runacc.costume-con.org

Thank you to Bruce, Nora and Karen for a very well written review of the
con. From the “front” there isn’t much more to add.

There are several background issues which should be addressed here, but
I’m still deep in the CC site, and can’t take the time at the moment.

Bruce, would you please boil the three sections down (if possible) to a
single printed page, for inclusion in the next Newsletter?

Any discussion, comments, further remarks from the rest of this list?

Thanks again!

Betsy

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

Bruce, Nora, & Karen:
Thank you for the detailed review of the convention. Give me a day
or two to re-read your e-mails and respond to them in a more complete manner.
I want to put as much thought as the three of you did into my response.

In a nutshell, I appreciate the views you expressed. Some you hit
right on the head, some are news to me, like things in the Green Room, and
some I’d like to explain. I feel that things said in this e-group are more
private and confidential than others.
Henry Osier

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

I strongly agree with almost everything they posted. I especially feel that
Easter and Passover should be avoided in future. While there may or may not
be an appreciably larger attendance, it would make for a more comfortable
con in general. Personally, I did not think to pack myself a box of matzoh
since I was sure there would be some at the con suite, as I have seen at
past (general SF/F) cons. My own fault, true, but most of the meat snacks
were of the pork family, so the lack of cheeses and veggies became a problem
for me, if not for others. Also, holiday air fares are higher.

Elaine

> Any discussion, comments, further remarks from the rest of this list?
>
> Thanks again!
>
> Betsy
>

Elaine Mami wrote:
<snip>

> Also, holiday air fares are higher.

Here is where we run into a problem. Holiday air fares are frequently
higher, but holiday hotel rates are generally lower. Also, for a small
convention like CC, which can never hope to “own the hotel”, the only
way to get sufficient function space is probably going to be to schedule
on a holiday weekend in most parts of the country. FWIIW, early Spring
is usually the worst time of the year for hotel bookings and the hotels
are hungry for business, at the same time, the weather can be “iffy”
leaving some people unable to get to the con. There is no perfect
answer. Keeping all this in mind, I’d be interested to see comments
regarding the choice of “Presidents’ Day” weekend for a CC.

Thanks –
^M^

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

Well, considering that we had a major blizzard that weekend right here
this year….I’m not currently in favor of it.

I think if we had to choose a holiday weekend, I’d prefer revisiting
Memorial Day, except that with major regional SF cons having taken that
weekend as their own, we could also lose in draw from them. And with
many historic groups looking at that weekend as the first to get out and
do stuff outdoors, we lose the historic costumers as well.

It will be interesting to see how the next two CCs do, since they’re
both scheduled off-holiday.

Cheers,

Betsy

Martin Gear wrote:

>
> Elaine Mami wrote:
> <snip>
> > Also, holiday air fares are higher.
>

[snip]

Keeping all this in mind, I’d be interested to see comments

> regarding the choice of “Presidents’ Day” weekend for a CC.
>
> Thanks –
> ^M^
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

Well written and well balanced reviews that captured both the strengths and the problems! I agree with much of the comments.

The CC runners’ guide should remind committees to provide receipts for memberships, either in the form of the PR or, if PRs are not restricted to members (i.e., used for publicity), in some other form.

I agree with the comments so far about the advisability of avoiding Easter and Passover. When the CC 24 people asked about when to hold the con, our response was, “Not Easter weekend!”

More later, I hope.

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2003 10:30 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC21 Review – Part III

Thank you to Bruce, Nora and Karen for a very well written review of the
con. From the “front” there isn’t much more to add.

There are several background issues which should be addressed here, but
I’m still deep in the CC site, and can’t take the time at the moment.

Bruce, would you please boil the three sections down (if possible) to a
single printed page, for inclusion in the next Newsletter?

Any discussion, comments, further remarks from the rest of this list?

Thanks again!

Betsy

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

Martin Gear wrote:

> There is no perfect
> answer. Keeping all this in mind, I’d be interested to see comments
> regarding the choice of “Presidents’ Day” weekend for a CC.
>

I know nothing of the hotel or travel costs.

However, since we are still strongly in the grip of winter, there is
always the danger of travel delays due to road conditions/airport
closures. Also, most of us like to wander around a little in the town,
try a restaurant, do some shopping. This becomes a much bigger hassle
in February.

Also, that weekend can be affected by Valentine’s Day or, depending on
the timing, the last weekend of partying before Lent.

Karen

Martin Gear said:

> Keeping all this in mind, I’d be interested to see comments
> regarding the choice of “Presidents’ Day” weekend for a CC.

While I would love to go with a holiday weekend, we’re going to have to go
off-holiday for many reasons.

Easter is right out for numerous reasons. CC21 picked Easter because
Minicon (before they pulled a Boskone) used to be a major midwest costume
venue on Easter weekend and the theory is that it was an open space in
people’s schedules. It was a good working idea. Unfortunately, the
intervening four years kind of washed that tradition away.

CC26? isn’t planning for President’s Day weekend because there is an
established fan-run Dr. Who convention in LA then (and we like going to
it). Also, Sandy and Pierre asked us if we would consider scheduling later
spring so a drive over the rockies might be more reasonable.

CC26? also isn’t planning for Memorial Day weekend because that’s BayCon
and it would be stupid to schedule against our own big local, particularly
since we’re thinking about their hotel.

We’re aiming for the last weekend in April, which should be reasonable
weather (tail end of the rainy season and I-80 should be completely open).
I don’t think that conflicts with any major west coast cons. It should be
a reasonable choice.

andy

To all: We LIKED the con being over Easter (BaltiCon’s old weekend), as
Cait didn’t have to miss much school to attend the con. This is a REAL
issue for Maryland schools; too many absences, even for students with
otherwise high grades, and the school administration threatens to make the
student repeat the semester. I sure don’t remember it being this
authoritation when I was in junior high and high school 30+ years ago in
California.

To Henry: Ricky and I also agree with most of what Bruce, Nora, and the
other Karen have told you. Please don’t get defensive and feel you have to
explain everything. Much of what went wrong was invisible to your
attendees, especially the first-timers, who were having Big Fun. Take it as
constructive criticism from the veterans who have been in the trenches and
had their own learning experiences, because you WILL have to fix most of
these things if you expect to run another Costume-Con. [Your facility would
have been completely overwhelmed if you had drawn the attendance you
expected.] And those of you who are on current committees or bid committees
should take special note of the criticisms of CC-21, because you DON’T want
to have those same problems at your conventions.

My two cents, which also has relevance for future cons:

Re Hotel shuttle: There was a lack of shuttle service to the airport on
Thursday night. I had friends from California who made reservations for the
hotel shuttle (or so they thought) and ended up with a VERY expensive taxi
ride instead because there was NO hotel shuttle to be found when they
arrived at the airport. For those of you still in the process of selecting
hotels, PLEASE pick a facility that is close to transportation, as a
significant portion of your membership WILL fly in from out of state. Find
out if there is a hotel shuttle to and from the airport, and whether it is
“courtesy” or “complimentary” (one is free and one is not). I learned this
lesson on CC-1 (whose hotel was a $15 “courtesy” shuttle ride from the
nearest airport, which was a LOT of money in those days. If there is a fee,
PUBLISH IT in your PRs so your membership is not caught unawares.

