I enjoy the folio both ways. My viewer allows for a 2 up page view so it works for me both ways.

There
are plenty of cosplayers who just want to dress up and have fun, who
have little interest in branching out or learning other techniques, and
that’s fine. CC is not the place for them. But there are still a LOT of
cosplayers attending anime and comic-cons who definitely are interested in
the kind of things that CC can offer, and they just have no idea there
is a venue for that. I talk to them at cons all the time and they are
excited about Costume-Con, and amazed that it has existed for so long
while they’ve never heard of it. Is every cosplayer who tries CC once
going to become a regular who throws themselves into it wholeheartedly?
Of course not, but we won’t get the die-hards without reaching out to
everyone.

If we want CC to not just survive but thrive, we need
to keep reaching out to them. It’s going to take work to bridge the gap
between our two communities. We can’t rest on our laurels and wait for
them to come to us; we have to go out and convince them. It is critical
to stop dismissing ‘those anime kids’, and instead embrace them as what
they are – the next generation of costumers and the people who will keep
Costume-Con vibrant for years to come.

— Maral Agnerian

That’s one of the reasons we had a $25 student ticket for CC32. People could show their high school ID and

Bruce Mai Wrote: “I’m reminded of Yaya Han’s (incorrect) perception of the “strict ICG rules” mentioned in an episode of “Heroes of Cosplay”.   Scoff if you want, but it’s a perception held by many people who have not actually attended a CC.”

Byron Wrote: “What is the nature of the mis-perception? If we don’t know what the incorrect beliefs are, there’s little we can do to counteract them. More specifics, please. ”

There are numerous odd perceptions, so odd in fact that I can’t recall all of them. When I have the time I’ll delve into the old Cosplay.com files and try to find some of the many threads that I,  Maral, Karisu, Danny, (Aurora?) and others have been involved in trying to set the record straight.

Much of the initial damage was done by a cosplayer known as Saeto. (who tried to be in Yaya’s sphere for some time at the beginning of Yaya’s initial climb to notoriety), and possibly imbued Yaya with some of these notions.

This person has done so much damage to all communities that she actually had an Encyclopedia Dramatica entry written about her.

I unintentionally omitted the Mai’s from  of people who commented on Cosplay.com.
They have also been heavily involved in many threads there, often specifically in relation to the ICG and the Guidelines.
(Sorry guys!)

Addendum: 

Example misconception:

I was active on Cosplay.com for a while when I directed the Anime LA masquerade. I tried to be a costuming resource as well as an “ambassador” from our generation and the ICG.

I remember both those incidents Kevin.

Since the originator of that particular complaint was a member of a more recent Costume-Con Comittee, 

Guys?

If you are going to set up electronic payment options, please also provide alternative means for contact, so that if the form fails, there are other ways to get to you. This complaint came to me because I am still info@. I’m fixing that tonight.

Thanks! Betsy

Which Costume-Con is the issue?

I’m guessing it’s not CC35 since both the email and snail mail address’ are up on the
registration page, however

just in case I’m asking since I’m sure most of the core CC35 staff is away and up to their necks in Con Bravo this weekend

and I’l be happy to help if it’s CC35.

~Dawn

This is particularly about 2018, but my comment applies to all of them. I strongly recommend asking someone from outside your concom to check your site for usability and test all the forms as well. And the chair should test as well.

Meanwhile, if the  system stripped the email address off the message I sent, let me know.

Betsy

We’re using Ticketbud which is an external service. I just tested it to be sure anyhow. 🙂

Thanks for looking out for us Betsy.

~Dawn [😊]

Dawn McKechnie – Director – Cosplay Events – Anime North

Anime North – Canada’s Premiere Fan-Run Anime Convention!

www.animenorth.com<http://www.animenorth.com/>

________________________________

From: Betsy Marks Delaney aramintamd@gmail.com

Subject:Unable to pay for membership after filling out registration form for Costume Con

This is particularly about 2018, but my comment applies to all of them. I strongly recommend asking someone from outside your concom to check your site for usability and test all the forms as well. And the chair should test as well.

________________________________

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

Just so everyone knows, we’ve been working on the pay submission page and other things on the website. If you have any ideas to help with the website set up (which we will be changing this week) let me know.

On another note, is there anyone who would be willing to run the doll exhibit/contest at Costume Con 36?

