In a message dated 6/11/2008 1:19:42 AM Central Daylight Time,
aramintamd@gmail.com writes:

> Did I miss anything?

Um, make it clear to people who want to have a party in the ConSuite what is
included in the deal?

Henry

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

In a message dated 6/11/2008 11:54:28 AM Central Daylight Time,
aramintamd@gmail.com writes:

> Agreed. That’s why I like the dual or multi-room layout for con
> suites. Though, based on the way the CC27 layout looks, we may not
> have a problem, future CCs might take note.
>
>
>

So, three interconnected rooms, two of which are the size of your average
hotel room, and the third being similar to the CC26 ConSuite would be a good
layout?

Henry

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

On Jun 11, 2008, at 2:57 PM, osierhenry@cs.com wrote:

> In a message dated 6/11/2008 1:19:42 AM Central Daylight Time,
> aramintamd@gmail.com writes:
>> Did I miss anything?
> Um, make it clear to people who want to have a party in the ConSuite
> what is
> included in the deal?

I’ve got to give credit to CC22 (was it Lanny?) with, in 5 years, the
most proactive ConSuite head regarding sponsored nights. CC22 was in
the suburban south, not really the hotbed of the sorts of ethnic
grocery stores and shops we stock our parties from. They contacted us
in advance, discussed the shopping list and picked up snacks
appropriate to our party. We only had to do a run up the street to
Kroger to get a few bottles of wine, and, of course, be there to
decorate, host and clean up. This is the example we all should aspire
to, if there are enough volunteers.

andy

Some of our panel rooms are 30 feet or so from the consuite/ atruium we’ll do late night masq videos there in other wise unused rooms at that time. but still close enough to come get a soda without missing much.

Gravely MacCabre
http://www.castleblood.com
http://www.midnightmonsterhop.com
http://www.myspace.com/thecastleblood
http://www.myspace.com/midnightmonsterhop
clip samples at
http://www.veoh.com/channels/castleblood

—– Original Message —-
From: “osierhenry@cs.com” <osierhenry@cs.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 6:24:04 PM
Subject: Re: Video in the room (was RE: [runacc] CC26 – Hospitality)

In a message dated 6/11/2008 11:54:28 AM Central Daylight Time,
aramintamd@gmail. com writes:

> Agreed. That’s why I like the dual or multi-room layout for con
> suites. Though, based on the way the CC27 layout looks, we may not
> have a problem, future CCs might take note.
>
>
>

So, three interconnected rooms, two of which are the size of your average
hotel room, and the third being similar to the CC26 ConSuite would be a good
layout?

Henry

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

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

Oh & it’s not “representing the SLCG” or “collected opinions of the SLCG”
either. The information came from many sources, not just SLCG members.

Nora

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Andrew Trembley
> Sorry, I was using “Bruce & Nora” as shorthand for “representing the
> SLCG” here. I was under the impression that the report pieces were the
> collected opinions of the SLCG.

I told Bruce that the lack of food in the green room was my fault. It was not Carole Parker’s fault.

The concom insisted that I have a second. This is one of the major problems of having a department head on the wrong coast from the rest of the concom. There was no one on the committee except Carole that I trusted to fill that function. After I was told that someone on the concom told her that she was not truly my second, just a stand-in at committee meetings, I had to repair my authority and reassured her that I had indeed designated her as second.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew Trembley<mailto:attrembl@bovil.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 10:30 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – Hospitality

On Jun 10, 2008, at 5:52 PM, Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:
> This came in for criticism for different reasons. Everyone is
> already well
> aware of the major gaffs with the food for the Green Room and CC27, so
> there’s no point to rehashing those events. The only things worth adding
> were that whoever was in the room at midnight on Saturday after the
> masquerade was rude, and slammed the sliding door in people’s faces.
> Someone should have re-opened the room.

Actually, there are things to rehash on those events.

On the Green Room food?

Byron gets thrown under the train for the Saturday green room food
issue, not the ConSuite. He was asked to not use Carole as his assistant
director in the green room, as she already had one pre-con and one
at-con job and helping out on other issues always took precedence over
those jobs with her. He took her anyway, and the botched Saturday food
delivery was one of the results. When the green-room food pickup by
Carole on Saturday night was “incomplete,” ConSuite assigned one of
their staffers to take over Green Room snack service for Sunday morning
and night.

On the midnight closure and CC27’s party?

Not scheduling a closure for the masquerades was our mistake. Sandra
didn’t know this was a common thing to do at CC, and none of us thought
to suggest it to her. It left the staff there alone. A scheduled closure
would have allowed later scheduled hours after re-opening.

I will point out, though, that our scheduled hours weren’t significantly
different from the last 5 CC’s. At the last 5 CCs we specifically
negotiated extended hours in the ConSuites on our sponsorship nights
after the masquerades. I believe 21 and 23 just let us take over the
room and close when we wished. 22’s ConSuite head agreed to stay open
late with us. 24 was Des Moines, they always run parties late. Rachael
Hillen volunteered to stay on late with us at 25.

We also didn’t have everybody who was supposed to be hosting our parties
volunteering on or in the same night’s masquerade. We always had at
least one person (often me) whose only responsibility on sponsor night
was to coordinate final decorations and refreshments and welcoming folks
after masquerade on-site with the ConSuite head. That was a mistake on
the part of Ricky, Marty and the CC27 committee.

> Given the size of the con, it’s perfectly understandable that the
> committee
> shouldn’t have felt an obligation to feed the entire con. Yet, the choice
> of snacks seemed .underwhelming. There were no regional or signature
> specialties – we would have thought there’d be more of an effort there,
> given the rich local cultural background.

The snack selection in the ConSuite was rather pedestrian.

Sandra lost nearly two shopping days earlier in the week because she had
to run home to San Diego (8 hours each way) for a job interview. Not
going to begrudge her that.

> The Con Suite was rather small.

The ConSuite was significantly larger than the ConSuite at CC25 and 22,
and similar in size to the ConSuite at CC23. It was smaller than the
ConSuite at CC21 or CC24 (which was huge). It was also the largest room
that was covered under our corkage waiver, and the only large room that
was covered by the corkage waiver on an unrestricted floor.

It did suffer from the large “boardroom” table that cannot be removed.
We requested that they bring in a sofa or two, but that didn’t happen.

andy

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

Two points:

1. Most cons are understaffed. That’s as true for sf cons as it is for CCs; Philcon certainly is understaffed. For the old LASTcons, we once estimated that one half of the membership needed to volunteer at least a couple of hours for the con to run smoothly. It is unusually difficult to get members of a CC to volunteer at con both because so many are working on costumes and because the con’s semi sercon nature encourages attendance at a large number of program items.

2. I was very surprised that no groups other than CC 27 sponsored the con suite. This was the first CC in a long time that did not have the con suite sponsored morning, afternoon, and evening throughout the con. Instead, unlike most CCs, CC 26 had separate room parties. Other CCs may have had a few room parties; however, sponsored con suite parties were the principal party venue after official con functions ended. CC 27 clearly was able to learn how to sponsor the con suite. The Pups, who were the bid group at CC 26 and should have had the opportunity to sponsor the con suite on Sunday after the voting results were announced, were not able to do so.

Turning the con suite over to outside sponsoring groups also would have taken care of the problem of an understaffed hospitality department, to the benefit of the concom, the sponsors, and the members.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney<mailto:aramintamd@gmail.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 2:19 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – Hospitality

All right, then.

So here are the constructive things I’ve heard so far from the con
suite discussion, which can really be applied throughout the process:

* Make sure you have enough staff to cover the all bases and that
they’re clear on expectations and standards (because we have them and
when they’re not met we notice and are unhappy).

* We need to specify to our con suite managers that the con suite must
be available after the masquerade for at least several hours afterward
(till 2am at least or even 3am if feasible). [I’d love to include a
provision for showing the masquerade event(s) du juor, but that’s my
own personal preference and I’m just a con attendee….]

* We need to take more time to educate volunteers coming in from
outside the community so that they know what to expect when they’re at
CC. [Costume-Con University? Send Your Volunteers to School!]

Did I miss anything?

I can say, fairly safely, that the vast majority of communication
errors and problems over the last 8 years or so, give or take a con,
have had to do with understaffing and a lack of communication between
departments. The communication thing is especially important if you’re
bringing in folks from the local non-Costume-Con conventions to assist
with your con. Watch out for that friendly volunteer who only knows
how FooCon works and insists on doing things that way. Every time it
happens, the complaints are loud and extensive.

I’m getting punchy and the girls will be up too early today. Carry on!

-b

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

You’ll be happy to know that Archives has arranged to buy the entire
collection.

Bruce

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Betsy Delaney
> Sent: Tuesday, June 10, 2008 11:32 PM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – Costume-Con TV
>
>
> For the record, panels have been recorded for posterity at least
> twice, at CC6 and again at CC8 (I think), by Breighton (Rusty) Dawe’s
> company. I never purchased the sets (too much out of pocket money for
> me to afford with the archives). If someone in the crowd owns a set of
> these, it might be good to help the archives out. Hint.
>
> Cheers,

o/terms/

Harking back to something earlier, I’d have to agree that it’s a bid/future
CC rep or two actually be in the suite the night it is to be sponsored. It
avoids some communication problems. We made it very clear to all our people
who volunteered to help host that they needed to be in the Suite, setting
up, before the Masq ended.

And I don’t know if it was specifically stated – yes, the Con Suite should
be closed during the masquerade shows.

