OVERVIEW
A View From the Edge of SanityOrA Resource for Insights on Running A Costume-ConAfter our bid to host Costume-Con 16 in St. Louis was accepted, we quickly discovered that there was no body of information to draw upon to give a potential committee guidance. Other than having attended a few CCs in the past, and having had experience in positions on a media convention or two; we only had a very general idea of what was necessary to put on a successful con. We contacted some former CC Chairmen, especially Betsy Marks (CC15) and Pierre and Sandy Pettinger (CC10), but there was still so much we had to learn and no organized records available from past CCs. We resolved to make a record of our experiences, to which we hoped future potential CC committees could refer. We don’t assume we can provide all the answers but this will be at least a starting point for information. By the time we were considering submitting a bid for Costume-Con, circa 1992-93, CC had already been in existence for more than 10 years. There was less enthusiasm for more than one group of people bidding for a particular year. We chose a year far enough in advance that we would probably have no competition. This proved to be correct. In fact, we imagine there was a collective sigh of relief that a totally new, enthusiastic crowd were willing to give it a try. Others who might feel an obligation to make sure there was a CC for that year were off the hook. Up to CC16, only one other Costume-Con had been held in the Midwest. We believed that this would work in our favor to draw not only costumers who were unaware of this convention (which had been held primarily on either US coast), but also in expose “outsiders” to the costuming community and the ICG. —Bruce Mai with Nora Mai, Co-chairs, Costume-Con 16 (Additional notes provided by members of the CC16 Committee) |
This index covers all the content in the Guide, but you’ll notice really fast that there’s not a lot on these pages yet. To see the topics that are coming soon, see the Original Outline: https://runacc.costume-con.org/the-guide/the-original-outline/. As this content is migrated into the pages below, we will add an icon (»). If the page is mostly populated (not just an outline but actual, useful content), this icon (⇒) will replace the first.
The Yahoo Archive has a LOT of reference material, but it’s embedded in lots of comments. Rather than try to build the content by stripping out the comments, I’d rather grab content as we go. If you’re claiming a space to work on, it’s helpful to add a note to show you’re working on the content of a page. Feel free to replace the YourNameHere label on this page with your name, to keep others from clobbering your work. If you want to work collaboratively on a page, develop the content offline after claiming the space, and then paste the content in when it’s ready. As you finish, you can remove the name when you finish, which should make it obvious to visitors what’s there and what’s not.
Not coincidentally, the original runacc@yahoogroups.com mailing list was launched in 2003 at around the same time the ConStitution was established, as a way to connect past and future concoms and share information. This website is the natural (albeit very VERY delayed) outgrowth of the Yahoo Group that was meant to launch in 2016. Launched in May 2022, two and a half years after the demise of Yahoo Groups, the site uses WordPress structure, commenting and collaboration tools. We are hosting this space on our own server.
To contribute as an Editor, you will need an account and a password as well as Editor privileges. As a Subscriber, you should still be able to comment on all the pages within this space but you are not allowed to edit content directly. Subscriber comments are always moderated, to avoid dealing with a ton of potentially dangerous spam. No exceptions.