Thanks in advance for your assistance.

So.  Now that I have time to put some thoughts
together again, I want to get back to a previous discussion about Costume-Con
traditions.

To set the
stage for discussion, it’s been observed that there are fewer people from the
con’s history who are willing to run a con anymore.   They’ve done their time, hence the “Never
Again Club” (a tradition in itself ).   Fortunatley, there are new groups who are
willing to host a CC, bringing new ideas with them. 

In the past,
CCs were hosted by committee members who had already attended one or more
cons.   But due to economic realities,
there are more committees where many have not attended ANY CCs before their
own.  Working a Costume-Con is not the
same experience as attending one.    This can lead to the mistaken assumption that
if one has worked or organized any other fan-run convention, the principles are
the same.   This is true only up to a
point.  Costume-Con was modeled on
general SF cons, but it has its own unique community and thus its own
culture.   That community has certain
expectations  that are not defined by the
CC Constitution.

It’s assumed
that the future committees want to help continue those traditions, but it’s
difficult to do so when they’ve not attended and there’s no documentation
existing to help them.  

So let’s
revisit the discussion identifying traditions, the pros and cons and answer any
questions that might crop up along the way.

The Con
Suite

Believe it
or not, the Con Suite is NOT mandated by the Constitution.  But it is a longstanding tradition to have a
place to relax and where upcoming committees can host parties after the
masquerades.  Also, it is NOT required
that the Con Suite to provide so much food that attendees don’t need to go
somewhere to find a meal.   That can get
very expensive, and it makes it difficult to predict how much to procure,
possibly leading to waste.   At a
minimum, all that needs to be provided are light snacks, a variety of beverages
and sufficient seating.   There is no
requirement that the Con Suite make special accommodations for dietary
needs.  It’s a courtesy, but not
mandatory.

I should also add that the Con Suite has traditionally NOT been open during the major vents.   This is both to encourage people to attend the shows but more importantly, to ensure that there is not a shortage of refreshments by the time the audience AND participants have left a masquerade.

I also neglected to mention that traditionally, the next year’s committee has hosted the Suite on Saturday night, while the committee 2 years hence have hosted on Sunday night.

One more recent development has been the committees seeking out other conventions or Guild chapters to host the Suite at other times.  This has been nice, but not necessary.   The SLCG has often been sponsoring  Sunday mornings in the Suite.

Bruce

I seem to recall CC14 offered snacks during deliberations. I was one of the snack carriers, IIRC.

Just wanted to pipe in that I like the *new* CC tradition of having
ribbons and “CC 101” panels for first time attendees. Wanted to suggest
something that’s been done at my PA conferences for a while now: at one
of the talks where pretty much the entire conference attends, they have
people stand up who are new to the profession, and we all applaud. Later
they wil have people stand up in increments, i.e. 5 years, 10 years, etc.
That’s also kind of cool, where you get to know who are the “elders” of
hte profession. In our case, perhaps we could have something at the
Friday night Social where attendees could stand or raise hands if it’s
their first CC. I love talking to new attendees and finding out how they
found us!

Lisa a

On 27 Nov 2016 17:56:17 -0800 “casamai@sbcglobal.net [runacc]”
<runacc@yahoogroups.com> writes:

So. Now that I have time to put some thoughts together again, I want to
get back to a previous discussion about Costume-Con traditions.

To set the stage for discussion, it�s been observed that there are fewer
people from the con�s history who are willing to run a con anymore.
They�ve done their time, hence the �Never Again Club� (a tradition in
itself ). Fortunatley, there are new groups who are willing to host a
CC, bringing new ideas with them.

In the past, CCs were hosted by committee members who had already
attended one or more cons. But due to economic realities, there are
more committees where many have not attended ANY CCs before their own.
Working a Costume-Con is not the same experience as attending one.
This can lead to the mistaken assumption that if one has worked or
organized any other fan-run convention, the principles are the same.
This is true only up to a point. Costume-Con was modeled on general SF
cons, but it has its own unique community and thus its own culture.
That community has certain expectations that are not defined by the CC
Constitution.
It�s assumed that the future committees want to help continue those
traditions, but it�s difficult to do so when they�ve not attended and
there�s no documentation existing to help them.
So let�s revisit the discussion identifying traditions, the pros and cons
and answer any questions that might crop up along the way.