Re PRs: Yes, I know we live in the Age of the Internet, but not everybody
is online (especially in an artsy-craftsy hobby such as ours), but you HAVE
to mail printed PRs to your membership, and not rely on their getting
information from off your website.

Also re PRs: Please publish a list of paid members at the back of your PRs,
and keep updating it each time you print a new PR. (Also would be prudent
to park it somewhere on the website.) Many people scan through these lists
and decide to go if they see their friends are going. Many of us do not see
each other other than Costume-Con, so it’s kind of a class reuinion type
mindset. Exploit that to its fullest.

Re Masquerades and other stage events:
(1) Get your stage locked in as early as possible, and then get the
information out there. I’m not sure what went wrong at CC-21, and I’m not
sure it was any one person’s fault, but this was a major point of
irritation for a whole lot of attendees who were competing. At CC-6, we
knew what our stage was going to be like (and how many more risers we had
to go rent from a local theatrical supply house to make it happen) before
we even signed a hotel contract, so there is NO excuse for this.
(2) Print award certificates in advance, and have your judges pre-sign a
whole bunch of them while they are waiting around for the masquerade to
start. There is no excuse not to have something to hand every winning entry
at the con. (Note: At the cons I ran, we also gave Certificates of
Appreciation to everyone who participated in the Fashion Show.)
(3) Have an odd number of judges (3 or 5) in order to avoid ties.

Re the convention’s being on a holiday weekend: For every person who
complains about higher airfares and missing out on family obligations,
there will be others who would prefer to have that “extra” day (typically a
paid holiday from work) in order to travel or extend their convention stay.
[I missed a whole lot of Easters to attend EquiCon and BaltiCon, and a
whole lot of Thanksgivings to attend LosCon–with the triple guilt trip
that my parents’ anniversary AND my mother’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving
most years.] Costume-Con was founded on a three-day weekend (Martin Luther
King Day), most of them have been run on three-day weekends, and this is
because the Historical runs so late on Sunday night and it is nice to have
the Monday as a paid day off from work. I can understand the problem with
putting Costume-Con on a religious holiday weekend.
I also understand that two earlier holiday weekends (Martin Luther King and
Presidents) typically have weather problems, particularly in the East (and
problems with Easterners getting to CCs in milder climates due to major
winter storms).

Re advertising: Send flyers to every convention you can think of, and not
just your local ones. WorldCon, WesterCon, BaltiCon, Arisia, LunaCon,
DragonCon, BayCon, Archon, San Diego Comic-Con, Toronto Trek, and the big
anime cons should get flyered for starters. (I’m sure there are others I’m
forgetting.) If you can’t be there in person, ask on this list and the
ICG-D list if anyone is going, and can take flyers for you, and maybe
“push” the con if they are doing panels.
Even if they’re not going themselves, most of them “know” somebody who can.
(Worst case, send a stack of flyers to the convention in care of the
committee member who’s in charge of coordinating fan clubs and special
interest groups at the con–they’ll see they get out on the flyer table. I
served this function for Comic-Con and StarCon for several years.) See if
your local fabric and bead stores will post or distribute flyers about your
event. Ditto any local schools with strong theatrical or fashion
departments. Ditto your local chapter of the SCA, RenFaire, and other
historical re-enactment groups. Send press releases about the con to
magazines such as Threads, Ornament, Belle Armoire, Sew News, etc. At
worst, you’ll get put in the calendar section. At best, they’ll do an
article about you. [David Coffin and a couple of other writers from Threads
attended CC-7 and had a good time, so there’s your “in” there.] Also send
press releases to your local paper(s) and news stations. Again, worst case,
you end up in the Calendar section; best case, they send a reporter to the
con. Many Costume-Cons cut their advertising budget about 6-9 months out
from the convention when the memberships are not rolling in and you’re
panicking over money (I understand about the panic mode, believe me). That
is absolutely the WORST thing you can do–if you don’t get the word out,
nobody knows to come. I’m saddened that Costume-Con only drew around 250
people when based in one of the largest cities in our country (and one that
has always drawn a good attendance for its WorldCon masquerade). Obviously,
the word did not get out.

Re hotel facilities: Costume-Con is a VERY space-intensive convention in
terms of panel rooms, competitions, vendor rooms, and displays. Typically,
a 500-person Costume-Con will need the same sort of facilities as a regular
S/F con drawing an attendance of 1,000 to 2,000. Which is the reason why
you need to cut the best hotel deal you can, and offset as many fees on
this space as possible with room nights. At CC-1, we did a food function (a
luncheon before the Fashion Show) to make the hotel happy. At CC-6, we
ordered coffee/tea services and snacks for the con suite and public areas
of the convention to make the hotel happy. You have to decide what
trade-offs you can make. I am no expert on hotel contracts (we paid $$$$
after CC-1, and our CC-6 contract was negotiated by Michael Siladi, who
negotiates regularly for BayCon and WesterCon), but Marty Gear has promised
to write a comprehensive guide for CC. YOUR HOTEL CONTRACT CAN MAKE YOU OR
BREAK YOU, so this is an area worthy of a lot of attention.

These are the major points I can think of at the moment. Again, let’s find
ways to get all of these ramblings codified so inexperienced committees
don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. I’m sorry it has not gotten
codified before this. I’ve run 3 CC’s (with memberships ranging from 150 up
to 600 attendees) with NO instructions (and put 500 people through my house
and yard every night for 10 nights every October for the last 10 years,
also with no instructions), but I can understand the need for a blueprint
in order to ensure consistency and excellence from year to year.

–Karen

Andy said…

> We’re aiming for the last weekend in April, which should be reasonable
> weather (tail end of the rainy season and I-80 should be completely open).
> I don’t think that conflicts with any major west coast cons. It should be
> a reasonable choice.

This is a valid point. To avoid conflict with any major cons in general,
and to have reasonable travelling weather as well, is the ideal. I clearly
remember the President’s Day weekend snows messing up several cons due to
travel conditions.

To the best of my knowledge, the end of April does not contain any major
East Coast cons either. Byron, Betsy, please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m
clueless about the rest of the country.

I hate to cause a problem here, but what are your thoughts about
establishing a more regular time for CCs? Is this even something worth
thinking about? (I am now ducking behind large furniture.)

Elaine

I think this is true, Elaine, and still a little early for the
re-enacting events to start kicking in as well.

Our social calendar exploded May 1, and won’t really stop until sometime
after the middle of June. We already have our choice of four different
events, including Balticon, on Memorial Day Saturday alone).

I’m not sure about the south, central or western parts of the country.

Regarding scheduling for a regular weekend: When attempting to get the
best price from the hotel, you kind of need to work with their already
booked schedule. Three (four, really) years out, you have much more
flexibility, but still depending on where you choose to bid your con,
you may run into other regularly scheduled events.

For example, here in Columbia, where two of the CCs were held (CC3 and
CC9), we had Memorial Day and President’s Day weekends respectively. As
I recall, the former was a major problem for our area because there’s an
annual soccer tournament, and all the hotels are booked well in advance
to accommodate all the out of town teams. (I’m certain Marty will
correct me if I’m wrong, here.) I think that’s the main reason we chose
to do CC9 in February. No soccer teams to worry about.

I do think we could try for a narrower window. Or for after Memorial Day
if the school issue is a problem (a valid concern, and one I’ll have to
deal with myself in about another three years). I think, without reading
the passage, that the ConStitution stipulates a tradition, not a
requirement in sticking with the Memorial Day cut-off for the con.