Bruce

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Byron Connell
> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 7:47 PM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – Hospitality
>
> Two points:
>
> 1. Most cons are understaffed. That’s as true for sf cons as it is for

CCs; Philcon

> certainly is understaffed. For the old LASTcons, we once estimated that

one half of

> the membership needed to volunteer at least a couple of hours for the con

to run

> smoothly. It is unusually difficult to get members of a CC to volunteer

at con both

> because so many are working on costumes and because the con’s semi sercon
> nature encourages attendance at a large number of program items.
>
> 2. I was very surprised that no groups other than CC 27 sponsored the con

suite.

> This was the first CC in a long time that did not have the con suite

sponsored

> morning, afternoon, and evening throughout the con. Instead, unlike most

CCs, CC

> 26 had separate room parties. Other CCs may have had a few room parties;
> however, sponsored con suite parties were the principal party venue after

official

> con functions ended. CC 27 clearly was able to learn how to sponsor the

con suite.

> The Pups, who were the bid group at CC 26 and should have had the

opportunity to

> sponsor the con suite on Sunday after the voting results were announced,

were not

> able to do so.
>
> Turning the con suite over to outside sponsoring groups also would have

taken care

> of the problem of an understaffed hospitality department, to the benefit

of the

> concom, the sponsors, and the members.
>
> Byron
>
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: Betsy Delaney<mailto:aramintamd@gmail.com>
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 2:19 AM
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – Hospitality
>
>
> All right, then.
>
> So here are the constructive things I’ve heard so far from the con
> suite discussion, which can really be applied throughout the process:
>
> * Make sure you have enough staff to cover the all bases and that
> they’re clear on expectations and standards (because we have them and
> when they’re not met we notice and are unhappy).
>
> * We need to specify to our con suite managers that the con suite must
> be available after the masquerade for at least several hours afterward
> (till 2am at least or even 3am if feasible). [I’d love to include a
> provision for showing the masquerade event(s) du juor, but that’s my
> own personal preference and I’m just a con attendee….]
>
> * We need to take more time to educate volunteers coming in from
> outside the community so that they know what to expect when they’re at
> CC. [Costume-Con University? Send Your Volunteers to School!]
>
> Did I miss anything?
>
> I can say, fairly safely, that the vast majority of communication
> errors and problems over the last 8 years or so, give or take a con,
> have had to do with understaffing and a lack of communication between
> departments. The communication thing is especially important if you’re
> bringing in folks from the local non-Costume-Con conventions to assist
> with your con. Watch out for that friendly volunteer who only knows
> how FooCon works and insists on doing things that way. Every time it
> happens, the complaints are loud and extensive.
>
> I’m getting punchy and the girls will be up too early today. Carry on!
>
> -b
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> ————————————
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/Yahoo!

Groups

> Links
>
>
>

As near as we can tell, this was very successful. The stickers on costumer
badges (I’m guessing to help keep track of who had been snapped) seemed a
bit fussy to some, but if it works, that’s what’s important. Having a
combined official and fan photography area seemed to work – the official
photographer seemed to be able to get his job done without much
interference.

“Richard had a nice selection of pics of my masq entry for me to choose
from. They weren’t overpriced and were ready for my within an hour of my
ordering them. Kudos there.”

The only criticism was about the order forms for photos. They were
confusing and incomprehensible. When some of us tried to ask an assistant
about it, she had difficulty explaining it, and deferred to the official
photographer, who was busy doing his job. Individual photos seemed
expensive to others, but we assume there’ll be a deal on CD/DVDs(?). Some
people like to buy a folio of official photos, but there appeared to be no
plans for that, judging by the undecipherable forms. Obviously, if there’s
eventually going to be “20000+” images, a smaller collection needs to be
available – nobody needs 30 different angles of the same costume. The
online folio available from CC24 was very affordable ($.20 a photo?), and I
believe we had something like it for CC25.

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

Oh, excellent!

That’s definitely a worthwhile investment on my ICG dues increase. 😎

Thanks!

Betsy

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:51 PM, Bruce & Nora Mai
<casamai@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> You’ll be happy to know that Archives has arranged to buy the entire
> collection.
>
> Bruce
>

Both Ricky and I have additional discussion on this topic to bring up (maybe over the weekend if we have time?), but I wanted to address one comment now.

This is being discussed on runacc and not on ICG-D because some of the information needs to be known by future concoms (so we can FIX it!), but should not be out there in general circulation.

If Bruce’s numbers below are not broken out by skill division, 40% of the overall entries got workmanship awards, and 32% of the overall entries got stage awards. Yes, the numbers seem low, especially for the stage awards, and especially for a Costume-Con. But not outrageously low (for example, if only 15% or 20% of the overall entries had received awards).

I am a firm believer in “Excellence Deserves Award.” That being said, once you start awarding high numbers of entries (over 60% of the masquerade), you might as well award the whole damn masquerade, because the ones who are left out are going to have VERY hurt feelings. This happened at the Chicago Worldcon in 1982 (the very hurt feelings), and it was a very bad situation that sparked off a lively discussion in Costumapa about what were reasonable percentages of awards to give, and I think the consensus was about 40% of the masquerade. (Remember, this was a Worldcon–the first CC hadn’t even happened yet.) And if you award the whole damn masquerade (as was done at one of the masquerades at CC11), the awards are no longer meaningful. (It’s just an “I’m OK, you’re OK, here we are all being mediocre together” lovefest.) So you have to draw the line somewhere.

I was one of the presentation judges at CC26. Yes, I knew there were going to have to be some difficult cuts so we didn’t award the whole damn masquerade (as discussed above). Unfortunately, my co-judges really took that to heart and only wanted to award 3 or 4 things in each skill division. I had to fight just to get a few Honorable Mentions to pop the numbers. I specifically revisited the Master Division, which comprised HALF the masquerade, and said, “This is the largest division. Are you SURE you don’t want to give out more awards? We don’t have to be stingy here.” Nope, they’d picked their handful of things, they were happy, they didn’t even want to look at the rest. End of discussion.

Given my druthers, I would have awarded 5 or 6 more entries in the Master Division, and 1 or 2 more entries in the Journeyman Division. And the overall percentages would have been much more in line with the “average” numbers for CC that Bruce cited below. But I was working with two co-judges who had never judged at a CC before (one of them had never even attended a CC before), were apparently unfamilar with our con culture (or at least our usual judging criteria), and voted as a bloc that I could not get past. I’m sure they meant well, but none of us were given any judging instructions by the Masquerade Director (not even “Excellence Deserves Award”), so they worked with what they knew.

So this is the part where I say:

(1) It is VERY important that the Masquerade Director give instructions to the judges, and some of the instructive items possibly should be:

a) Excellence deserves award.
b) This is a costume competition, not a talent show. Judge the costume first and the presentation second.
c) Forgive minor wobbles in a presentation. Most of the entrants are amateurs doing this as a hobby.
d) Unfortunate accidents (falling off the stage) should not count against a contestant.
e) I don’t care if you’ve seen that entry at 5 other local and regional conventions. This is an international convention and the entrant is allowed to compete up.
f) I don’t care if you’ve seen that concept/costume done better by somebody else somewhere else. You are judging what’s on the stage here tonight.

(2) I am all for training new judges, so we have a larger pool to draw from. HOWEVER, it’s probably a good idea to have only ONE newbie judge on a panel at one time. The voting bloc of two newbie judges (out of a panel of 3, so the experienced judge was a minority) at CC26 is most of what made the presentation awards so eccentric.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

–Karen

—– Original Message —–
From: Bruce & Nora Mai
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 11:55 AM
Subject: [runacc] CC26 – The SF & F Masquerade

Without boring you too much, the SF & F masquerades in the past 5 years
averaged anywhere from 50% to 66% of the entries receiving some sort of
awards in each Skill Division. This is how CC26 broke down, excluding Best
In Show:

10 Novices
13 Journeymen
24 Masters

Workmanship awards
Novices – 5 (50%)
Journeymen – 7 (53%)
Masters – 7 – (29%)

Presentation awards
Novices – 4 (40%)
Journeymen – 4 (30%)
Masters – 7 (29%)

Maybe I could see that the presentations for Journeymen might not have been
stellar, but what obviously stands out is the low percentage for Masters.
To me, something was amiss. Given the quality of the costumes I saw back
stage, the Costume-Con axiom “Excellence Deserves Recognition” was clearly
not well served – especially for the Master entries.

.

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

I wish I had realized this was going on*. I’ve already mentioned to
Ricky and Karen offlist that I didn’t realize there was no judges
briefing; I’d left that to the MD to carry out and expected it would
happen at the judges’ dinner.

However — the published judging guidelines (which were part of the
published F&SF Rules for CC26) very specifically mention “Excellence
Deserves Award”
They’re still posted: the last section but one on this page:
http://www.cc26.info/main.php?section=events&page=fsf_masq

So that tells me that on top of there being no briefing, the new judges
Had Not Read The Rules!

That is something to add to our list of lessons to carry forward: as
part of the briefing, make sure the judges have read and are familiar
with the rules.

Kevin

*(for those of you who saw me backstage at CC26 on Saturday, I was there
to try and keep my database disaster from making things any worse, not
to try to take over for Jennifer)

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
>
> Given my druthers, I would have awarded 5 or 6 more entries in the
> Master Division, and 1 or 2 more entries in the Journeyman Division.
> And the overall percentages would have been much more in line with the
> “average” numbers for CC that Bruce cited below. But I was working
> with two co-judges who had never judged at a CC before (one of them
> had never even attended a CC before), were apparently unfamilar with
> our con culture (or at least our usual judging criteria), and voted as
> a bloc that I could not get past. I’m sure they meant well, but none
> of us were given any judging instructions by the Masquerade Director
> (not even “Excellence Deserves Award”), so they worked with what they
> knew.
>
>
>

In a message dated 6/11/2008 10:02:01 PM Central Daylight Time,
casamai@sbcglobal.net writes:

> Harking back to something earlier, I’d have to agree that it’s a bid/future
> CC rep or two actually be in the suite the night it is to be sponsored. It
> avoids some communication problems. We made it very clear to all our people
> who volunteered to help host that they needed to be in the Suite, setting
> up, before the Masq ended.
>
>
>
>
>

My money was tight, and so was available staff. So, I had Kringle delivered
as a contribution to the Suite.