The Con Suite
Believe it or not, the Con Suite is NOT mandated by the Constitution.
But it is a longstanding tradition to have a place to relax and where
upcoming committees can host parties after the masquerades. Also, it is
NOT required that the Con Suite to provide so much food that attendees
don�t need to go somewhere to find a meal. That can get very expensive,
and it makes it difficult to predict how much to procure, possibly
leading to waste. At a minimum, all that needs to be provided are light
snacks, a variety of beverages and sufficient seating. There is no
requirement that the Con Suite make special accommodations for dietary
needs. It�s a courtesy, but not mandatory.

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

Panel
programming took advantage of local and new panelists, and there were very few
dropouts.  Our new member, for whom this
was their first CC,  enjoyed many of the
panels, and how they were staggered a bit time-wise, rather than all of them
being directly opposite each other each hour.
They also like how it gave people an opportunity to take a break between
panels – eat, use the restroom, etc.  

It’s always
a good sign that there seemed enough to do.
There were 4 tracks of panel programming at the con, and this seemed to
be the right number for this-sized CC.
All panels we either participated in, or were an audience member of,  had good attendance.  It was suggested that perhaps some panels,
the most likely popular ones, should be repeated sometime during the
weekend.  That would give an opportunity
to catch one that might have conflicted with something else people had wanted
to see.   Another idea thrown out there
was to create a track just for repeats.
Maybe Friday panels on Saturday,
Saturday panels on Sunday?  This would
require polling panelists to see if they’d be willing to do the panel more than
once.   Speaking of popular panels, we
heard many people enjoyed the Tambour embroidery panel.

Note to
future Programming Directors:   Panels
that only tangentially relate to costuming can still be a good attendance draw,
like the “Thinking of Drinking” panel which was mainly about the history of
cocktails.     Another example: at CC16
we had a panel about cats and how they “help” their costuming owners.   So, in other words, try something with a lot
of crossover interest common to many people.
Other possible topics – favorite books for inspiration, processes/exercises
for unlocking creativity, and collectable vintage accessories.  

Encourage panelists
to have handouts or cards with websites of interest.  Another might be lists of Pinterest
boards.  At minimum, have the panelists
provide business cards with their contact info for questions.   You could even have them produced ahead of
time and Registration can put them into the swag bag.   When the attendee gets home and cleans it
out, there’s that panelist’s card, in case they lose it.   The only problem might be privacy concerns.  The other alternative might be to have a list
or resources from panels published and put in the swag bag. 

That’s ok, we’re accustom to it. XD

Being awesome in The Great White North anyway. Love, Canada. 💜

Dawn McKechnie – President – Fibre Fantasy Artists of CanadaVisit Anime North! – Canada’s Premiere Fan-Run Anime Conventionwww.animenorth.com

To: runacc@yahoogroups.com

From: runacc@yahoogroups.com

Date: Fri, 3 Jun 2016 07:36:23 -0700

Subject: [runacc] Budgets

I have my people who are helping me to run CC36 requesting Actual Budgets for previous cons. The only one I have is for CC30 thanks to Elaine Mami and Marg Grady. But they say that’s too old (even though it’s only 4 years old). CC31 lost theirs on a hard drive crash. Same for CC32 and CC33 lost theirs with a Windows 10 install. My question is, can we have a central area where we put this stuff so that future cons have references? I mean, it would be nice to see the trends of various cons of membership buying, how much they charged for their dealer’s tables/booths, and just basic expenditures. I have 31’s numbers for when he sold what. I have his room night numbers (but again they say that’s too old). Oh and forget Toronto because that’s Canada. (their words, not mine)

I remember there was some talk of moving this off Yahoo and in to another format. What info I have gathered is on my Google Drive in folders and am willing to share but it would be nice to have more info. Because the more info you have, the better you can make your con and give your attendees a better experience.

So, if anyone has actual budgets for previous costume cons, please let me know.

The people that are requesting this kind of info have run Westercons, Worldcons, World Fantasy Cons so they’re different from a Costume Con but it is still the same kind of info which should make the con a better experience.

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

When I was working on CC31, the only budget information I had to work
from was CC25 and CC15. The best budgeting information I received came
from my co-chair who runs another local convention.