YMMV.

Cheers,

Betsy

Elaine Mami wrote:

>
> Andy said…
>
> To the best of my knowledge, the end of April does not contain any major
> East Coast cons either. Byron, Betsy, please correct me if I’m wrong. I’m
> clueless about the rest of the country.
>
> I hate to cause a problem here, but what are your thoughts about
> establishing a more regular time for CCs? Is this even something worth
> thinking about? (I am now ducking behind large furniture.)
>
> Elaine
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
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—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
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http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

I think the problem there would be that the “ideal date” (determined by
weather) would vary considerably depending on where a CC is being held.
Traditionally April has been fairly nice, consistent weather in St. Louis.
The last 2 years it’s been relatively nice in March, rainy and cold to hot
in April though early May. You see the dilemma.
Also having checked the holidays for 2007 (the year of CC25), Easter is
April 8th and Passover is the 2nd through 26th.

Nora

From: “Elaine Mami” <vze3zdpc@verizon.net>

> I hate to cause a problem here, but what are your thoughts about
> establishing a more regular time for CCs? Is this even something worth
> thinking about? (I am now ducking behind large furniture.)
> Elaine

> Also having checked the holidays for 2007 (the year of CC25), Easter is
> April 8th and Passover is the 2nd through 26th.

That’s not possible. Passover is only (!) 8 days long! Please check those
dates again.

Also, I am not advocating trying to totally avoid Passover. That’s not
logical, for one thing, and not necessary, either. My point re: Passover
was that the food options were limited, and I had not prepared for that.
Had I been planning better, I would have provided for myself. Also, I
totally avoided starving! However, the idea here is to gather enough
information for future concoms to avoid the same mistakes that have already
been made.

For instance, I remember Balticons always had notices of where Easter
services were being held, often had small Seders, and had a variety of foods
in the con suite to please most (but never all) attendees. I know Marty
will correct me if I’m mis-remembering.

How does this sound? – take a page or two from Balticon, and publish a list
of local churches and synagogues (with their service times), as well as a
comprehensive dining guide.

Elaine

From: “Elaine Mami” <vze3zdpc@verizon.net>

> > Also having checked the holidays for 2007 (the year of CC25), Easter is
> > April 8th and Passover is the 2nd through 26th.
> That’s not possible. Passover is only (!) 8 days long! Please check

those

> dates again.

Okay, so now the secret’s out – I don’t observe Passover.
I got that info from an online holiday calendar; obviously an inaccurate
one – I willdouble-check. (It did seem rather long to me, but what do I
know?)
Nora

At 09:59 PM 5/4/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>I do think we could try for a narrower window. Or for after Memorial Day
>if the school issue is a problem (a valid concern, and one I’ll have to
>deal with myself in about another three years). I think, without reading
>the passage, that the ConStitution stipulates a tradition, not a
>requirement in sticking with the Memorial Day cut-off for the con.

Remember, folks, that *I* have to approve the bid. And if someone bids for
a date outside the “traditional” window for Costume-Con, I have every right
to deny them. The precedent is the Southern California bid for CC18 that
attempted to move CC to a July date and combine it with Costume College. As
Captain Hook would say, “Bad form.”

There is a broad “window” in the spring for Costume-Con specifically to try
to avoid conflicts with local events, and to try to give committees as much
flexibility as possible. The spring window is also to avoid running
Costume-Con up against WesterCon and WorldCon, for people who are trying to
make new competition costumes for those events.

As for avoiding holiday weekends to avoid conflicts with other cons, it’s
damn near impossible. There is a con with a masquerade going on somewhere
in the country (or in Canada) just about every weekend of the year. Or you
end up conflicting with SCA Twelfth Night. (We chose our dates for CC-2 so
as not to conflict with the local Twelfth Night, and then some other
royalty came into power, and changed the dates, so we ended up bending
ourselves all out of shape for nothing.) Or RenFaire. Or whatever. It’s
best to just pick a date somewhere within the specified range and go for it.

–Karen

CONduit has printed a code on the mailing label indicating paid membership. Since the PRs are sent bulk mail (not likely for CC23), differing insertions are not permitted in bulk mail.
Charles

—–Original Message—–
From: Byron Connell <bconnel1@nycap.rr.com>

The CC runners’ guide should remind committees to provide receipts for memberships, either in the form of the PR or, if PRs are not restricted to members (i.e., used for publicity), in some other form.

More later, I hope.

Byron

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

That reasoning is very similar to the date selected for CC-23 (Utah). One of our earlier bids was for late march/early april, but at CC-18, some folks were afraid of blizzards in the mountains. Some of our tentative West Coast vendors warned us of some major events on Holiday weekends. We also had a problem of bumping up against the major local CONduit, which was between Mother’s Day and Memorial (but has now moved to Memorial day).

So we have that same date (as the CC-26 bid — end of April-early may) for CC-23.

We may bump into an SCA event, but we learned from CONduit that trying to miss those events can be like the Twelth Night story mentioned elsewhere here.

(Hope you can make it over here Andy)
Charles

—–Original Message—–
From: Andrew Trembley <attrembl@bovil.com>
<snip>
We’re aiming for the last weekend in April, which should be reasonable
weather (tail end of the rainy season and I-80 should be completely open).
I don’t think that conflicts with any major west coast cons. It should be
a reasonable choice.

andy

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

This brings up a few points:

Dave Doering has set up a on-line data file service, which I’m hoping will help our concom keep track of some communication. I’ll let you know about it’s effectiveness, as we progress.

I wondered if we should list paid members? It sounds like the answer is yes (unless they request we don’t).

Working on the masquerade for CONduit, we very rarely get the stage we thought we designed. Partly our fault, and partly the hotel. (I have worked both on masquerade, and on hotel liason.) This should not be a problem for CC-23 since we are planning on using a theater.

What is “A LOT” of money for a shuttle fare? We have shuttle service to our hotel, not complimentary. We are aware that can be a bit of a problem, but noticed other CC’s were outside the major city (Chicago, Atlanta) The costs per person drop for multiple riders, but we are still working on how to try to coordinate this.

The hotel costs are very scary for our CC, and I would be interested in learning more. We did have a choice of charging more per room, and getting a cut rate on convention space. We opted for cheap rooms, but boy, it makes the hotel cost intimidating. It could make a difference if there are lots of cheap rooms close by. It would not make sense to scare everyone away from the hotel, and then not make the room-count price-break. If no cheaper hotels a close by, then it is safer to let the room rates rise a bit.

I joined the Chicago Yahoo chat list. I thought I could learn something by eaves-dropping. Whatever happened at Chicago, did not happen on the list. (CONduit has a chat-list, and it’s used quite a bit, but is not considered official. Which is not to say the things don’t get turned into policy anyway.)

Charles

—–Original Message—–
From: Ricky & Karen Dick <castleb@pulsenet.com>

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Receipts for paid con memberships are GOOD! However, what no one else noted
re: CC21 is that (at least when I went to hand in Byron’s and mine) the Site
Selection table was not giving out receipts for checks received with
ballots, and in fact the person there gave me a really blank look when I
said that I wanted one. I had to vigorously INSIST upon getting something
in writing. As it was, what I got was a torn-off scrap of lined paper from
a note pad. After a certain CC which shall remain nameless lost all record
of people who had site selected (and who therefore had a credit toward con
membership), I personally am not prepared to hand over my money without some
tangible proof that it was received. It’s like an umbrella – if you carry
it, it won’t rain; if you don’t, it’ll pour. The old “your cancelled check
will be your receipt” line doesn’t work any more, in these days when banks
charge you extra to get them back, and when you may not find out until many
months later that the con committee either lost your check or failed to
record it properly.