Henry

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

From the perspective of the green rooms, official photography ran very smoothly and swiftly. In addition, Richard was able to accommodate my requests to move up entrants who were early in the running order, to assure that everyone was photographed before going on stage.

Good job!

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Bruce & Nora Mai<mailto:casamai@sbcglobal.net>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 11:02 PM
Subject: [runacc] CC26 – Official Photography

As near as we can tell, this was very successful. The stickers on costumer
badges (I’m guessing to help keep track of who had been snapped) seemed a
bit fussy to some, but if it works, that’s what’s important. Having a
combined official and fan photography area seemed to work – the official
photographer seemed to be able to get his job done without much
interference.

“Richard had a nice selection of pics of my masq entry for me to choose
from. They weren’t overpriced and were ready for my within an hour of my
ordering them. Kudos there.”

The only criticism was about the order forms for photos. They were
confusing and incomprehensible. When some of us tried to ask an assistant
about it, she had difficulty explaining it, and deferred to the official
photographer, who was busy doing his job. Individual photos seemed
expensive to others, but we assume there’ll be a deal on CD/DVDs(?). Some
people like to buy a folio of official photos, but there appeared to be no
plans for that, judging by the undecipherable forms. Obviously, if there’s
eventually going to be “20000+” images, a smaller collection needs to be
available – nobody needs 30 different angles of the same costume. The
online folio available from CC24 was very affordable ($.20 a photo?), and I
believe we had something like it for CC25.

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

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

workmanship judging at CC-26 was the single most unpleasant CC experience for me ever.

We all spent way too much time on judges instructions after the Ogden masq, to ensure many of the things Karen listed would come to pass.
Sadley the CC-26 Masq director was part of the group in Ogden that parcipitated the whole judging conversation.

those lessons were either not learned , or there was a gliche somewhere, because my workmanship judging partner came to the party with more bias that a Wright factory trim outlet.

If I hadn’t fought for them, there would have been AT LEAST 7 less awards given.
as it was, there were still,people that got screwed in the judging. Lisa Ashton especially.

as for the way judging was set up for us, well, that made it impossable for everyone to get a fair deal.
Aurora Celeste for sure got the short end because of the problems.

a simple answer would have been a set of pipe and drape out in the hall way, so a den or two, and the check in table could have been out there.
perhaps the hotel didn’t want this, but guess what, part of the problem we had was that like it or not, the big costumes went out there, so we had to go back and forth to judge them. the space got used either way, just very inefficientley.

The demands on Byron were unfair, and he and I even had a few cross moments, which has never happened. mostly because of space usage.

but the worst was actually figuring out the awards.
my partner was stingy, and had an intentional bias about many of the entrants there, whether it be that she had already seen the costume, or that she had seen other costumes like it, she could not tolerate the idea that, if it’s there we judge it as if it’s our very first time to ever see something like that.

She finally got sick of me, and just started recuseing herself when I would bring something up, so I started handing out all the honorable mentions to at least get people something.

but what a mess.
I strongly suggest she not be allowed anywhere near a CC judging panel again for quite a long time

rough night. I shall not be judging for a while, that’s for sure. I have too many friends still pissed at me, because for both Karen and I, well, we’re easy targets, the other 3 judges that night, go off into the darkness and no one knows where to find them.

Gravely MacCabre
http://www.castleblood.com
http://www.midnightmonsterhop.com
http://www.myspace.com/thecastleblood
http://www.myspace.com/midnightmonsterhop
clip samples at
http://www.veoh.com/channels/castleblood

—– Original Message —-
From: Ricky & Karen Dick <castleb@atlanticbb.net>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 2:14:36 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – The SF & F Masquerade

Both Ricky and I have additional discussion on this topic to bring up (maybe over the weekend if we have time?), but I wanted to address one comment now.

This is being discussed on runacc and not on ICG-D because some of the information needs to be known by future concoms (so we can FIX it!), but should not be out there in general circulation.

If Bruce’s numbers below are not broken out by skill division, 40% of the overall entries got workmanship awards, and 32% of the overall entries got stage awards. Yes, the numbers seem low, especially for the stage awards, and especially for a Costume-Con. But not outrageously low (for example, if only 15% or 20% of the overall entries had received awards).

I am a firm believer in “Excellence Deserves Award.” That being said, once you start awarding high numbers of entries (over 60% of the masquerade), you might as well award the whole damn masquerade, because the ones who are left out are going to have VERY hurt feelings. This happened at the Chicago Worldcon in 1982 (the very hurt feelings), and it was a very bad situation that sparked off a lively discussion in Costumapa about what were reasonable percentages of awards to give, and I think the consensus was about 40% of the masquerade. (Remember, this was a Worldcon–the first CC hadn’t even happened yet.) And if you award the whole damn masquerade (as was done at one of the masquerades at CC11), the awards are no longer meaningful. (It’s just an “I’m OK, you’re OK, here we are all being mediocre together” lovefest.) So you have to draw the line somewhere.

I was one of the presentation judges at CC26. Yes, I knew there were going to have to be some difficult cuts so we didn’t award the whole damn masquerade (as discussed above). Unfortunately, my co-judges really took that to heart and only wanted to award 3 or 4 things in each skill division. I had to fight just to get a few Honorable Mentions to pop the numbers. I specifically revisited the Master Division, which comprised HALF the masquerade, and said, “This is the largest division. Are you SURE you don’t want to give out more awards? We don’t have to be stingy here.” Nope, they’d picked their handful of things, they were happy, they didn’t even want to look at the rest. End of discussion.

Given my druthers, I would have awarded 5 or 6 more entries in the Master Division, and 1 or 2 more entries in the Journeyman Division. And the overall percentages would have been much more in line with the “average” numbers for CC that Bruce cited below. But I was working with two co-judges who had never judged at a CC before (one of them had never even attended a CC before), were apparently unfamilar with our con culture (or at least our usual judging criteria), and voted as a bloc that I could not get past. I’m sure they meant well, but none of us were given any judging instructions by the Masquerade Director (not even “Excellence Deserves Award”), so they worked with what they knew.

So this is the part where I say:

(1) It is VERY important that the Masquerade Director give instructions to the judges, and some of the instructive items possibly should be:

a) Excellence deserves award.
b) This is a costume competition, not a talent show. Judge the costume first and the presentation second.
c) Forgive minor wobbles in a presentation. Most of the entrants are amateurs doing this as a hobby.
d) Unfortunate accidents (falling off the stage) should not count against a contestant.
e) I don’t care if you’ve seen that entry at 5 other local and regional conventions. This is an international convention and the entrant is allowed to compete up.
f) I don’t care if you’ve seen that concept/costume done better by somebody else somewhere else. You are judging what’s on the stage here tonight.

(2) I am all for training new judges, so we have a larger pool to draw from. HOWEVER, it’s probably a good idea to have only ONE newbie judge on a panel at one time. The voting bloc of two newbie judges (out of a panel of 3, so the experienced judge was a minority) at CC26 is most of what made the presentation awards so eccentric.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

–Karen

—– Original Message —–
From: Bruce & Nora Mai
To: runacc@yahoogroups. com
Sent: Sunday, June 08, 2008 11:55 AM
Subject: [runacc] CC26 – The SF & F Masquerade

Without boring you too much, the SF & F masquerades in the past 5 years
averaged anywhere from 50% to 66% of the entries receiving some sort of
awards in each Skill Division. This is how CC26 broke down, excluding Best
In Show:

10 Novices
13 Journeymen
24 Masters

Workmanship awards
Novices – 5 (50%)
Journeymen – 7 (53%)
Masters – 7 – (29%)

Presentation awards
Novices – 4 (40%)
Journeymen – 4 (30%)
Masters – 7 (29%)

Maybe I could see that the presentations for Journeymen might not have been
stellar, but what obviously stands out is the low percentage for Masters.
To me, something was amiss. Given the quality of the costumes I saw back
stage, the Costume-Con axiom “Excellence Deserves Recognition” was clearly
not well served – especially for the Master entries.

..

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

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

Wow. That’s – that’s really…..unconscionable. I’ll readily admit I’m
singularly unimpressed with Klingons – just as an example, but I’ll still be
impressed if it’s a good Klingon costume. I guess you didn’t really have
the time, but this should have been reported to the MD. If the MD (or
whoever chose the judges) didn’t know about this bias, they should have.
And never asked them.

Bruce

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Gravely MacCabre
> Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 7:11 PM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – The SF & F Masquerade
>
>
> but the worst was actually figuring out the awards.
> my partner was stingy, and had an intentional bias about many of the

entrants there,

> whether it be that she had already seen the costume, or that she had seen

other

> costumes like it, she could not tolerate the idea that, if it’s there we

judge it as if it’s

> our very first time to ever see something like that.
>
> She finally got sick of me, and just started recuseing herself when I

would bring

> something up, so I started handing out all the honorable mentions to at

least get

> people something.
>
> but what a mess.
> I strongly suggest she not be allowed anywhere near a CC judging panel

again for

> quite a long time
>
> rough night. I shall not be judging for a while, that’s for sure. I have

too many

> friends still pissed at me, because for both Karen and I, well, we’re easy

targets, the

> other 3 judges that night, go off into the darkness and no one knows where

to find

> them.