Michael

On 2016-06-03 07:36, beckieboo817@yahoo.com [runacc] wrote:
> I have my people who are helping me to run CC36 requesting Actual
> Budgets for previous cons. The only one I have is for CC30 thanks to
> Elaine Mami and Marg Grady. But they say that’s too old (even though
> it’s only 4 years old). CC31 lost theirs on a hard drive crash. Same
> for CC32 and CC33 lost theirs with a Windows 10 install. My question
> is, can we have a central area where we put this stuff so that future
> cons have references? I mean, it would be nice to see the trends of
> various cons of membership buying, how much they charged for their
> dealer’s tables/booths, and just basic expenditures. I have 31’s
> numbers for when he sold what. I have his room night numbers (but
> again they say that’s too old). Oh and forget Toronto because that’s
> Canada. (their words, not mine)
>
> I remember there was some talk of moving this off Yahoo and in to
> another format. What info I have gathered is on my Google Drive in
> folders and am willing to share but it would be nice to have more
> info. Because the more info you have, the better you can make your con
> and give your attendees a better experience.
>
> So, if anyone has actual budgets for previous costume cons, please let
> me know.
>
> The people that are requesting this kind of info have run Westercons,
> Worldcons, World Fantasy Cons so they’re different from a Costume Con
> but it is still the same kind of info which should make the con a
> better experience.

A
continuing  complaint from year to year
is the way the catered food service is handled.   The food goes out, people use it as their
dinner, and by the time the Single Pattern Contest entrants are off the stage,
the food is mostly gone (especially by after the Photo Run – more on that
later).   This is hardly fair to them and
should be taken into account in the future.
Contractually, food could not be served in the Green Room, but SOMEthing
should have been done for them.    One suggestion was to put only half of the food
out before the show, then put the remaining lot out after the show.  There were a few leftovers after the show,
but then the hotel staff took them away shortly thereafter.

Stepping out
as the SP Director for a moment, I (Bruce) was satisfied with how things went (in
comparison to my running the FFS back at CC30), having the 4^th
largest number of contestants in the history of the show .   There were a lot of first timers, I was
happy to see.   The Fairy pattern was very popular, making up
the vast majority of entries.   We had a
couple people take the Single Concept Challenge, but for whatever reasons, a
few others wound up being entered in the Folio and the FFS instead. 

 I underestimated both the number of
participants and the quality of the entries.
I regret not asking for more award ribbons.  My judges did a great job, although there are
things I could have done better.   

From judge
Dave Kanoy:

“Please provide the judges with
adequate materials to judge.  We didn’t have pens and only had a few index
cards on which to make notes.  I had a mechanical pencil and we scrambled
for pens.  Andrea’s kept running out of ink.  The other two judges
made notes for multiple entries on single index cards, so they were happy with
one or two each.  I really need a separate item (index card, form, piece
of paper) for each entrant.  Pulling double duty as judge and
photographer, I was having to keep track of titles, names, entry numbers and
photo numbers.  I should have handed my phone to Andrea’s sister, who was
acting as our clerk.  She could have taken photos as well as I could.”

My fault.   I should have arranged for a
“poloroid” of the entrants, given how many there were.   I was glad Dave took the initiative do to it
with a camera/phone he had.   

Kevin Roche (another of my judges) suggested that some future CC  SPS during the Social could be handled like a
fashion show where the exhibitors walk among the tables (it was caberet-style
seating at CC34).    This seems
problematic, because it relies on the entrants to make sure everyone at their
tables sees their costume.   But if
someone wants to make a “new mistake”, well, have at it.

Suggestions
for future SP Directors:   Maybe a “slush
fund” of floater ribbons needs to be on hand in case the judges want to expand
past a set number of awards.  I’m hoping
that the idea of the Single Concept Challenge will be used again – there’s a
lot of potential for all sorts of concepts.

Comments
from others:

“There
is something to be said (at least from a con’s perspective) to limiting the
info on ribbons to the name of the con and the word, “award.” That minimizes
the con’s problem of running out of ribbons for the specific event, with the
award certificate identifying the nature of the award and the event in which ii
was won. That can work very well for a con that takes place every year at the
same time and place……. It isn’t as effective for a con that moves, as a CC or a
Worldcon does.”

“I’ve often wondered why the single
pattern contest doesn’t use the skill division system.” 