Also, CC committees who send representatives to other CC’s, as well as
WorldCon or large regionals, should always have a list of paid members at
their table with them, showing both supporting and attending members.

Tina

This is a good point.

Although I offered to assist the process earlier (by at least a few
months) for CC24, there was no follow-through. When the time came to
count the ballots, I was asked to help by this year’s site selection
commissioner.

That’s when I found out the individuals who collected the money had
failed to record many of the individuals’ payment methods at all,
because the responsibility for collecting the funds was delegated
without giving instructions to the individuals who were collecting them.

This represented two problems:

1. Wasting an hour while we sorted through each ballot and certified the
method of payment.
2. Finding one travellers check made out to the ICG(!).

We spent so much time looking at the dollar amounts, it didn’t even
occur to me to check the address blocks for complete information. And
because CC21’s badges did not have membership numbers printed (as is
stipulated in the ConStitution), it’s going to be harder for CC24 to
match up for missing data.

I would have thought that the process Karen outlined in the ConStitution
would be enough for management of the site selection process. We’re
lucky that there was only one bid this year, since that makes the
management a little easier, but still, I’m not sure what happened there.

And concerning depositing of those funds: The checks need to be cleared
within 90 days, or the checks go stale. There were issues with
depositing the checks received from CC21 that should be avoided in the
future.

I think this needs to be addressed more fully.

Betsy

Christine Connell wrote:

>
> Receipts for paid con memberships are GOOD! However, what no one else noted
> re: CC21 is that (at least when I went to hand in Byron’s and mine) the Site
> Selection table was not giving out receipts for checks received with
> ballots, and in fact the person there gave me a really blank look when I
> said that I wanted one. I had to vigorously INSIST upon getting something
> in writing. As it was, what I got was a torn-off scrap of lined paper from
> a note pad. After a certain CC which shall remain nameless lost all record
> of people who had site selected (and who therefore had a credit toward con
> membership), I personally am not prepared to hand over my money without some
> tangible proof that it was received. It’s like an umbrella – if you carry
> it, it won’t rain; if you don’t, it’ll pour. The old “your cancelled check
> will be your receipt” line doesn’t work any more, in these days when banks
> charge you extra to get them back, and when you may not find out until many
> months later that the con committee either lost your check or failed to
> record it properly.
>
> Also, CC committees who send representatives to other CC’s, as well as
> WorldCon or large regionals, should always have a list of paid members at
> their table with them, showing both supporting and attending members.
>
> Tina

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
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http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

Um… I know when WorldCon generally is. When is WesterCon? Just
curious….

Cheers,

Betsy

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
> At 09:59 PM 5/4/2003 -0400, you wrote:

[snip]

> The spring window is also to avoid running
> Costume-Con up against WesterCon and WorldCon, for people who are trying to
> make new competition costumes for those events.

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

In a message dated 5/4/2003 6:15:33 PM Central Daylight Time,
bconnel1@nycap.rr.com writes:

> hen the CC 24 people asked about when to hold the con, our response was,
> “Not Easter weekend!”

In quick response to that particular matter with CC21, I didn’t pick that
weekend. I would have moved it one week either way.
Henry Osier

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

The problem I saw was large hotels did not want to commit three years
in advance to a small gathering, such as CC, that wanted most of
their function space, weren’t going to take up an equivalent number
of guest rooms, and had little need for catered food because a better
group could come along in that time.

A holiday weekend in a town that thrives on tourism might hurt the
bid getting the best facilities that far in advance. The hotels
would much rather cut their best deal three to six months in advance
of the event – goes without saying, that’s impractical for our needs.

In a town that doesn’t have a lot of tourism, it would help getting a
large hotel, but then the bid would have to educate the rest of us
about the location’s offerings.

Another drawback is that some things are closed during some holidays,
but not others – like the American Girls Store was closed Sunday. In
case you didn’t know, Chicago is the only location of an American
Girls store. It’s probably open during ‘shopping’ holidays like
President’s Day, Columbus Day …

The only other thought I have is great location/atmosphere – poor
transportation or hotel options, could also hinder a CC.

Sharon

— In runacc@yahoogroups.com, Martin Gear <MartinGear@c…> wrote in
part:

There is no perfect

> answer. Keeping all this in mind, I’d be interested to see comments
> regarding the choice of “Presidents’ Day” weekend for a CC.
>
> Thanks –
> ^M^

CC22 went with an early April date to avoid con:
1. – avoid conflicts with the Holidays (Easter is the week after, and
Passover doesn’t start until the Wednesday after the Con, so even if you
stay until Tuesday, you should make it home in time. We will also have a
listing of all the local churches and synagogue, for those who might wish to
attend Palm Sunday services or Friday evening services)

2. – the weather in Atlanta at that time of year is usually pretty good, not
too hot, not too cold. The past three years it has been in the low 70’s on
our dates. We did worry a little bit about the folks coming from the West,
but we are hoping that it won’t be too awful for them. (of course, next year
we will undoubtedly have either a heat wave or a blizzard, just to spite us)

3. – it avoids most of the local festivals and conventions. RenFest doesn’t
start until the end of April, so the Rennies can come. The re-enactors also
don’t start gearing up until later in the month, so we hope they can make
it. The Dogwood Festival is usually that weekend, but in another part of
town, so you can pop outside and watch the hot air balloons go over without
dealing with the crowds.

4. – It’s just so darn pretty that time of year.

Trudy

>From: “Andrew Trembley” <attrembl@bovil.com>
>Reply-To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
>Subject: Date ideas (was Re: [runacc] CC21 Review – Part III)
>Date: Sun, 4 May 2003 17:07:36 -0700 (PDT)
>
>Martin Gear said:
> > Keeping all this in mind, I’d be interested to see comments
> > regarding the choice of “Presidents’ Day” weekend for a CC.
>
>While I would love to go with a holiday weekend, we’re going to have to go
>off-holiday for many reasons.
>
>Easter is right out for numerous reasons. CC21 picked Easter because
>Minicon (before they pulled a Boskone) used to be a major midwest costume
>venue on Easter weekend and the theory is that it was an open space in
>people’s schedules. It was a good working idea. Unfortunately, the
>intervening four years kind of washed that tradition away.
>
>CC26? isn’t planning for President’s Day weekend because there is an
>established fan-run Dr. Who convention in LA then (and we like going to
>it). Also, Sandy and Pierre asked us if we would consider scheduling later
>spring so a drive over the rockies might be more reasonable.
>
>CC26? also isn’t planning for Memorial Day weekend because that’s BayCon
>and it would be stupid to schedule against our own big local, particularly
>since we’re thinking about their hotel.
>
>We’re aiming for the last weekend in April, which should be reasonable
>weather (tail end of the rainy season and I-80 should be completely open).
>I don’t think that conflicts with any major west coast cons. It should be
>a reasonable choice.
>
>andy
>
>

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In regard to the dates, in the Midwest area, I cannot recommend February at
all! I was involved with a convention here in Milwaukee back in ’95 that was
severely hurt that year by a cold snap and snow. It sank attendance to the
point that there was no next year and the ones in charge, including me, had
to pay out of our pockets for the hotel bill.
Henry Osier

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

Just wanted to say that I am printing all this stuff out and hauling it to
the committee meeting this weekend. Keep going guys, you all were handing
out plenty of useful advice before and during the con, and I am really
appreciating all of it. There’s a lot of stuff that we may think that we
have covered, and then something else pops up that we have to consider. The
less of it that comes as a surprise, the happier I’ll be.