This show did one of the best jobs of capturing a Fashion Show to date –
suspending the flash photography rule worked for this event. Seating was
good, allowing for relatively close up views of the costumers. There were
complaints that the 8:00 am rehearsal time was unnecessary, given how brief
the rehearsals actually were. Communications between some of the Fashion
Show staff seemed disjointed, with some staff not all on the same page when
giving participants their instructions. The projectors used to show
designs from the Folio worn by the participants worked well for the most
part.

There was one supposed complaint about the judging:

“I know a cosplay girl who actually won an award at the FFF but was

> treated horrably by the judges which is why she had requested to be
> exebition and not judged. Which was not done. Found this out from her
> mom who I spent a lot of time with the night before so she felt
> comfortable telling me.”

But this was disputed by someone else:

“.costume backgrounds was definitely NEVER commented on. A very prominent
cosplayer won one of the categories, and one of the judges is also a
cosplayer, and no one present seemed to care enough to comment during any of
the process. I also don’t remember anyone being treated horribly during
judging from where I was sitting.. There were also people who refused to be
judged, the line was voluntary, unless she was confused over which line she
was standing in and accidentally ended up at judging.
However, from inference, I believe this was more of a case of a combination
of parental expectations of a different kind of contest and lack of
communication with the FFF directors on many levels, not all of them the
fault of the con.”

Showing the fashions by category, and then immediately announcing their
awards worked very well. The judges were reported to be attentive and
friendly.

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

I believe a decision to enter out-of-competition would have had to have been made before judging, not after.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Bruce & Nora Mai<mailto:casamai@sbcglobal.net>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 9:49 PM
Subject: [runacc] CC26 – Future Fashion Show

This show did one of the best jobs of capturing a Fashion Show to date –
suspending the flash photography rule worked for this event. Seating was
good, allowing for relatively close up views of the costumers. There were
complaints that the 8:00 am rehearsal time was unnecessary, given how brief
the rehearsals actually were. Communications between some of the Fashion
Show staff seemed disjointed, with some staff not all on the same page when
giving participants their instructions. The projectors used to show
designs from the Folio worn by the participants worked well for the most
part.

There was one supposed complaint about the judging:

“I know a cosplay girl who actually won an award at the FFF but was
> treated horrably by the judges which is why she had requested to be
> exebition and not judged. Which was not done. Found this out from her
> mom who I spent a lot of time with the night before so she felt
> comfortable telling me.”

But this was disputed by someone else:

“.costume backgrounds was definitely NEVER commented on. A very prominent
cosplayer won one of the categories, and one of the judges is also a
cosplayer, and no one present seemed to care enough to comment during any of
the process. I also don’t remember anyone being treated horribly during
judging from where I was sitting.. There were also people who refused to be
judged, the line was voluntary, unless she was confused over which line she
was standing in and accidentally ended up at judging.
However, from inference, I believe this was more of a case of a combination
of parental expectations of a different kind of contest and lack of
communication with the FFF directors on many levels, not all of them the
fault of the con.”

Showing the fashions by category, and then immediately announcing their
awards worked very well. The judges were reported to be attentive and
friendly.

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

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

I spoke to the mother in question; the problem was that the way the
announcements were made made it sound like judging was mandatory.

There was also an issue that the young lady’s paperwork was missing
release forms, and thus they ended up out of sorts to start with because
she was not admitted to the backstage until they were found and signed.
The mom felt the girl was being ostracized and punished by being made to
sit outside during that time.

It was entirely dramalicious… I know the mom in question, and a series
of her buttons got pushed in rapid succession by brusque communications
from the Directors.

Kevin

Byron Connell wrote:

>
> I believe a decision to enter out-of-competition would have had to
> have been made before judging, not after.
>
> Byron
>

On Thu, Jun 12, 2008 at 9:38 PM, Bruce & Nora Mai <casamai@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

> Wow. That’s – that’s really…..unconscionable. I’ll readily admit I’m
> singularly unimpressed with Klingons – just as an example, but I’ll still be
> impressed if it’s a good Klingon costume. I guess you didn’t really have
> the time, but this should have been reported to the MD. If the MD (or
> whoever chose the judges) didn’t know about this bias, they should have.
> And never asked them.
>
> Bruce
>
>> —–Original Message—–
>> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
>> Gravely MacCabre
>> Sent: Thursday, June 12, 2008 7:11 PM
>> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – The SF & F Masquerade
>>
>> rough night. I shall not be judging for a while, that’s for sure. I have
> too many
>> friends still pissed at me, because for both Karen and I, well, we’re easy
> targets, the
>> other 3 judges that night, go off into the darkness and no one knows where
> to find
>> them.

Sadly, it’s this same sort of experience that has put me off judging
for the future. I may reconsider if I think the other judges will be
fair, but after CC23, I’ve still got a sour taste in my mouth.

I can really feel both Karen and Ricky’s pain on this particular
subject. It’s hard enough to answer people when they ask why this or
that got an award, but it’s damn painful when you know you’d have
given something to someone and the other judges (because of personal
bias) refused to do it. There’s almost nothing you can say that will
make it any better for the individuals who you know got shafted
because of that bias.

As I said, I hope the future CC directors have been chosen very
carefully and are prepared to give appropriate instructions to their
judges (and are ready to enforce them, as needed).

Betsy

Kevin Roche, Costume-con 26 Convention Chair wrote:

> There was also an issue that the young lady’s paperwork was missing
> release forms, and thus they ended up out of sorts to start with because
> she was not admitted to the backstage until they were found and signed.
> The mom felt the girl was being ostracized and punished by being made to
> sit outside during that time.

I was one of the people sitting up talking with her (the mom) until
oh-god-awful Sunday morning in the sewing room, and we talked then about
their not having checked in at the FFS desk to complete their paperwork
on Friday or on Saturday morning.

Regardless of whether the directors responded inappropriately or not,
this was also a question of the entrant and her mom not reading the
rules or understanding their responsibilities.

andy

The show itself was well-paced, and the MC did an excellent job of
pronouncing difficult names. Once again, though, there seemed to be very
few awards for the body of works presented. Because there are always fewer
entries in the Historical, it’s a little harder to judge percentages, plus
the criteria for awards are different. Nonetheless..

Stats, based on the CC26 website:

28 entries, excluding non-competition or Young Fan. Excluding the BIS and a
Director’s Special Award (mentioned earlier):

Workmanship
2 out of 4 Novices
3 out of 8 Journeymen
2 out of 12 Masters

Presentation
1 out of 4 Novices
1 out of 8 Journeymen
3 out of 12 Masters

Were the standards that much higher? I’ll leave you to draw your own
conclusions.

Some people did not like the format of the judging. To be fair, everyone
has their preferences of a being judged in their rooms vs. presenting to a
panel, but here’s a story from one of our people:

“It seemed like the judges took more time to clarify if my entry counted to
be entered than they spent actually talking to me about it. They had shown
much knowledge about my documentation, though, so perhaps I just had good
info in there to balance.
However, having a table crammed with 8 people to talk to in judging (later
determined only 5 were judges) was incredibly unnerving, and there was no
spokesperson or ‘friendly face’, just people shooting businesslike questions
in a few minutes. I was also told in uncertain terms that my judging was to
be fast, and I got half the time of the people before me because they were
running behind and the clerk was rushing them.”

Also:

“The historical judges were unnecessarily intimidating. Doesn’t hurt to be
friendly. And I know they didn’t read my documentation (which was amazingly
short) cause one asked me why I chose the fabric I did which was clearly
spelled out on the second page”

This would seem to be yet another indication of problems with the selection
of the judges, as has been discussed here and on the D list. Sounds like
these people took themselves way too seriously.

It should also be pointed out that, once again, a special mention award was
overlooked being announced by the MD.

The next bits are just my personal observations:

I don’t know if you all heard about two Green Room incidents: one may be
needed to review for policy, the other was a just disturbing.

Returning from stage, one entry’s participants broke open some flasks to
celebrate. Maybe it’s me, but I found this inappropriate to have alcohol in
the Green Room. The people who were involved should have known better. I
can’t imagine it setting any precedents, but con committees don’t want to be
caught unawares.

I call the other incident “Who brought the loaded gun into the Green Room”?
A participant changed their child’s diaper in the Green Room on a chair used
by the rest of the costumers present. First of all – ew. It was bad enough
that no attempt was made to cover said seat, so this it wasn’t exactly
sanitary for use afterwards. What was worse was this was a male infant and
no precautions were taken in case there was an “accident”. This was just
irresponsible. Imagine what kind of catastrophe might have occurred had
something happened? Again, a one-time incident, but the Den folks should
get some blame for not catching this and offering an alternative.

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

These comments on the Hist. judges should be no surprise anytime the Orie Bradley Historical Mafia are in control of a masquerade judges panel

There was one east coast judge on the panel, and she too was treated as the poor stepchild who should just keep quiet as she obviously didn’t know anything.

although for openness I’ll confess that my ass is still smarting over the same treatment ( mean, snotty and don’t read documentation) that the same group gave me at CC-6
They know what they know, and we are all beneath them.

which in one way is fine as a judge, better to have smart ones than dumb ones as far as the topic goes ( which is why I’ve turned down judging historic in the past)but not when you have to judge something that takes interpersonal skills and actuall communication with the entrants
Ricky

Also:

“The historical judges were unnecessarily intimidating. Doesn’t hurt to be
friendly. And I know they didn’t read my documentation (which was amazingly
short) cause one asked me why I chose the fabric I did which was clearly
spelled out on the second page”

This would seem to be yet another indication of problems with the selection
of the judges, as has been discussed here and on the D list. Sounds like
these people took themselves way too seriously.

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

The show itself was well-paced, and the MC did an excellent job of
pronouncing difficult names.