I was handling the show like the FFS – perhaps this
needs to be reviewed and considered.

 Again, from Dave:

“ I don’t feel like we did an
adequate job of judging.  Because we had so few prizes to give out, once
we decided on a Best in Show and the other awards that were prescribed for us,
that left us with a lot of entries that I felt deserved an award.  Because
we had nothing to give, we stepped out of the box a little and gave essentially
a judges choice award to three more entries (each of us chose one entry), which
we called an honorable mention or special mention.  There were still more
that might have won something if we actually had to make some hard
choices.  These people get an award and these don’t.

Actual judges photos printed out
would serve us a lot better than pictures on my phone.  When
discussing  awards, it’s nice to be able to lay the photos out in front of
all of us.  As it was, I could dig through my pictures to pull up
individual entries as we needed to see them, but I could only do that for
entries we were actually talking about.  I have no way to display them all
in a viewable size where a judge could glance at one, recall something and put
that costume into the conversation.

Should also point out some things
that went well.  There seemed to be plenty of space, at least for
us.  Can’t speak for the entrants.  I know I’ve always griped about
the tiny size of CC green rooms, but this one seemed plenty big enough for this
contest at least.” 

Mostly
cribbing from Karen’s comments here:  She
would have liked to have had more entries.
Six people
did not properly notify her they would not be in the show.   There is a need to stress that contestants
should let the Director know well ahead of time if they will not get their
designs made.   For example, one of the
designers who reserved one of their own exclusively backed out, but didn’t
inform Karen.    Someone else could have
done it.   And a maker who did not want
to repeat a design lost their opportunity because the two people who were going
to do the same one backed out.

As usual,
there seemed to be fewer people in the audience for the Folio show.  Do people sleep in on Sunday morning?   There’s not much that can be done to
encourage more people to come to the show, despite no programming opposite
it.  Overall, though, Karen was pleased
with what she had and it ran smoothly.

Note to FFS
directors about run orders:  Put
an experienced person at the beginning and end and then sprinkle the other experienced
people among the first-timers.

We have mixed
feelings about starting the masq an hour earlier than usual – while it makes it
harder to get food and get down to the GR on time, it was sort of nice getting
out of the show earlier so we could go to the con suite and relax.  Since the show started at 7:00 pm, the  Green Room opened at 5:00.   We
suspect that this will probably not set a precedent.

In
comparison to past CCs, this was a sizeable masquerade.   There
were 43 entries: 2 Young Fans,  13
Novices, 8 Journeymen and 20 Masters.
Quality was good overall – few, if any
clunkers.   There were a few tech
audio glitches, but nothing heinous.
Steve Swope, as MC, got better and confident as the evening wore
on.   From the point of view of the
casual observer, the masq went reasonably smoothly.

We don’t
know all the details, but there was supposedly some problems  getting a Presentation/Front Stage judge for
the masq.   And there was quite a bit of discussion over
the system used for judging   We’ll
return to this subject later, as the outcome of the award distribution was cause
for controversy.   And what is a CC
without some controversy?

The Historical
masq went well.   It was a good mix of
periods.   And Master heavy again.  

Workmanship
Judging ran slow – according to some people, they judges took too long with some
entrants, and some entrants took too long talking to the judges – the usual
complaints.   As a result, scheduled
times slowly started getting pushed back further and further until they were
running an hour behind.   Kudos, though,
to the door manager who allowed some people to go ahead of others (with those
parties’ permission) when they were due for a panel.    It was not evident that the MD was in and
out of the room, checking on the judges, checking on the schedule, etc.  This could have kept people better corralled.   Judging wrapped up so late (probably due to
the 17 member entry that went last) that the masquerade was delayed by 20
minutes.  It seemed like no one knew
where they went (they ran up to their room to change – not sure if they got to eat
or not).

Good job by
the first time MC, Vicky.    Our new first-timer
member appreciated the announcement of what time period the entrant was
portraying, and not just the title.   There
appeared to have beeen plenty of awards, plenty of recognition given, so no
complaints about judging in this show.

