noticed the
cheese curds from the CC Madison folks and the Mead.  I mentioned before
the predilection for putting a little sugar in the unsweet tea.  I did
like having tea to drink though.  The space needed to be a little larger
and have a few more tables.  There were several mornings where Sue and I
were a little stuck for a place to sit and the love seat in the middle of the
room caused some traffic problems, some that couldn’t even be solved by leaving
one door and coming back in the other.  The room was kept relatively clean
by the hotel staff.  Aside from sugar in my unsweet tea, I can’t complain
about them much.”

The other
bright spot in the otherwise repetitive fare in Hospitality was an ice cream
social sponsored by Atomacon, a local SF con.
The one glaring item missing all weekend was soda.  All the drinks (tea, juices, etc.) were
sweetened to some extent – even the apple juice (?). 

It will be a
recurring theme that, had the various shows been bigger, they could have been
disastrous.*   (Keep that in mind) 

For whatever
reasons, all the normal tech crews were unavailable for CC33.  Probably , just a case of bad timing.    It was fortunate that Eric and Sue were able
to bring at least a barebones tech set up along with their video
equipment.    The PR#3 said people could submit their
presentation music on either CDs or USB drives.
It turned out, though, there was limited tech – the amount of tech the
Cannons could bring was limted by  the
space in their car.   Because of that,
all MP3 files had to be burned to CDs before they could be played.   They HAD suggested people bring more than
one copy on more than one medium, but people may have not have done that, and
it was not mentioned again during registration, starting while the ICG meeting
was going on Friday – this is where the assistant to the MD could have been
utilized.    Tech COULD have run WAY
behind while the files were burned late in the day Saturday.*

Contestants
were told to arrive at the Green Room at 6:00 PM – the GR was not
prepared.   It seems they must have
started getting organized, because it was 20-30 minutes before they allowed
people in.  Not sure why people were only
allowed into the somewhat cramped space in running order, and then assigned their
den.  

“F/SF
was the worst for space. I can’t say for the FFS/Curtains, because I wasn’t
back there. Historical was tight, but not as much as F/SF…… The person arriving to do check-in was unpleasant and we had
a bit of a snip-fest at the beginning. I was trying to be efficient, and she
wanted things HER way.”

“….We
didn’t get a running order and # of people per entry until at least 6:30, so we
couldn’t set up the dens till then. It helped that the last entry was the 12
body entry, so they got the hall kind of by default. There was no way to put
them in the room.”

This made
for a longer delay.   That’s really
inefficient, especially when they were already running late.*    The contestants had to repeat their info to
different people, even though they were right next to each other – probably a
noise AND organization issue. 

The dens
were poorly set up with chairs in an oval, with no tables  – there was no space.   The contestants were told they could not use
more than one seat, so where were they supposed to put the stuff they brought
down?  Guess no one had thought of
that.   One den wound up having to be set
up out in the hall (shades of CC32)*.   

“Some
entries wouldn’t have fit into the quilt room.  We were already having
issues with exit doors – apparently the fire marshal was there and was being
picky about stuff blocking the doors.”

“…we
were having to steal chairs from the audience because there weren’t enough in
the green room for everyone.”

“In
hindsight, for F/SF, we really needed to swap the spaces of two of the dens (and
put Santa into the corner). That giant costume kept sticking out into the only
path for movement we had and catching every dangly bit that went by.”

The den moms
were given hats to wear to identify them, but apparently, no one actually
mentioned that.   Guess it was supposed
to be assumed.   The den moms were not
informed to make sure people got to the official photographer – at least not
initially.    The GR ran out of water at
some point.   It DID have a repair kit,
and it was used. 

Official
Photography took up about ¼ of the space that could have been used for Green
Room, but there was no where else to really put it.  

“I
don’t think there was really anyplace else for the photographers to go other
than in that room – the partitions were kind of arbitrary, so yes, it was 1/3
of the space. “

 The judges
were not photographed as part of the official record – not sure who would have
been responsible for making sure that happened.

Workmanship
judges were placed at the end of the main hall where the audience could
potentially see them before the show – no attempt to curtain that area off was
made (probably because it wasn’t really thought about until the last
minute). 

It was
obvious that the con had some staffing issues, since the GR Director was also
shooting the reference photos, as well as having been working Registration each
day.  Unfortunately, her assistant was
apparently not very experienced at the GR check in process.    There was also a shortage of backstage crew,
with only 3 ninjas ( I stepped in to help).

The photo
run ran without a problem, and the judges returned shortly after the video
halftime. (The Workmanship judging panel had taken a little longer to complete
deliberations).   Overall, less time
might have been taken had the printing of awards started immediately after the
Presentation judges had finished, rather than waiting for the Workmanship
results.   It was apparently a bit of a
“duh’ moment.   Regardless, awards were
fair, there were enough people recognized for their efforts, and there were no
controversies.

Just on recommendation here, that I remember: aprons instead of hats, and hand fans. 

There was
yet more than one lack of communication in regards to the Future Fashion Show
. 

There had
been an announcement sometime late in 2014 on the FB page and (stealth) PR #3
about a Sunday Brunch and Cotillion “in conjuction” with the Future Fashion Show  at 10:00 AM
– this was the first the FFS Director learned of it, rather than via the
Staff Yahoo group.   That was supposed to
be the time when rehearsals would have been called.  The “brunch” was served – an hour late – in
the main traffic hall outside the ballroom.
A sign was posted on the door of the Ballroom, stating that the FFS
would start at 11:30 AM – again, the Director was not personally informed.   The brunch fare was slightly different
(sandwiches and deep fried mac & cheese accompanied by the déjà food, but
the protein ran out early) and the “cotillion” mostly consisted of some ladies
standing around in their hoopskirts because there was no seating and they were
not allowed to enter the ballroom while tech was going on.    Overall, it was poorly organized and poorly
executed.