Agreed, what a sly way of saying Jay was a good ballanced mc and obviously a breath of fresh air after the HORRIBLE awful crappiest job of mcing I’ve seen at a CC from the night before.

I don’t want the hist. topic to get highjacked here, and go back to sf, so I just wanted your comment as a segue.

Ricky

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

Yes, where on earth did the MC come from that did the F&S/F?!!

It was obvious he didn’t go over anyone’s names with them backstage because he mispronounced so many of them.

He did “joke” introductions of the judges (which we all played along with, thinking he would do the real ones later, and he NEVER did).

He read from his blog to kill time (and his blog was NOT that interesting).

When “made,” “worn,” and “constructed by” information was identical, he insisted on reading the same long string of names three times instead of saying “made, worn, and constructed by” and reading the names once.

I felt like I had gone back 30 years to the MCing of yore…and NOT in a good way.

–Karen

—– Original Message —–
From: Gravely MacCabre
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 11:17 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – the Historical Masquerade

The show itself was well-paced, and the MC did an excellent job of
pronouncing difficult names.

Agreed, what a sly way of saying Jay was a good ballanced mc and obviously a breath of fresh air after the HORRIBLE awful crappiest job of mcing I’ve seen at a CC from the night before.

I don’t want the hist. topic to get highjacked here, and go back to sf, so I just wanted your comment as a segue.

Ricky

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

——————————————————————————

No virus found in this incoming message.
Checked by AVG.
Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.3.0/1501 – Release Date: 6/13/2008 6:33 AM

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

And speaking of the judges’ introductions…

The F&S/F judges were told that they could not walk across the stage when they were introduced because of the stage and pipe-and-drape setup. (i.e., it would be difficult to get to the judges’ table)

The F&S/F judges got “joke” (unintelligible made-up words) introductions by the MC, and never got real ones. (And this is not an ego-boo thing–the audience, contestants, and fellow judges need to know that judging is being done by qualified people.)

However…

Funny thing, on the next night (with the SAME stage setup), the Historical judges walked across the stage as they were introduced.

And the Historical judges each got a nice introduction about their costuming credentials and interests.

I feel like a second-class citizen right now.

–Karen

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

There is one simple difference between Saturday and Sunday:: the
Historical MDs and the crew (the *same* crew) had the benefit of
learning from everything that went to crap on Saturday night, and an
extra day to change things.
That is one reason many (not all) things worked better at Historical.
Kevin

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
> And speaking of the judges’ introductions…
>
> The F&S/F judges were told that they could not walk across the stage
> when they were introduced because of the stage and pipe-and-drape
> setup. (i.e., it would be difficult to get to the judges’ table)
>
> The F&S/F judges got “joke” (unintelligible made-up words)
> introductions by the MC, and never got real ones. (And this is not an
> ego-boo thing–the audience, contestants, and fellow judges need to
> know that judging is being done by qualified people.)
>
> However…
>
> Funny thing, on the next night (with the SAME stage setup), the
> Historical judges walked across the stage as they were introduced.
>
> And the Historical judges each got a nice introduction about their
> costuming credentials and interests.
>
> I feel like a second-class citizen right now.
>
> –Karen
>
> [
>
> .
>
>

The emcee of the SF/F masquerade was appallingly bad.

The folks back stage left were looking at each other like this guy was
from Mars. Literally.

Would this fall under the same category of “didn’t get instructions
prior to the masquerade?” I understand he was stalling because he
needed paperwork, but there are far better ways to entertain the
audience.

I’ve got experience at the microphone (especially after CCXV), but
I’ve never emceed before this year’s event and I was exceptionally
nervous about getting it “right.” Especially after the previous event,
I was terrified Sunday morning. Thank god tech got it right for the
Fashion Show.

What on earth?

-b

Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:

> “And I know they didn’t read my documentation (which was amazingly
> short) cause one asked me why I chose the fabric I did which was clearly
> spelled out on the second page”

Mind you, I wasn’t judging, so I can’t speak to the specific incident,
but…

Asking a question that’s answered in the documentation doesn’t
necessarily mean that the judges didn’t read it. It could as easily
indicate they did.

Some judges are sneaky. This could be a fishing tactic to see how well
the entrant knows their material. I would discourage this sort of thing
myself.

An open-ended question may also indicate that the judges are looking for
a more thorough answer than merely what the doc provides, but they don’t
want to lead the entrant to a specific answer. I think that’s a valid
technique, as it can lead to answers the judges don’t expect.

Then again, there’s the likely possibility:

The judges did read the documentation, but all the entries makes for a
lot of material. Not every detail of every piece of documentation stuck
in their brain, or it stuck just enough to trigger a question.

andy

One of our biggest pre-con difficulties (and one I think Byron will have
sympathy for after his experience last year) with all the competitions
this year was in recruiting judges.

While Ellie and Jennifer both used to be regular CC attendees, they both
fell out of the circuit years ago, and their much of their out-of-region
connections dried up. So that was part of the problem.

The other part of the problem was that most of their still-good
connections (who weren’t on staff) were all planning entries, and
weren’t available. They just didn’t get started recruiting early enough
to catch folks before they made entry plans.

That’s how we got multiple judges with limited or no Costume-Con
experience on the F&SF panels, and how Lisa (who we recruited for Ellie)
got dropped in on a judging panel where everyone else was practically
family.

So here’s what didn’t happen on our end that ya’ll need to consider:

If Marty is going to be at Denvention, he ought to talk with the CC27
show directors about what he can do to help recruit judges for them when
he’s there. Better yet, if your directors are going to be at Worldcon,
they can recruit themselves. I’ve talked with Jill and Dr. Karen about
their masquerade, and I think they’re off to a great start.

Henry: You need to have your show directors at CC27 talking with
possible judge candidates. If you’ve got anybody going to Anticipation
(Montreal Worldcon), ditto.

We didn’t have WorldCon as a recruiting point last year; Yokohama was
just too far away and too expensive for so many people. The folks who do
both WorldCon and CC often have a lull in plans at that point, it’s a
great time to get them. Recruiting at ConJose was one of the things that
helped me develop a geographically diverse panel of judges for CC21.

andy

On Jun 11, 2008, at 5:21 PM, Byron Connell wrote:

> I told Bruce that the lack of food in the green room was my fault.
> It was not Carole Parker’s fault.
>
> The concom insisted that I have a second. This is one of the major
> problems of having a department head on the wrong coast from the
> rest of the concom. There was no one on the committee except Carole
> that I trusted to fill that function. After I was told that someone
> on the concom told her that she was not truly my second, just a
> stand-in at committee meetings, I had to repair my authority and
> reassured her that I had indeed designated her as second.

This hits on the issue of disaster-planning that Ricky brought up.
Every department head having a second was a major disaster-planning
effort. This was partially to ensure that in a real disaster, there
would be someone who had all the info and could take over, and
partially to spread out the work at-con.

* There were departments in which things ran well enough that having
or not having a second did not make a difference to their success.
* There were departments in which having a second was an important
part of their success. Having a hotel second was a big part of hotel’s
success, not because the primary was a problem but because things
happened with the hotel itself that increased their work-load. Having
a good tech second helped us recover from some hits tech took in the
week before the convention.
* There were departments in which having a second helped, but
ultimately wasn’t enough. F&SF masquerade.
* There were departments in which not having a second caused their
performance to suffer. ConSuite and Programming were both impacted by
not having a second. Programming had an actual disaster, Hillary
Ayer’s 80-something Mom was hospitalized and nearly died earlier this
spring. It took programming offline for almost a month (work was being
done, but communication was very limited).

In addition to that, the committee had a rule to prevent people from
over-extending themselves: Only one job at a time. A committee member
could have one at-con job and one pre-con job (helping here and there
in someone else’s department was OK if you weren’t the lynchpin to
their success).

Jennifer and Henry came out of CC21 very crispy because they had too
many hats on at the same time. We’ve watched and worked on Westercons
where way too many people appeared in the staff list way too many
times, to their and the convention’s detriment.

Carole should not have accepted your request, and she knew that. She
already had one pre-con job (ethnic costume program, and she delivered
some really great presenters) and one at-con job (fabric and museum
tours, which were sloppy at best). She’s incapable, though, of saying
“no” when asked to help. She also wormed her way into a bunch of areas
where her help wasn’t requested, needed, and in some cases was
actually a problem (Hospitality and Communications are the big ones).
This impacted her performance on the job that she was first recruited
for and should have been her top priority.

andy

I’m glad to see that someone else found the F&S/F MC as tedious (and
un-funny) as I did; I would much prefer vampire jokes, or even sheep
jokes, to his pitiful blog. I can only assume that he’s a local who
is accustomed to venues such as comic cons, where callow “humor” may
be more “appreciated” by the attendees. My immediate reaction
was “where did they dig up this turkey?”

Did the MD choose the MC, or did the committee? If the MD did, I do
not think at all highly of her judgment. (The same, of course, is
also true if the MC was selected by the committee — sorry, Andy &
Kevin.)

Tina

— In runacc@yahoogroups.com, “Ricky & Karen Dick” <castleb@…>
wrote:

>
> Yes, where on earth did the MC come from that did the F&S/F?!!
>
> It was obvious he didn’t go over anyone’s names with them backstage

because he mispronounced so many of them.

>
> He did “joke” introductions of the judges (which we all played

along with, thinking he would do the real ones later, and he NEVER
did).

>
> He read from his blog to kill time (and his blog was NOT that

interesting).

>
> When “made,” “worn,” and “constructed by” information was

identical, he insisted on reading the same long string of names
three times instead of saying “made, worn, and constructed by” and
reading the names once.

>
> I felt like I had gone back 30 years to the MCing of yore…and NOT

in a good way.