Award
announcements were…… odd for both the SF and Historical.   We’re not sure if it was due to the
inexperience of the MD (who made the award announcements, not the MC)  but she announced the entrants names but not
the title of their presentation, nor the Skill Division they were in.  We weren’t the only ones who noticed this
discrepancy – others in the audience asked about this seeming oversight as
well.    In the SF masq, the titles were announced but
not the costumer.    Both ways make it more difficult to associate
a face with a presentation.  It’s
important to have a historical record of who did what.    People are used to the awards being announced
by class.   This is one of the CC traditions
that should be maintained, in our opinion.

The
first  observation was about the Workmanship
judges. They took longer with the first several contestants, as much as 10-15
minutes, then flipped open a hand fan to discuss and make decisions behind for
the next 10 minutes.   After that, they’d
type on the tablets they were provided for entering their scores.   As the show got closer they were clearly feeling
pressure, allowing less and less time for following contestants, until they
were asking no questions at all.  Judging
continued during the show, not finishing until sometime shortly after the
masquerade. There were at least 3 entries needing to be interviewed.

Now about
the overall judging system:  there were 3
Workmanship judges, but only 2 Presentation judges.   Rather than averaging the two sets
independently, all 5 judges’ scores
were averaged together.  So, the awards
were weighted by 3/5^th towards Workmanship.  In analysis, we understood what the intent of the MD was – to ensure that skits and “dance-offs” do not get precedence over the quality of the costume.   (Given the two Presentations judges, this was never really a danger – they knew better to be swayed by that.)   We just don’t agree with the methods used for award decisions. 

There is a
drawback  to this system when used at the
International level of competition.  Scoring
by judges can often be inconsistent – they may score higher at the beginning of
a masquerade, but give lower scores as the masquerade proceeds.  Or even vice versa.   The system is not as flexible to allow for
going back and reexamining their choices and perhaps make changes.  

The more
commonly used method is judges may make some score, but they also review their
notes and discuss the pros and cons of the individual entries.   They also have the “poloroids” of the
costumes to refresh their memories.
All of these factors are in the mix.
From there, they decide the Best In Show winner first, followed by the
Best In Classes,  and the “floaters”.

There were
21 “Judges Choice/Honorable Mentions” and 6 “Major Awards” (Best of Class, Workmanship,
Performance and Best in Show).  The
awards were announced with little distinction between Workmanship and
Presentation awards.  This eschewed the
usual tradition of  announcements by
class.   All this said, it seemed
everyone who received an award deserved one.

“Can’t say I am a fan of combining
Workmanship and Stage Presentation judging.  Often what makes a great
costume from workmanship standpoint can be completely lost when seen from a
stage distance.  Averaging those things together could drag a costume that
shows great from the stage down into the middle where it gets no award.  ……
Workmanship has always been an optional, though highly encouraged, part of the
masquerade.  So, if you didn’t go up for Workmanship judging, did you just
knock yourself out of any possibility of an award because the ( judges) scores
would be divided by 5 or was it a true average?  Didn’t like seeing the Workmanship
judges conspiring behind a fan after seeing each entry.  The judges should
be recording their own honest assessments of each costume and then reconciling
those opinions later.  During conspiration, the first judge to speak can
unfairly influence the other two judges.  Not a fan of numerical scoring
of entries, which is pretty much required if you’re going to average the
scores.  Costume quality can’t be empirically measured so that you can say
this one is one inch better than that one.  The other problem with
numerical scoring, is if you are considering subcategories of costume
quality.  Is fit equivalent to flow?  Is one greater than the other
and how much?  This argument could take place for any number of aspects of
costume construction.  If a costume is a media recreation, how do you rate
that vs an original design?  Another problem with numerical scoring is the
first person usually gets screwed.  They get an average rating regardless,
so the judges can leave themselves room for something better that might come
along.

All of this is the MD’s call and
while at the time I respect the position and the decision, that doesn’t mean I
have to agree with it.”

Side note:
this was the first time tablets were employed for judge scores, rather that the
tried and true pencil and paper pads.   There
was speculation over whether the tablet system would work better had there been
an even number of judges for both Workmanship and Presentation.

“The Exhibits area may have been
small, but the doll show was not; it had far more entries than many previous
years, and kept growing as the con progressed.

The layout was surprising and a
bit unorthodox, but worked very well, allowing easy visual access to all sides
of the dolls.  I was initially a little
worried about physical vulnerability, especially being immediately adjacent to
the dealer’s area, but everyone I saw was very respectful and careful around
the dolls.  For a Costume-Con, I could
see using this layout again. 