Trudy

>From: Ricky & Karen Dick <castleb@pulsenet.com>
>Reply-To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [runacc] CC21 Review
>Date: Sun, 04 May 2003 21:03:18 -0400
>
>To all: We LIKED the con being over Easter (BaltiCon’s old weekend), as
>Cait didn’t have to miss much school to attend the con. This is a REAL
>issue for Maryland schools; too many absences, even for students with
>otherwise high grades, and the school administration threatens to make the
>student repeat the semester. I sure don’t remember it being this
>authoritation when I was in junior high and high school 30+ years ago in
>California.
>
>To Henry: Ricky and I also agree with most of what Bruce, Nora, and the
>other Karen have told you. Please don’t get defensive and feel you have to
>explain everything. Much of what went wrong was invisible to your
>attendees, especially the first-timers, who were having Big Fun. Take it as
>constructive criticism from the veterans who have been in the trenches and
>had their own learning experiences, because you WILL have to fix most of
>these things if you expect to run another Costume-Con. [Your facility would
>have been completely overwhelmed if you had drawn the attendance you
>expected.] And those of you who are on current committees or bid committees
>should take special note of the criticisms of CC-21, because you DON’T want
>to have those same problems at your conventions.
>
>My two cents, which also has relevance for future cons:
>
>Re Hotel shuttle: There was a lack of shuttle service to the airport on
>Thursday night. I had friends from California who made reservations for the
>hotel shuttle (or so they thought) and ended up with a VERY expensive taxi
>ride instead because there was NO hotel shuttle to be found when they
>arrived at the airport. For those of you still in the process of selecting
>hotels, PLEASE pick a facility that is close to transportation, as a
>significant portion of your membership WILL fly in from out of state. Find
>out if there is a hotel shuttle to and from the airport, and whether it is
>”courtesy” or “complimentary” (one is free and one is not). I learned this
>lesson on CC-1 (whose hotel was a $15 “courtesy” shuttle ride from the
>nearest airport, which was a LOT of money in those days. If there is a fee,
>PUBLISH IT in your PRs so your membership is not caught unawares.
>
>Re PRs: Yes, I know we live in the Age of the Internet, but not everybody
>is online (especially in an artsy-craftsy hobby such as ours), but you HAVE
>to mail printed PRs to your membership, and not rely on their getting
>information from off your website.
>
>Also re PRs: Please publish a list of paid members at the back of your PRs,
>and keep updating it each time you print a new PR. (Also would be prudent
>to park it somewhere on the website.) Many people scan through these lists
>and decide to go if they see their friends are going. Many of us do not see
>each other other than Costume-Con, so it’s kind of a class reuinion type
>mindset. Exploit that to its fullest.
>
>Re Masquerades and other stage events:
>(1) Get your stage locked in as early as possible, and then get the
>information out there. I’m not sure what went wrong at CC-21, and I’m not
>sure it was any one person’s fault, but this was a major point of
>irritation for a whole lot of attendees who were competing. At CC-6, we
>knew what our stage was going to be like (and how many more risers we had
>to go rent from a local theatrical supply house to make it happen) before
>we even signed a hotel contract, so there is NO excuse for this.
>(2) Print award certificates in advance, and have your judges pre-sign a
>whole bunch of them while they are waiting around for the masquerade to
>start. There is no excuse not to have something to hand every winning entry
>at the con. (Note: At the cons I ran, we also gave Certificates of
>Appreciation to everyone who participated in the Fashion Show.)
>(3) Have an odd number of judges (3 or 5) in order to avoid ties.
>
>Re the convention’s being on a holiday weekend: For every person who
>complains about higher airfares and missing out on family obligations,
>there will be others who would prefer to have that “extra” day (typically a
>paid holiday from work) in order to travel or extend their convention stay.
>[I missed a whole lot of Easters to attend EquiCon and BaltiCon, and a
>whole lot of Thanksgivings to attend LosCon–with the triple guilt trip
>that my parents’ anniversary AND my mother’s birthday fell on Thanksgiving
>most years.] Costume-Con was founded on a three-day weekend (Martin Luther
>King Day), most of them have been run on three-day weekends, and this is
>because the Historical runs so late on Sunday night and it is nice to have
>the Monday as a paid day off from work. I can understand the problem with
>putting Costume-Con on a religious holiday weekend.
>I also understand that two earlier holiday weekends (Martin Luther King and
>Presidents) typically have weather problems, particularly in the East (and
>problems with Easterners getting to CCs in milder climates due to major
>winter storms).
>
>Re advertising: Send flyers to every convention you can think of, and not
>just your local ones. WorldCon, WesterCon, BaltiCon, Arisia, LunaCon,
>DragonCon, BayCon, Archon, San Diego Comic-Con, Toronto Trek, and the big
>anime cons should get flyered for starters. (I’m sure there are others I’m
>forgetting.) If you can’t be there in person, ask on this list and the
>ICG-D list if anyone is going, and can take flyers for you, and maybe
>”push” the con if they are doing panels.
>Even if they’re not going themselves, most of them “know” somebody who can.
>(Worst case, send a stack of flyers to the convention in care of the
>committee member who’s in charge of coordinating fan clubs and special
>interest groups at the con–they’ll see they get out on the flyer table. I
>served this function for Comic-Con and StarCon for several years.) See if
>your local fabric and bead stores will post or distribute flyers about your
>event. Ditto any local schools with strong theatrical or fashion
>departments. Ditto your local chapter of the SCA, RenFaire, and other
>historical re-enactment groups. Send press releases about the con to
>magazines such as Threads, Ornament, Belle Armoire, Sew News, etc. At
>worst, you’ll get put in the calendar section. At best, they’ll do an
>article about you. [David Coffin and a couple of other writers from Threads
>attended CC-7 and had a good time, so there’s your “in” there.] Also send
>press releases to your local paper(s) and news stations. Again, worst case,
>you end up in the Calendar section; best case, they send a reporter to the
>con. Many Costume-Cons cut their advertising budget about 6-9 months out
>from the convention when the memberships are not rolling in and you’re
>panicking over money (I understand about the panic mode, believe me). That
>is absolutely the WORST thing you can do–if you don’t get the word out,
>nobody knows to come. I’m saddened that Costume-Con only drew around 250
>people when based in one of the largest cities in our country (and one that
>has always drawn a good attendance for its WorldCon masquerade). Obviously,
>the word did not get out.
>
>Re hotel facilities: Costume-Con is a VERY space-intensive convention in
>terms of panel rooms, competitions, vendor rooms, and displays. Typically,
>a 500-person Costume-Con will need the same sort of facilities as a regular
>S/F con drawing an attendance of 1,000 to 2,000. Which is the reason why
>you need to cut the best hotel deal you can, and offset as many fees on
>this space as possible with room nights. At CC-1, we did a food function (a
>luncheon before the Fashion Show) to make the hotel happy. At CC-6, we
>ordered coffee/tea services and snacks for the con suite and public areas
>of the convention to make the hotel happy. You have to decide what
>trade-offs you can make. I am no expert on hotel contracts (we paid $$$$
>after CC-1, and our CC-6 contract was negotiated by Michael Siladi, who
>negotiates regularly for BayCon and WesterCon), but Marty Gear has promised
>to write a comprehensive guide for CC. YOUR HOTEL CONTRACT CAN MAKE YOU OR
>BREAK YOU, so this is an area worthy of a lot of attention.
>
>These are the major points I can think of at the moment. Again, let’s find
>ways to get all of these ramblings codified so inexperienced committees
>don’t have to keep reinventing the wheel. I’m sorry it has not gotten
>codified before this. I’ve run 3 CC’s (with memberships ranging from 150 up
>to 600 attendees) with NO instructions (and put 500 people through my house
>and yard every night for 10 nights every October for the last 10 years,
>also with no instructions), but I can understand the need for a blueprint
>in order to ensure consistency and excellence from year to year.
>
>–Karen
>