>
> –Karen
>
>
> —– Original Message —–
> From: Gravely MacCabre
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 11:17 AM
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – the Historical Masquerade
>
>
>
>
> The show itself was well-paced, and the MC did an excellent job of
> pronouncing difficult names.
>
> Agreed, what a sly way of saying Jay was a good ballanced mc and

obviously a breath of fresh air after the HORRIBLE awful crappiest
job of mcing I’ve seen at a CC from the night before.

>
> I don’t want the hist. topic to get highjacked here, and go back

to sf, so I just wanted your comment as a segue.

>
> Ricky
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ——————————————————————–

———-

>
>
> No virus found in this incoming message.
> Checked by AVG.
> Version: 7.5.524 / Virus Database: 270.3.0/1501 – Release Date:

6/13/2008 6:33 AM

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

The thing I noticed was the first judge’s intros lasted almost as long as a
presentation. I timed it. I guess this happens when they’re allowed to
write their own intro.

Bruce

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Ricky & Karen Dick
> Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 11:15 AM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – F&S/F Masquerade
>
> And speaking of the judges’ introductions…
>
>
> And the Historical judges each got a nice introduction about their

costuming

> credentials and interests.
>
> I feel like a second-class citizen right now.
>
> –Karen

To be fair – I thought I covered this – my understanding was that he did not
have the time to get the names right. Given that tech rehearsals ran late,
and (can this be confirmed?) the scripts were late being printed.

Watching the video the other day for the first time, he wasn’t the absolute
worst, but the joking did get distracting at times. He wasn’t doing himself
any service by constantly calling attention to the fact he was inexperienced
(at least for CC). I thought it interesting how his version of his MC turn
on his blog varies vastly from yours.

Again, I guess this can be chalked up to having someone who is not familiar
to the format.

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Ricky & Karen Dick
> Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 10:45 AM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – the Historical Masquerade
>
> Yes, where on earth did the MC come from that did the F&S/F?!!
>
> It was obvious he didn’t go over anyone’s names with them backstage

because he

> mispronounced so many of them.
>
> He did “joke” introductions of the judges (which we all played along with,

thinking he

> would do the real ones later, and he NEVER did).
>
> He read from his blog to kill time (and his blog was NOT that

interesting).

>
> When “made,” “worn,” and “constructed by” information was identical, he

insisted

> on reading the same long string of names three times instead of saying

“made,

> worn, and constructed by” and reading the names once.
>
> I felt like I had gone back 30 years to the MCing of yore…and NOT in a

good way.

>
> –Karen
>

This is a common problem – staff double-ups. At CC16, we wound up pretty
toasty from everyone doing more than one job. Fortunately, we’ve managed to
stay friends through all that. I’ve always been proud of the people in our
organization, because we started out as a group of friends, and we’re pretty
much a very cohesive group that works well together, so long as each person
is allowed a fair amount of leeway.

I think we did a much better job of having enough staff at CC25.

Bruce

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Andrew T Trembley
> Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 6:28 PM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [runacc] Disaster Avoidance (was Re: CC26 – Hospitality
>
> On Jun 11, 2008, at 5:21 PM, Byron Connell wrote:
> > I told Bruce that the lack of food in the green room was my fault.
> > It was not Carole Parker’s fault.
> >
> > The concom insisted that I have a second. This is one of the major
> > problems of having a department head on the wrong coast from the
> > rest of the concom. There was no one on the committee except Carole
> > that I trusted to fill that function. After I was told that someone
> > on the concom told her that she was not truly my second, just a
> > stand-in at committee meetings, I had to repair my authority and
> > reassured her that I had indeed designated her as second.
>
> This hits on the issue of disaster-planning that Ricky brought up.
> Every department head having a second was a major disaster-planning
> effort. This was partially to ensure that in a real disaster, there
> would be someone who had all the info and could take over, and
> partially to spread out the work at-con.
>
> * There were departments in which things ran well enough that having
> or not having a second did not make a difference to their success.
> * There were departments in which having a second was an important
> part of their success. Having a hotel second was a big part of hotel’s
> success, not because the primary was a problem but because things
> happened with the hotel itself that increased their work-load. Having
> a good tech second helped us recover from some hits tech took in the
> week before the convention.
> * There were departments in which having a second helped, but
> ultimately wasn’t enough. F&SF masquerade.
> * There were departments in which not having a second caused their
> performance to suffer. ConSuite and Programming were both impacted by
> not having a second. Programming had an actual disaster, Hillary
> Ayer’s 80-something Mom was hospitalized and nearly died earlier this
> spring. It took programming offline for almost a month (work was being
> done, but communication was very limited).
>
> In addition to that, the committee had a rule to prevent people from
> over-extending themselves: Only one job at a time. A committee member
> could have one at-con job and one pre-con job (helping here and there
> in someone else’s department was OK if you weren’t the lynchpin to
> their success).
>
> Jennifer and Henry came out of CC21 very crispy because they had too
> many hats on at the same time. We’ve watched and worked on Westercons
> where way too many people appeared in the staff list way too many
> times, to their and the convention’s detriment.
>
> Carole should not have accepted your request, and she knew that. She
> already had one pre-con job (ethnic costume program, and she delivered
> some really great presenters) and one at-con job (fabric and museum
> tours, which were sloppy at best). She’s incapable, though, of saying
> “no” when asked to help. She also wormed her way into a bunch of areas
> where her help wasn’t requested, needed, and in some cases was
> actually a problem (Hospitality and Communications are the big ones).
> This impacted her performance on the job that she was first recruited
> for and should have been her top priority.
>
> andy
>
> ————————————
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/Yahoo!

Groups

> Links
>
>
>

monday night at the dead dog party Chris the mc came up to me and asked me to be sure to tell east coast conventions he’d be glad to come out and work their masquerades for them as mc.

I wish there was a camera, because I actually had nothing to say.

okay, maybe a few things, but there were innocent bystanders around 😉

Ricky

Gravely MacCabre
http://www.castleblood.com
http://www.midnightmonsterhop.com
http://www.myspace.com/thecastleblood
http://www.myspace.com/midnightmonsterhop
clip samples at
http://www.veoh.com/channels/castleblood

—– Original Message —-
From: Bruce & Nora Mai <casamai@sbcglobal.net>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 7:34:04 PM
Subject: RE: [runacc] CC26 – The SF & F MC

To be fair – I thought I covered this – my understanding was that he did not
have the time to get the names right. Given that tech rehearsals ran late,
and (can this be confirmed?) the scripts were late being printed.

Watching the video the other day for the first time, he wasn’t the absolute
worst, but the joking did get distracting at times. He wasn’t doing himself
any service by constantly calling attention to the fact he was inexperienced
(at least for CC). I thought it interesting how his version of his MC turn
on his blog varies vastly from yours.

Again, I guess this can be chalked up to having someone who is not familiar
to the format.

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups. com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups. com] On Behalf Of
> Ricky & Karen Dick
> Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 10:45 AM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups. com
> Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – the Historical Masquerade
>
> Yes, where on earth did the MC come from that did the F&S/F?!!
>
> It was obvious he didn’t go over anyone’s names with them backstage

because he

> mispronounced so many of them.
>
> He did “joke” introductions of the judges (which we all played along with,

thinking he

> would do the real ones later, and he NEVER did).
>
> He read from his blog to kill time (and his blog was NOT that

interesting) .

>
> When “made,” “worn,” and “constructed by” information was identical, he

insisted

> on reading the same long string of names three times instead of saying

“made,

> worn, and constructed by” and reading the names once.
>
> I felt like I had gone back 30 years to the MCing of yore…and NOT in a

good way.

>
> –Karen
>

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

On Jun 13, 2008, at 4:34 PM, Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:

> Watching the video the other day for the first time, he wasn’t the
> absolute
> worst, but the joking did get distracting at times. He wasn’t doing
> himself
> any service by constantly calling attention to the fact he was
> inexperienced
> (at least for CC). I thought it interesting how his version of his
> MC turn
> on his blog varies vastly from yours.

Chris plays the fool. It’s his schtick, and it generally works for
him. He’s a regular MC at local SF conventions. He’s MC’d and
announced at area film festivals like Cinequest (it may not be
Sundance, but it’s a 10-day festival that takes over every screen
downtown).

And, in Bay Area fandom, he’s almost completely apolitical. The goofy
shield lets him get away with ignoring all the old long-standing fan
feuds that are still simmering away.

He’s not always that goofy, though. He’s also an Emerson grad, a
respected museum curator, and the person that the Computer History
Museum almost always hands over to the media when news organizations
come calling for historical perspective on the latest technology
announcement or anniversary.

andy

This is the first I have heard of either incident in the green room!

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Bruce & Nora Mai<mailto:casamai@sbcglobal.net>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 7:29 AM
Subject: [runacc] CC26 – the Historical Masquerade

The show itself was well-paced, and the MC did an excellent job of
pronouncing difficult names. Once again, though, there seemed to be very
few awards for the body of works presented. Because there are always fewer
entries in the Historical, it’s a little harder to judge percentages, plus
the criteria for awards are different. Nonetheless..

Stats, based on the CC26 website:

28 entries, excluding non-competition or Young Fan. Excluding the BIS and a
Director’s Special Award (mentioned earlier):

Workmanship
2 out of 4 Novices
3 out of 8 Journeymen
2 out of 12 Masters

Presentation
1 out of 4 Novices
1 out of 8 Journeymen
3 out of 12 Masters

Were the standards that much higher? I’ll leave you to draw your own
conclusions.