As often happens, the
registration process was less formal than that used for the masquerades.  In this case, the registration form was also
the doll’s label.  It worked surprisingly
well, though I’ll admit there were a few dolls for which I wished the entry
information had been filled out more completely…..

The judging was surprising to me……..
I pretty much agreed with their choices, though I might have given a few more
awards had I been judging.”

Official Photography

Two words
about Official Photography – “too expensive”.
At the prices they were charging, there was no way realistically  to purchase a whole set of photos of all the
events.  As a solution to that lost opportunity,
we are “crowdsourcing” photos from  all
our members who took pictures, sorting through them and distributing a CD to
each of them.

Note to
future Concoms:    Negotiate better deals
(this may’ve been the best they could do – we weren’t in on that part of the
planning )   At least the photographer
got a complete record of all the shows and made sure all the pictures were good
before letting the contestants leave the room.
Also, it was nice not to have the Official Photographer in the Green
Room. 

Tech

Rehearsals
ran quick and early for both shows.   Yay
for them!  

The PA
speakers were a bit tinny and anyone standing behind them couldn’t  understand what was being said due to the
acoustics.

Green
Room

Not very well catered – there were
very few sodas, only popcorn and pretzels for snacks.  

“I
saw this as a further indication that the hotel did not conside the con as a
major event. It did not treat us as if it was.   CCs need to specify in the contract how the hotel will
handle the food. For events of our size, if it’s not in the contract, it
doesn’t happen.”

Why were people not notified there was a
press person wandering about taking pictures?
There appeared to be a shortage of den moms.    One of the masq participants wound up
herding  others to official photo.   Was there much of a push for volunteers,
beyond the website?    An announcement of
need for den moms could have been made during the FNS.

Photo runs

Starting with the FNS, it was noticed that the photo runs were taking too long.  Archon puts three people on stage at a time,
starting from stage left to stage right, with each of them rotating one
position to the right after everyone in the audience has had their chance to
take their pictures.    Longtime attendee Steward Hartman has been the
unofficial wrangler for the photo runs, directing people to move and make sure
everyone has their photos.   This
position ought to be officially recognized.

Dealers
Room

A nice, spacious room, with a pretty
good-sized number of dealers with lots of different wares for sale.    One
of the more popular dealers was the folks selling the vintage Japanese haori,
kimono etc. by the pound.   Only
complaint?   No booksellers.

Exhibits:  Some interesting stuff, mostly local, at
least half of it MACS members’s works.   We like how some of the costume exhibits were
spread out throughout the edges of theDealers Room.

Dead Dog
party

It occurred Monday afternoon.   Future
ConComs: Those of us who make your Monday room nights need something to do,
otherwise, we’ll leave earlier.   Plan
for something for the evening – even if it’s a simple as “hey, let’s hang out
at the pool/bar/whatever”.     The Archives could be opened up to show people something, with advanced knowledge.

All  things considered in this review, we had very few beefs with the way the con was run.   All the cricitisms were fairly
nit-picky.     We gave the con a B+ to
A-.

Well done, MACS.

Just to clarify, in regards to:

I think my brain just does not work that way, to be able to peruse and
compare designs on a screen. I know, I know, I could print out the whole
thing…….but with the number of designs it’s not been practical with
my printer, which only holds about 30 sheets of paper at a time. IT’s
frustrating.

The First CC I attended (CC9 in Columbia) I registered at the door, had
never even HEARD of the FFF. I really think our promotion and outreach
has gotten better.

I’ve also run the Fashion Show (CC27 in Baltimore) and I commiserate with
the you on contestants dropping out at the last minute (i.e. the con has
already started). It’s hard to be in constant communication with
entrants, and keep having to revise the show.

I still think that having it Sunday mid-day is the best alternative. I
preferred when the SP contest was run at the same time as the Fashion
Show; I understand all the reasons why people like it on a separate day,
but I wonder if the numbers really have shown that it pushes more people
to enter the Fashion Show or not.