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In a message dated 5/4/2003 8:00:30 PM Central Daylight Time,
castleb@pulsenet.com writes:

> Please don’t get defensive and feel you have to
> explain everything.

Karen, and all,
Part of the reason that I decided to give myself a couple days to
respond was to let in sink in and not be defensive. I worked very hard on
CC21, to the point of putting my life on hold till now. I do admit that it
should have been better. My staff and I are con working vets, but, yes, there
are differences between SF cons and CC’s. There are similarities, also. I
still have a great deal of pride in CC21. And when I fully respond to the
criticism, I am going to try hard to put that aside, and acknowledge it when
it does creep up.
Henry Osier

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

Betsy Delaney wrote:

>

<snip>

> For example, here in Columbia, where two of the CCs were held (CC3 and
> CC9), we had Memorial Day and President’s Day weekends respectively. As
> I recall, the former was a major problem for our area because there’s an
> annual soccer tournament, and all the hotels are booked well in advance
> to accommodate all the out of town teams. (I’m certain Marty will
> correct me if I’m wrong, here.) I think that’s the main reason we chose
> to do CC9 in February. No soccer teams to worry about.

Sorry Betsy, but according to my records, we’ve held all three Baltimore
area CC’s over Memorial Day weekend. That was Disclave’s weekend, and
since Disclave did not generally do a masquerade, we offered a special
rate to Disclave members who wanted to come to Costume Con just for the
masquerades.

The soccer tournament was not a major problem for CC-3 although as Kathy
Sanders put it, “We were expecting (bass voice) SOCCER PLAYERS and we
got (falsetto voice) soccer players.” During that weekend the Hilton
was the headquarters hotel for the tournament and most of the teams
stayed with families in the area. By CC-9, the tournament has expanded
and we had a lot more soccer families staying at the Columbia Inn. Also
it became obvious that the Columbia Inn really did not have sufficient
function space for the size that Costume Con had become. We held CC-15
in downtown Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend because all of the
suburban hotels were now booked solid because of soccer tournaments in
the area. Given that, and the fact that BaltiCon [very costumer friendly
for those of you who never been] is now on Memorial Day weekend, I would
doubt that we will see any East Coast CC’s using that weekend.

^M^

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

At 10:24 AM 5/5/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>Um… I know when WorldCon generally is. When is WesterCon? Just
>curious….

July 4 weekend.

It rotates around. Has been as far west as Hawaii and as far east as Denver.

In the day, it consistently drew attendance of 2,000 people and
consistently put 40 or 50 masquerade entries on stage. I’m sure the numbers
are down there, as they are down everywhere else.

–Karen

–Karen

At 03:41 PM 5/5/2003 +0000, you wrote:

>A holiday weekend in a town that thrives on tourism might hurt the
>bid getting the best facilities that far in advance.

Doesn’t even have to be a holiday wekeend.

San Diego, where the first two CC’s were held, is a tourist town with
fairly good weather all year (a cold winter is 50 degrees, LOL!). It was
very difficult to negotiate a decent hotel contract, because they could
always fill the space at non-convention rates, so why give us a break?

>The only other thought I have is great location/atmosphere – poor
>transportation or hotel options, could also hinder a CC.

You’re describing CC-7 in Albany, NY, which had a beautiful hotel, but was
in the middle of nowhere, no direct flights to it, airport that could only
handle small planes, etc. I had a *great* time, but the con was poorly
attended and lost money.

–Karen

CC 9: February, 15 – 18, 1991

I clearly remember Rusty Dawe and several other Californians going out
to play in the snow at the Con Suite that weekend.

It wasn’t a lot of snow, but it was definitely February.

Betsy

ps: If that wasn’t the logic, then I don’t remember why we chose to do
President’s Day.

pps: re: My suggestion for going past Memorial Day: I was thinking mid
June because students stood less chance of missing school. On the other
hand, while thinking about it at lunch, I realize that May 1 is also
frequently the start of peak season for tourist time, and hotels
generally charge more. Memorial Day is generally an exception.

I’m not opposed to Easter Weekend (Elaine raises some good points), and
since we’re not particularly religious, missing either Passover or
Easter isn’t that big a deal to us. Besides, I found a perfectly
acceptable “spring egg hunt” this year that was held the weekend before
Easter, taking it completely out of the realm of religion. I generally
prefer my holidays to be secular, anyway.

Finally: ppps: I meant to start the whole message with “Playing devil’s
advocate here…” Lack of sleep and too much housework and computerwork,
plus mommy-work at play here.

Carry on.

Cheers,

Betsy

Martin Gear wrote:

>
> Sorry Betsy, but according to my records, we’ve held all three Baltimore
> area CC’s over Memorial Day weekend. That was Disclave’s weekend, and
> since Disclave did not generally do a masquerade, we offered a special
> rate to Disclave members who wanted to come to Costume Con just for the
> masquerades.

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

Charles Galway wrote:
<snip>

> Working on the masquerade for CONduit, we very rarely get the stage we thought we designed. Partly our fault, and partly the hotel.

This should never happen! All the hotel contracts that I have negotiated
(3 Costume Cons, 12 BaltiCons and two WorldCon) have had the stage
drawings/specifications as a part of the contract signed off by both the
Sales Critter and the Hotel’s General Manager. This meant that I
personally examined the facility’s risers, determined if there were any
that were in such poor condition that they could not be used, and found
a source for renting additional risers if we needed to do so. For
CC-15, two of the hotel’s risers had been damaged and not replaced, and
I used the contract specs to convince the hotel that they needed to
rent/borrow additional risers from an adjacent hotel. Anyone
negotiating hotel contracts should become intimately familiar with the
term “Liquidated Damages Clause”.

I expect to have a copy of the “Draft WorldCon Hotel Contract” annotated
for Costume Cons available for this list by the end of this month.
Anyone who is bidding for a CC should read it and even if you have
signed a hotel contract it would be worth while to look it over to make
certain that you have the critical stuff included in your hotel contract
and if not, get an addendum to the contract that you already have to
prevent the problems mentioned.

Marty

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

I thought I remembered that also. I seem to remember hearing glad cries of
“look, it snowed!”