Some people did not like the format of the judging. To be fair, everyone
has their preferences of a being judged in their rooms vs. presenting to a
panel, but here’s a story from one of our people:

“It seemed like the judges took more time to clarify if my entry counted to
be entered than they spent actually talking to me about it. They had shown
much knowledge about my documentation, though, so perhaps I just had good
info in there to balance.
However, having a table crammed with 8 people to talk to in judging (later
determined only 5 were judges) was incredibly unnerving, and there was no
spokesperson or ‘friendly face’, just people shooting businesslike questions
in a few minutes. I was also told in uncertain terms that my judging was to
be fast, and I got half the time of the people before me because they were
running behind and the clerk was rushing them.”

Also:

“The historical judges were unnecessarily intimidating. Doesn’t hurt to be
friendly. And I know they didn’t read my documentation (which was amazingly
short) cause one asked me why I chose the fabric I did which was clearly
spelled out on the second page”

This would seem to be yet another indication of problems with the selection
of the judges, as has been discussed here and on the D list. Sounds like
these people took themselves way too seriously.

It should also be pointed out that, once again, a special mention award was
overlooked being announced by the MD.

The next bits are just my personal observations:

I don’t know if you all heard about two Green Room incidents: one may be
needed to review for policy, the other was a just disturbing.

Returning from stage, one entry’s participants broke open some flasks to
celebrate. Maybe it’s me, but I found this inappropriate to have alcohol in
the Green Room. The people who were involved should have known better. I
can’t imagine it setting any precedents, but con committees don’t want to be
caught unawares.

I call the other incident “Who brought the loaded gun into the Green Room”?
A participant changed their child’s diaper in the Green Room on a chair used
by the rest of the costumers present. First of all – ew. It was bad enough
that no attempt was made to cover said seat, so this it wasn’t exactly
sanitary for use afterwards. What was worse was this was a male infant and
no precautions were taken in case there was an “accident”. This was just
irresponsible. Imagine what kind of catastrophe might have occurred had
something happened? Again, a one-time incident, but the Den folks should
get some blame for not catching this and offering an alternative.

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

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

Chris Garcia was officially our Toastmaster… a position which
translated to “MC Wrangler / Assistant / Emergency Holographic MC” when
we invited him. (Yes, I know that’s not strictly what most conventions
mean by toastmaster, but it was the closest term I could come up with
for the orgchart.)

In other words, he was there to help the MCs the directors chose (if
those MCs needed help) *or* was available as an MC if the MD wanted him.

Jennifer opted to have him be F&SF MC.

He’s fairly well known out here on the west coast (especially in the Bay
Area and in fanzine circles) and is not afraid to make an idiot of
himself if necessary. He and Tadao are good friends.

It was, however, his first time mc’ing a masquerade, and my screw-up
with the scripts meant he was desperately fishing for enough material
with which to stretch.

Kevin

tinathebookworm wrote:

>
> I’m glad to see that someone else found the F&S/F MC as tedious (and
> un-funny) as I did; I would much prefer vampire jokes, or even sheep
> jokes, to his pitiful blog. I can only assume that he’s a local who
> is accustomed to venues such as comic cons, where callow “humor” may
> be more “appreciated” by the attendees. My immediate reaction
> was “where did they dig up this turkey?”
>
> Did the MD choose the MC, or did the committee? If the MD did, I do
> not think at all highly of her judgment. (The same, of course, is
> also true if the MC was selected by the committee — sorry, Andy &
> Kevin.)
>
> Tina
>

Andy,
so are you saying he didn’t suck?
or are you saying that with all those credentials, you’re suprised he sucked.

and nope, not gonna pile on Kevin on this one with scripts being late.

Knowing what an MC will do with his/her ” free time” on stage, is one of the most important things to consider.

Jay Hartlove may not be the most exciting MC ( anybody else notice the older he gets, the more he sounds like Billy Crystal? not good or bad, just something I noticed) but he knows what is expected of him, and he shows respect for the costumers as well as trying to entertain the audience.

I really think Chris Garcia messed up a whole bunch of presentations. Not as many as tech did, but enough.

And no I can’t site examples, I haven’t watched it again, these are my original feelings from the front row, as I wished I could jump up there, drag him off and let Marty stand up and take over as if it was all planned.
you know, Marty gets up, pulls of his T-shirt and is already in full vampire underneath LOL

Gravely MacCabre
http://www.castleblood.com
http://www.midnightmonsterhop.com
http://www.myspace.com/thecastleblood
http://www.myspace.com/midnightmonsterhop
clip samples at
http://www.veoh.com/channels/castleblood

—– Original Message —-
From: Andrew T Trembley <attrembl@bovil.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 7:57:40 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC26 – The SF & F MC

On Jun 13, 2008, at 4:34 PM, Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:
> Watching the video the other day for the first time, he wasn’t the
> absolute
> worst, but the joking did get distracting at times. He wasn’t doing
> himself
> any service by constantly calling attention to the fact he was
> inexperienced
> (at least for CC). I thought it interesting how his version of his
> MC turn
> on his blog varies vastly from yours.

Chris plays the fool. It’s his schtick, and it generally works for
him. He’s a regular MC at local SF conventions. He’s MC’d and
announced at area film festivals like Cinequest (it may not be
Sundance, but it’s a 10-day festival that takes over every screen
downtown).

And, in Bay Area fandom, he’s almost completely apolitical. The goofy
shield lets him get away with ignoring all the old long-standing fan
feuds that are still simmering away.

He’s not always that goofy, though. He’s also an Emerson grad, a
respected museum curator, and the person that the Computer History
Museum almost always hands over to the media when news organizations
come calling for historical perspective on the latest technology
announcement or anniversary.

andy

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

If Carole had not accepted my request, I would have had to resign as green room manager.

Considering the low quality job I did, I wish I had done so.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Andrew T Trembley<mailto:attrembl@bovil.com>
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com<mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Friday, June 13, 2008 7:27 PM
Subject: [runacc] Disaster Avoidance (was Re: CC26 – Hospitality

On Jun 11, 2008, at 5:21 PM, Byron Connell wrote:
> I told Bruce that the lack of food in the green room was my fault.
> It was not Carole Parker’s fault.
>
> The concom insisted that I have a second. This is one of the major
> problems of having a department head on the wrong coast from the
> rest of the concom. There was no one on the committee except Carole
> that I trusted to fill that function. After I was told that someone
> on the concom told her that she was not truly my second, just a
> stand-in at committee meetings, I had to repair my authority and
> reassured her that I had indeed designated her as second.

This hits on the issue of disaster-planning that Ricky brought up.
Every department head having a second was a major disaster-planning
effort. This was partially to ensure that in a real disaster, there
would be someone who had all the info and could take over, and
partially to spread out the work at-con.

* There were departments in which things ran well enough that having
or not having a second did not make a difference to their success.
* There were departments in which having a second was an important
part of their success. Having a hotel second was a big part of hotel’s
success, not because the primary was a problem but because things
happened with the hotel itself that increased their work-load. Having
a good tech second helped us recover from some hits tech took in the
week before the convention.
* There were departments in which having a second helped, but
ultimately wasn’t enough. F&SF masquerade.
* There were departments in which not having a second caused their
performance to suffer. ConSuite and Programming were both impacted by
not having a second. Programming had an actual disaster, Hillary
Ayer’s 80-something Mom was hospitalized and nearly died earlier this
spring. It took programming offline for almost a month (work was being
done, but communication was very limited).

In addition to that, the committee had a rule to prevent people from
over-extending themselves: Only one job at a time. A committee member
could have one at-con job and one pre-con job (helping here and there
in someone else’s department was OK if you weren’t the lynchpin to
their success).

Jennifer and Henry came out of CC21 very crispy because they had too
many hats on at the same time. We’ve watched and worked on Westercons
where way too many people appeared in the staff list way too many
times, to their and the convention’s detriment.

Carole should not have accepted your request, and she knew that. She
already had one pre-con job (ethnic costume program, and she delivered
some really great presenters) and one at-con job (fabric and museum
tours, which were sloppy at best). She’s incapable, though, of saying
“no” when asked to help. She also wormed her way into a bunch of areas
where her help wasn’t requested, needed, and in some cases was
actually a problem (Hospitality and Communications are the big ones).
This impacted her performance on the job that she was first recruited
for and should have been her top priority.

andy

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

Andy wrote:

If Marty is going to be at Denvention, he ought to talk with the CC27
show directors about what he can do to help recruit judges for them when
he’s there. Better yet, if your directors are going to be at Worldcon,
they can recruit themselves. I’ve talked with Jill and Dr. Karen about
their masquerade, and I think they’re off to a great start.

yeah, while not a bad idea of course, we’re all good there
Thanks

Ricky

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

There is no actual connection between CC and the ICG other than the time set
aside for the annual meeting, as set down in the convention constitution.
That having been said, in both the SF & F and Historical masquerades, the
Lifetime Achievement and the Presidential awards were mixed in with the
regular Guild chapter awards. Since the people being recognized gave quite
a bit of their time to the community, the ICG awards should have been placed
better – probably just before the actual announcements of the masq awards,
for the maximum audience, in my opinion.

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

Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:

> Since the people being recognized gave quite
> a bit of their time to the community, the ICG awards should have been placed
> better – probably just before the actual announcements of the masq awards,
> for the maximum audience, in my opinion.

That’s something that the person giving the awards can ask for. I expect
the request would be honored.

I’m going to throw out a crazy idea, though.

If you want the maximum audience, request to give the award between the
last presentation and the half-time entertainment, as the judges are
leaving. This would only work, of course, if the recipient wasn’t also
judge.

andy

I didn’t ask for a specific time. I asked for general permission to present
the awards well in advance & spoke with each MD as early as possible when we
arrived to remind them of my request. I did tell them what I wanted to
present & why, but made a bad assumption – that they were familiar with the
CC culture & would be familiar with the “usual” placement of these awards.