Lisa a

On 04 Jun 2016 17:35:20 -0700 “casamai@sbcglobal.net [runacc]”
<runacc@yahoogroups.com> writes:

Mostly cribbing from Karen�s comments here: She would have liked to have
had more entries. Six people did not properly notify her they would not
be in the show. There is a need to stress that contestants should let
the Director know well ahead of time if they will not get their designs
made. For example, one of the designers who reserved one of their own
exclusively backed out, but didn�t inform Karen. Someone else could
have done it. And a maker who did not want to repeat a design lost
their opportunity because the two people who were going to do the same
one backed out.

As usual, there seemed to be fewer people in the audience for the Folio
show. Do people sleep in on Sunday morning? There�s not much that can
be done to encourage more people to come to the show, despite no
programming opposite it. Overall, though, Karen was pleased with what
she had and it ran smoothly.

Note to FFS directors about run orders: Put an experienced person at the
beginning and end and then sprinkle the other experienced people among
the first-timers.

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

As for electronic Folios versus hard-copy – it began as a matter of cost rather than trend. Printing & Mailing costs rose precipitously several years ago and the cost of the Folio became the biggest budget item for many CCs. Add in problems with delivering in a timely fashion (post production of a printed Folio is easily doubled by printing & mailing) and growing acceptance of electronic publications in the larger costuming community; you can see how electronic is the only feasible option going forward. As you say, you can always print it (many do). Given your printer limitations maybe it would be easier to load it on a flash drive and take it to your local Kinko’s (or whatever printshop is in your area).
The savings to the concom means they can provide more in other areas.

As an aside – did the horizontal format make it easier to browse the recent Folio as opposed to the past vertical formats? I was hoping it would make it more use-able as an electronic format.

Nora M

—–Original Message—–
From: runacc@yahoogroups.com [mailto:runacc@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: Sunday, June 5, 2016 11:15 AM
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [runacc] SLCG Costume-Con 34 Review: Future Fashion Show

I know that many of you running and supervising the Folio and the Fashion Show are about my age, maybe a bit younger, so here is my personal take on it. Ever since the Folio began to be put out completely electronically I have barely looked at it and have not made up any designs. I remember back when getting very excited about doing them, and one year, being crazy disappointed because the design I Wanted had already been reserved.

I think my brain just does not work that way, to be able to peruse and compare designs on a screen. I know, I know, I could print out the whole thing…….but with the number of designs it’s not been practical with my printer, which only holds about 30 sheets of paper at a time. IT’s frustrating.

The First CC I attended (CC9 in Columbia) I registered at the door, had never even HEARD of the FFF. I really think our promotion and outreach has gotten better.

I’ve also run the Fashion Show (CC27 in Baltimore) and I commiserate with the you on contestants dropping out at the last minute (i.e. the con has already started). It’s hard to be in constant communication with entrants, and keep having to revise the show.

I still think that having it Sunday mid-day is the best alternative. I preferred when the SP contest was run at the same time as the Fashion Show; I understand all the reasons why people like it on a separate day, but I wonder if the numbers really have shown that it pushes more people to enter the Fashion Show or not.

Lisa a

On 04 Jun 2016 17:35:20 -0700 “casamai@sbcglobal.net [runacc]”
<runacc@yahoogroups.com> writes:

Mostly cribbing from Karen s comments here: She would have liked to have
had more entries. Six people did not properly notify her they would not
be in the show. There is a need to stress that contestants should let
the Director know well ahead of time if they will not get their designs
made. For example, one of the designers who reserved one of their own
exclusively backed out, but didn t inform Karen. Someone else could
have done it. And a maker who did not want to repeat a design lost
their opportunity because the two people who were going to do the same one backed out.

As usual, there seemed to be fewer people in the audience for the Folio
show. Do people sleep in on Sunday morning? There s not much that can
be done to encourage more people to come to the show, despite no programming opposite it. Overall, though, Karen was pleased with what she had and it ran smoothly.

Note to FFS directors about run orders: Put an experienced person at the beginning and end and then sprinkle the other experienced people among the first-timers.

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

————————————
Posted by: <lisa58@juno.com>
————————————

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

Yahoo Groups Links

>
> The ICG does print and mail a small number of copies of The
> International Costumer to ICG members who need to receive a hard copy.
> Can CC’s do likewise with regard to the Folio? If the number is
> controlled and known in advance, it could be covered in the con’s
> budget.
>
> Byron

CC31 did mail hardcopy folios to a few who requested it. Probably under
a dozen. There were also some DVDs made for at the door registrations.

Michael