Actually, what I mostly remembered, unless I’m mixing it up with another
con, was the grueling trip down from Albany through the thick of a blizzard
in south-central NY and eastern PA. Byron doesn’t “do” snow if he can help
it, so I got to drive from somewhere around Oneonta (as I recall – it may
have been further south) down to southern PA, where the snow finally deigned
to change over to rain. There were semi-trailers off the road everywhere,
especially on the steep downhill grades in the mountains! Not to mention
the idiots who assume that if you have 4-wheel drive, you can go zipping
along at 60 on the snow! The drive down on the snow didn’t scare me; it was
the other drivers who scared me!

And then we got heavy fog in the mountains around Scranton – Wilkes Barre on
the way home. Byron doesn’t like to “do” fog either if he can help it.

PS: Somewhere, buried in a box, we may even have some photos of them
reveling in the snow. I vaguely recall snapping some pictures of the
occasion.

Tina

—– Original Message —–
From: “Betsy Delaney” <betsy@hawkeswood.com>
To: <runacc@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 1:37 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] Re: Date ideas

> CC 9: February, 15 – 18, 1991
>
> I clearly remember Rusty Dawe and several other Californians going out
> to play in the snow at the Con Suite that weekend.
>
> It wasn’t a lot of snow, but it was definitely February.
>
> Betsy
>
>>

At present we have a CC “season” that runs from Presidents’ Day Weekend through Memorial Day Weekend. That gives concoms flexibility to pick the date for the con, which can be an advantage in terms of availability of hotel/facility. One disadvantage is that, because the con floats in time as well as space, costumers cannot rely on its being on a specific weekend. On the other hand, fixing the weekend for CC will put into competition with some sf con somewhere in North America, so the question is which approach results in the greater disadvantage.

Presidents’ Day Weekend is neither a traditional “family” holiday nor a major religious holiday, so it does not have the disadvantage of Easter/Passover. The major disadvantage is weather, but for much of North America that holds true for the rest of February and March. Albany has had snow in May!

Byron

—– Original Message —–
From: Betsy Delaney
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Sunday, May 04, 2003 7:03 PM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC21 Review – Part III

Well, considering that we had a major blizzard that weekend right here
this year….I’m not currently in favor of it.

I think if we had to choose a holiday weekend, I’d prefer revisiting
Memorial Day, except that with major regional SF cons having taken that
weekend as their own, we could also lose in draw from them. And with
many historic groups looking at that weekend as the first to get out and
do stuff outdoors, we lose the historic costumers as well.

It will be interesting to see how the next two CCs do, since they’re
both scheduled off-holiday.

Cheers,

Betsy

Martin Gear wrote:
>
> Elaine Mami wrote:
> <snip>
> > Also, holiday air fares are higher.
>

[snip]

Keeping all this in mind, I’d be interested to see comments
> regarding the choice of “Presidents’ Day” weekend for a CC.
>
> Thanks –
> ^M^
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
> View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
> runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

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

At 08:51 PM 5/5/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>One disadvantage is that, because the con floats in time as well as space,
>costumers cannot rely on its being on a specific weekend.

On the other hand, the way site selection is now handled, potential members
will know three years out where and when a given CC will be so they can
make plans accordingly.

–Karen

A few comments about the CC 21 SF&F masquerade from the judges’ perspective.

First, the judges’ table had no lights, just glow sticks for us to use as we wrote notes about the entries. The glow sticks were useless to provide enough illumination to see what we were writing. I would encourage concoms to provide lights for the judges’ table. If there is a concern about glare for the audience, the lights can be covered with a blue gel; I have judged at some cons where that was done and we had sufficient light to see by.

Second, as a judge I strongly prefer having my own set of judge’s forms rather than having only a single set either passed back and forth among the judges or kept in the hands of the judges’ clerk. At the CC 21 SF&F masquerade, there was only one set of the forms and we entrusted them to our clerk (Eileen Cates).

Third, I think the other two judges will agree with me that, from the judges’ perspective, the CC 21 SF&F masquerade MC’s performance was OK, but not great. He kept forgetting to announce the division in which an entry appeared. This was quite annoying, because judges look at an entry quite differently if it is in the Novice division than if it is in the Master division. At one point, we sent Eileen up to the podium to ask the MC to please announce the divisions. He started to do so but soon forgot our request and relapsed.

From a personal perspective, I note that the MC forgot to introduce the judges and would have not done so had we not prompted him from the table. He also did not make the usual opening comments about “no flash photography,” and so forth. Perhaps there may be less need for such announcements at a CC than at an sf con, but it only takes one ignorant neo with a camera and flash to cause a significant hazard for those on stage. Since Costume-Cons seek to attract members who had not attended CCs before, I urge that such announcements be a standard part of the instruction to the MC for opening comments (together with introduction of the judges).

Byron

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

> In regard to the dates, in the Midwest area, I cannot recommend February

at

> all! I was involved with a convention here in Milwaukee back in ’95 that

was

> severely hurt that year by a cold snap and snow. It sank attendance to the
> point that there was no next year and the ones in charge, including me,

had

> to pay out of our pockets for the hotel bill.
> Henry Osier

Granted February isn’t always great here either but there’s a world of
difference between “Midwest” Milwaukee (which I think of as North) and
“Midwest” St. Louis (considerably further South).

Nora

—– Original Message —–
From: Charles Galway
To: runacc@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2003 1:35 AM
Subject: Re: [runacc] CC21 Review

>I wondered if we should list paid members? It sounds like the answer is yes (unless request >we don’t).

Why would you give them a choice?

>What is “A LOT” of money for a shuttle fare? We have shuttle service to our hotel, not >complimentary. We are aware that can be a bit of a problem, but noticed other CC’s were >outside the major city (Chicago, Atlanta) The costs per person drop for multiple riders, but >we are still working on how to try to coordinate this.

I have been happy to pay a flat $20 for a cab from O’Hare to an off-airport hotel in the Chicago area, compared to the about $50 I understand would be run up on the meter.

Byron

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

We had been getting prices quoted of about $26 one-way, with additional reductions for multiple passengers. While annoying, I considered this to be acceptable, IF the hotel, food, membership, air-fares were all at a reasonable rate. (Which we’re trying to do.) We plan to post current rates later, closer to one year out. (and maybe work out a group rate.)
Charles CC-23

—–Original Message—–
From: Byron Connell <bconnel1@nycap.rr.com>
<snip>
I have been happy to pay a flat $20 for a cab from O’Hare to an off-airport hotel in the Chicago area, compared to the about $50 I understand would be run up on the meter.

Byron

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

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

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

At 10:43 AM 5/5/2003, you wrote:

>In regard to the dates, in the Midwest area, I cannot recommend February at
>all! I was involved with a convention here in Milwaukee back in ’95 that was
>severely hurt that year by a cold snap and snow. It sank attendance to the
>point that there was no next year and the ones in charge, including me, had
>to pay out of our pockets for the hotel bill.
>Henry Osier

I take it you didn’t have an Act of God clause in your contract?