That was my mistake but I think it points out the need for MDs to be
familiarized with the community by the committee if they are from outside.
Perhaps future committees & con chairs need to have a list of expected items
(awards, food, supplies, time schedules, judges, whatever) & go over them
with their MDs to be sure everything is covered.

I know Kevin stepped in when I made a similar request to the programming
person about the ICG meeting. I asked for a specific amount of time & room &
indicated when I would prefer it be held (Friday morning), she said she’d
see what she could do. Not a negative response but not a definite “yes”
either. Kevin responded almost immediately with his recommendations to her
about room size & required time.

Nora

> —–Original Message—–
> From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of
> Andrew Trembley
> Sent: Saturday, June 14, 2008 12:21 AM
> To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [runacc] A word about ICG Awards
>
> Bruce & Nora Mai wrote:
> > Since the people being recognized gave quite
> > a bit of their time to the community, the ICG awards should have been

placed

> > better – probably just before the actual announcements of the masq

awards,

> > for the maximum audience, in my opinion.
>
> That’s something that the person giving the awards can ask for. I expect
> the request would be honored.
>
> I’m going to throw out a crazy idea, though.
>
> If you want the maximum audience, request to give the award between the
> last presentation and the half-time entertainment, as the judges are
> leaving. This would only work, of course, if the recipient wasn’t also
> judge.
>
> andy

For the few of you for whom this question applies, there is an intense
discussion about masquerade judging going on there. I don’t want to
force a copy or cc from that list to this if the overlap is
substantial (which I think it is), but I don’t want folks on this list
to miss that discussion either.

If you’re not subscribed to ICG-D, you can still read the messages by
going through Yahoo.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ICG-D/messages

(You don’t have to subscribe to read.)

Cheers,

Betsy

I’m not, but Byron is, so I’ll ask him to direct any relevant comments
to me.

Tina

— In runacc@yahoogroups.com, “Betsy Delaney” <aramintamd@…> wrote:
>
> For the few of you for whom this question applies, there is an intense
> discussion about masquerade judging going on there. I don’t want to
> force a copy or cc from that list to this if the overlap is
> substantial (which I think it is), but I don’t want folks on this list
> to miss that discussion either.
>
> If you’re not subscribed to ICG-D, you can still read the messages by
> going through Yahoo.
>
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ICG-D/messages
>
> (You don’t have to subscribe to read.)
>
> Cheers,
>
> Betsy
>

At 07:05 PM 6/13/2008, you wrote:

I will give him this. We were upset when he did not read our
dedication. (we found out much later that it wasn’t on his sheet.).
One of our ninjas told him about it. When we came up for our
workmanship award, he made a prominent apology for the gaffe. We
couldn’t ask for more.

Pierre

>Chris Garcia was officially our Toastmaster… a position which
>translated to “MC Wrangler / Assistant / Emergency Holographic MC” when
>we invited him. (Yes, I know that’s not strictly what most conventions
>mean by toastmaster, but it was the closest term I could come up with
>for the orgchart.)
>
>In other words, he was there to help the MCs the directors chose (if
>those MCs needed help) *or* was available as an MC if the MD wanted him.
>
>Jennifer opted to have him be F&SF MC.
>
>He’s fairly well known out here on the west coast (especially in the Bay
>Area and in fanzine circles) and is not afraid to make an idiot of
>himself if necessary. He and Tadao are good friends.
>
>It was, however, his first time mc’ing a masquerade, and my screw-up
>with the scripts meant he was desperately fishing for enough material
>with which to stretch.
>
>Kevin
>
>tinathebookworm wrote:
> >
> > I’m glad to see that someone else found the F&S/F MC as tedious (and
> > un-funny) as I did; I would much prefer vampire jokes, or even sheep
> > jokes, to his pitiful blog. I can only assume that he’s a local who
> > is accustomed to venues such as comic cons, where callow “humor” may
> > be more “appreciated” by the attendees. My immediate reaction
> > was “where did they dig up this turkey?”
> >
> > Did the MD choose the MC, or did the committee? If the MD did, I do
> > not think at all highly of her judgment. (The same, of course, is
> > also true if the MC was selected by the committee — sorry, Andy &
> > Kevin.)
> >
> > Tina

“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

More than once, we heard the words uttered, “At Baycon, we…”. We’ve run
into this at other CCs in the past, and the subject’s already been discussed
here, to some extent. While there are certain similarities among all
conventions, Costume-Con is different from a general SF. There are certain
“quirks” with the people, the events, and so on. Convention Chairs need to
make sure their non-costumer volunteers understand the differences. We hope
that the conversations on this list recently will ultimately lead to better
understanding.

It is unfortunate that it seems – at least to some of us who have attended
CC for years – that there appeared to be a certain insular attitude with the
folks out on the West Coast. Continuing a long-standing “tradition”, there
were a lot of people on that region who wanted those of us from the Midwest
and East Coast to come to the party (CC26) – which we did. Canada, too.
Yet, those same people freely admitted they had no interest in crossing the
Rocky Mountains to attend future CCs. Part of this, of course, is an
economic consideration but this seemed a little hypocritical.

Many of us observed a definite cultural difference between this and past
CCs. To give them the benefit of the doubt, maybe the historical costumers
were just shy like many of us, but it’s very easy to interpret that as
snobbishness. Some of them were friendly enough if they were approached
first, but there wasn’t a single report of reciprocal, self-initiated acts
of admiration.

We’re aware that the Committee worked very hard before the convention to
bring in people from the various communities, but there was no feeling of
welcoming to newbies once they were there. Maybe that’s just harder to do
when it’s a larger convention.

To be fair, I can’t necessarily say that this member’s comments were
representative of all newbies, but it bears heeding: “The attitudes of the
convention population were, for the most part, snobbish at best and
downright rude at worst. Most of the attendees were dressed in historical
costumes, which I expected, but I did not expect the attitude that I was
shown because I was dressed in anime cosplay for most of the weekend. It
felt as if I was a peasant at a party with royalty or perhaps that I was not
a ‘true costumer’ because I am primarily a cosplayer. I would just like to
add that it’s not an easy thing to recreate a costume from an anime source
and to do so accurately. Plus, those of us who do cosplay very often have to
draft our own patterns since there are very few actual patterns for
particular cosplays out there and we have to come up with solutions to
various situations that come up within a costume as well. None of this is
easy and there are some very elaborate and complex costumes within the
anime/gaming genre. Historical costumers have the advantage of actual
patterns to work from or having a book of patterns to draft from and while I
know most historic costumes are difficult to make I also know that there are
some anime related costumes that are just as complex and time consuming to
make.”

“I did have some ugly contact with some of the Costume Coll(e)ge people but
well… I was prewarned about them, thank you..”

“All the locals I met were generally snotty and lame.”

This indicates how different perceptions can be, but also that our community
and CC attendees still have work to do on making sure we make a good
impression. At CC25, we had several staff meetings that included
discussions on ways to get the new people to mix with the veterans. We were
very successful in this effort at CC16.

The accounts above didn’t just happen to the new folks, though, I’m afraid.
Pierre, Nora and I were standing near the Official Photography table in the
exhibit hallway, trying to figure out how we were supposed to fill out the
form to order photos for our personal collections and the Archives. A woman
from a group of nearby tables where some sort of panel/seminar/etc. was
going on came over and demanded that we keep our voices down. Now, maybe we
were a bit loud, but we were a bit taken aback by this chastisement to keep
our voices down in a public hallway where the noise level wasn’t exactly
quiet to begin with.

Now, there’s that whole adage about what you get out of something depends on
what you put into it: There’s a certain responsibility of the convention
attendee to make their own fun – the con committee just provides the
potential. We’ve read on journals (not the D list) that many new people had
a good time. However, we noted that these people also lived in the region
and knew many of the committee people or the ones hosting the room parties.
Personally, I had a lot of fun taking photos of all the great hall costumes
because I knew I was going to be adding content to the Gallery.

For those from outside the region who have only attended one or two prior
conventions, the experience was more disappointing. They had heard about
this convention for over a year – even before CC25, I might add – and had
been willing to give the con the benefit of the doubt that it would live up
to hype, despite their doubts.

“It seems odd that CC26 would have been touted as the greatest ever. My
impression was that the only aspect of CC in which they were attempting to
raise the bar was the use of computers (on-line masq reg, etc.) and the
addition of CCTV. In all other aspects, they seem to have been shooting for
an average con experience.”

“.It was good, though, to see everyone I missed all year and make a few new
friends. Thank goodness there were enough people willing to talk to me
about random stuff that kept it entertaining and informative, and keeps it
from being my worst con ever (where I knew no one, not from bad running).”

“I’m still not convinced it was worth the expense and travel.”

“The last time I spent this amount of money on a convention that was a total
bust was Otakon 2005. For those of you who don’t know Otakon is a one of the
five largest anime conventions in existence and is regularly touted as the
best anime convention in the states. I found it to be lackluster and boring
so if I am comparing CC26 to it then it’s pretty bad.”

“I agree with most of what has been said about CC26. It was not worth the
travel and expense – It’s kind of like seeing movies and/or tv shows hyped
too much, usually means it’s not going to be good.”

To be fair, I think the bad masquerade experience colored some of the above
perceptions, but future committees still need to be aware that expectations
will be higher. And like it or not, there’s the continual issue with the
ongoing perception that the ICG is more closely tied to Costume-Con than it
actually is. The less informed (or at least, those paying less attention)
will make at least some association of the ICG with Costume-Con, and there
is a danger that any bad experiences at CC will reflect on the ICG as well.
As many image problems as the organization has already, we don’t need this
on top of it. We had to remind some of our newer people that there was
little to no connection.

End of review.

I’ll be posting a less detailed version to the D list shortly.

Bruce

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