There were
two factors that led to this year’s Future Fashion Show being the smallest in
the con’s history.  The first factor was
the Folio Editor’s management of the Folio, leaving little time for anyone
to consider making an outfit for the show.
And so, there were only 2 children’s entries and one adult – all three
were designed by the same person (the adult – who was not related to the
children in any way).  The Folio Show
Director made token efforts to promote the show, but it was deemed mostly of no
use, given the lateness of the Folio.  

The second
major factor that affected the Folio show was the “Miss Ellen’s Portieres”
competition.  This challenge apparently
captured the imaginations of a lot of people – the show had more entries than
the SF & F masquerade.   As a result,
the people who had intended to enter both competitions had to choose between
this or the Folio Show.    (Side note:
People in the Portiere show as contestant, staff, crew, were not accommodated
by the committee to get brunch food to them)

“Given the poor quality of the
Future Fashion Folio, it’s not surprising that there were only three entries in
the Future Fashion Show.  I think a contributing factor was scheduling the
curtain contest immediately after.  Given that the Future Fashion Show is
expressly called for in the ConStitution, I think it’s time to stop scheduling
things so that a person has to choose do I do the Future Fashion Show or do I
do this other thing.  Either move those things to the Friday Night Social,
as has been done in the past, or here’s a thought.  How about a contest
for Monday afternoon.  No one seems to schedule any programming for that
time.  Why not give us a contest?”

Another:

“Any
extra stuff needs to either go with the Single Pattern on Friday, or be a
display-only competition like shoes or ties. I think the tote-bag one that CC34
is doing is in that category, but I may be wrong”

And yet another:

“You
would think that, by now, we would have learned that putting anything in
proximity to the FFS is detrimental to the Future Fashion Show.  It’s
happened time and again.  This is something we really need to emphasize…”

Prejudging
took place in the Green Room again, with the distractions of Tech Rehearsals.  There were only 10 entries in the show, so
again – good thing it was a small con.*

An
opportunity was missed to keep the judges corralled and also allow them
additional time for discussion by arranging for them to have dinner
together.   This worked at CC31. 

The Green
Room was the same size, but the contestants took up just about as much room
because of 9 people with wings, among other things.  There was only one noticeable tech snag.  Again, the feeling by people was the awards
were in adequate numbers, fair and again, no controversies.   Some of the contestants were surprised and
pleased to be recognized.   At halftime,
the quilt and doll awards announcements could have been done before the judges
got back.

Recommendation:  Make sure to allow time for judges to change to costumes before the show – your costumes are the creds on your back.

The Monday
tour of Charleston was… a bit disorganized.
Originally, we had to sign up ahead of time before the con and send in a
downpayment for it.   Then, we found out
a couple of weeks before we left that the tour time would slightly overlap the
Road Show time slot.   We managed to
arrange it so that we’d have 30 minutes to get stuff in the room and meet for
pick up.   Then, we were told the tour
was cancelled. During the weekend, we were told the tour was back ON again, but
even earlier than we had been told.
Fortunately, Pierre and Sandy weren’t going on the tour, so they covered
for us, and apparently had a pretty good turn out.

Upon our return
from the Charleston tour, we learned there would be no Dead Dog Party.   Supposeldy, it would take place the
following night.    What in the world
were they thinking?  

The big problem with the con suite
was that it disappeared Monday afternoon, leaving no space for the dead dog
party.  Some real lack of planning there.

Recommendation:  Maybe more should be done to try to keep people on Monday.   I think I may have suggested last year maybe having programming that would appeal more to the veterans, because it’s usually the veterans who stick around through Monday.     And for gosh sakes, don’t dismiss the Dead Dog Party!

There
were a whopping TWO dealers: one with beads, one with trim.  Both good dealers, for what they were, but….   How/why did this happen?   The story we heard was because originally,
Janet was supposed to bring  AlterYears.    At
the last minute, her travel plans changed and she had to fly instead, leaving a
huge hole in the Dealers Room.   We
suspect there had been no other dealers brought in so that Janet would no
competition or repetition of wares.
This completely backfired and it was too late to do anything about
it.  To fill space, the  convention voting table was placed there,
along with CC34’s promotion table and one for the SCA.   

The rest of the room was taken up by Lisa’s
“Miss LIzzy’s Travelling Historical Fashion Show”.   This was a pretty nice display of antique
women’s clothing, but it wouldn’t have been in the Dealers Room had things not
fallen through.

if
someone foresees a year before the event that there may be some personal issues that may interfere with
doing their job, there is nothing wrong with backing out – they should not feel
obligated.   Better to get out in enough time
that the position can be filled, rather than doing  a poor job and make excuses like “I’m just a volunteer”.   That is unacceptable – take responsibility or resign.

Mostly composed of a few of Janet Wilson Anderson’s competition pieces, plus
one or two others.   The Archives
provided material for a little “slide show” of Janet’s works. 

“This one had one bright spot for
me.  Having been at JW Anderson’s Making New Mistakes panel and hearing
here discuss the My Fair Lady dress at some length, it was nice to be able to
go to the exhibits and see the costume and documentation right there.  A
real plus.”