Pierre

>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
>
>View the Document: http://www.Costume-Con.org/procedure/runacc/
>
>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:
>runacc-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com
>
>
>
>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/

“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

From: “Byron Connell” <bconnel1@nycap.rr.com>

> First, the judges’ table had no lights, just glow sticks for us to use as

we wrote notes about the entries. The glow sticks were useless to provide
enough illumination to see what we were writing. I would encourage concoms
to provide lights for the judges’ table. If there is a concern about glare
for the audience, the lights can be covered with a blue gel; I have judged
at some cons where that was done and we had sufficient light to see by.<

I totally spaced on lights until Saturday evening. We’ve got a small set of
battery operated lamps here at home for such things (but home isn’t
Chicago). The lightsticks were a last-minute attempt to do something. Had I
been smart, I would have first asked Ops if they had any lights available.

> Second, as a judge I strongly prefer having my own set of judge’s forms

rather than having only a single set either passed back and forth among the
judges or kept in the hands of the judges’ clerk. At the CC 21 SF&F
masquerade, there was only one set of the forms and we entrusted them to our
clerk (Eileen Capes).<

Agreed. For a small masquerade, a set of blank forms for each judge is
sufficient (I know, I just judged a small masquerade this weekend). For
WorldCon or CC completed copies with all information are necessary
(including one set for the clerk).

> Third, I think the other two judges will agree with me that, from the

judges’ perspective, the CC 21 SF&F masquerade MC’s performance was OK, but
not great. He kept forgetting to announce the division in which an entry
appeared. This was quite annoying, because judges look at an entry quite
differently if it is in the Novice division than if it is in the Master
division. At one point, we sent Eileen up to the podium to ask the MC to
please announce the divisions. He started to do so but soon forgot our
request and relapsed.<

This was a flaw in the design of the MC form. My forms were word-ifyed
versions of Alix Jordan’s ASCII text forms. Greg didn’t have that problem
the next night in the Historical Masquerade (which used different forms).

For many things the forms worked out well. This wasn’t one of them.

If I’m crazy enough to do this again (or assist someone else doing this) I
will make major redesigns in the form layouts.

> From a personal perspective, I note that the MC forgot to introduce the

judges and would have not done so had we not prompted him from the table.
He also did not make the usual opening comments about “no flash
photography,” and so forth. Perhaps there may be less need for such
announcements at a CC than at an sf con, but it only takes one ignorant neo
with a camera and flash to cause a significant hazard for those on stage.
Since Costume-Cons seek to attract members who had not attended CCs before,
I urge that such announcements be a standard part of the instruction to the
MC for opening comments (together with introduction of the judges).<

All I can guess is that Greg got his notecards mixed up. We went over
everything before the show and he had note cards with everything on it.
Don’t know what actually happened for certain.

anyway, gotta get some sleep. Just got home.

andy

Some hotels are hostile to this weekend getting committed in advance
if it is also Valentine’s Day, and they anticipate getting some extra
holiday business from that.

Sharon

— In runacc@yahoogroups.com, “Byron Connell” <bconnel1@n…> wrote
in part:

>
> Presidents’ Day Weekend is neither a traditional “family” holiday

nor a major religious holiday, so it does not have the disadvantage
of Easter/Passover. The major disadvantage is weather, but for much
of North America that holds true for the rest of February and March.
Albany has had snow in May!

>
> Byron

My personal opinion is that if you publish the worst case price well
ahead of schedule, with a proviso that you’re “trying to work out a
group rate discount,” it will help to ease sticker shock for those
people who do think it’s excessive, and help them budget the extra
expense.

In general, the earlier the warning, the better the feedback. This
should be the case for any required cost. Some people may still be
unhappy, but at least they’ll know up front about the situation. And
this is just the sort of thing a PR is for.

Cheers,

Betsy

Charles Galway wrote:

>
> We had been getting prices quoted of about $26 one-way, with additional reductions for multiple passengers. While annoying, I considered this to be acceptable, IF the hotel, food, membership, air-fares were all at a reasonable rate. (Which we’re trying to do.) We plan to post current rates later, closer to one year out. (and maybe work out a group rate.)
> Charles CC-23

[snip]

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

OK, forget what I said a while back to Sharon about reviving the “CC in Las
Vegas” bid.

We just had friends from Denver get back from a vacation/convention in
Vegas. Thanks to 9/11 and less people going to Vegas, they said the days of
cheap food and hotel rooms are over.

*sigh* It used to be a good idea…

Baptistown, anyone?

–Karen

I heard something fairly similar from someone else in just the past
month.

Unfortunate, too. I’ll bet the backstage tour opportunities alone would
be worth the extra expense.

Sigh.

Betsy
(who was really hoping to see the Cirque shows she won’t see any other
way.)

Ricky & Karen Dick wrote:

>
> OK, forget what I said a while back to Sharon about reviving the “CC in Las
> Vegas” bid.
>
> We just had friends from Denver get back from a vacation/convention in
> Vegas. Thanks to 9/11 and less people going to Vegas, they said the days of
> cheap food and hotel rooms are over.
>
> *sigh* It used to be a good idea…
>
> Baptistown, anyone?
>
> –Karen

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Web Mistress at large

************************************************************************
http://www.WebInvent.com/ * http://www.hawkeswood.com/
http://www.Costume-Con.org/ * http://www.sickpups.org/
http://www.SchoolWithoutWalls.org/
************************************************************************

Interesting, perhaps, Las Vegas appears to be trying to put it’s SF con back into motion. I just sent out an email inquiry just this morning.

Charles (who went to SilverCon III some years ago)

—–Original Message—–
From: Ricky & Karen Dick <castleb@pulsenet.com>

OK, forget what I said a while back to Sharon about reviving the “CC in Las Vegas” bid.
<snip>

–Karen

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

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

In a message dated 5/6/2003 12:14:31 AM Central Daylight Time,
costumrs@radiks.net writes:

> I take it you didn’t have an Act of God clause in your contract?

Not to my knowledge. I wasn’t involved that high up in that convention.
Henry Osier

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

On Sunday, May 4, 2003, at 10:35 PM, Charles Galway wrote:

> I wondered if we should list paid members? It sounds like the answer
> is yes (unless they request we don’t).

Paid members should be listed in each PR. That’s the way WorldCon does
it, and it works nicely. I’m not so sure about putting that list on the
website, but I’m leaning towards it. Some folks will go to a con if
they see that friends they haven’t seen in ages are going.

> Working on the masquerade for CONduit, we very rarely get the stage we
> thought we designed. Partly our fault, and partly the hotel. (I have
> worked both on masquerade, and on hotel liason.) This should not be a
> problem for CC-23 since we are planning on using a theater.

This should be negotiated either in the contract or in a secondary
signed agreement with the hotel. At something like CONduit where the
stage isn’t a major focus of the con, it’s not as bad, but as we saw in
Chicago this isn’t an area that a CC can afford to not guarantee in
writing.

> What is “A LOT” of money for a shuttle fare? We have shuttle service
> to our hotel, not complimentary. We are aware that can be a bit of a
> problem, but noticed other CC’s were outside the major city (Chicago,
> Atlanta) The costs per person drop for multiple riders, but we are
> still working on how to try to coordinate this.

Airport shuttle fare in San Jose is around $16/person. We do it for
departures (for the guaranteed delivery time), and cab it back
afterwards for $20 for the two of us.

Chicago was in Skokie (which is nearer to O’Hare than many parts of
Chicago proper). Doesn’t count. Don’t know Atlanta geography well
enough to know how they’re affected.

I guess I’m a bit jaded on things. Travel expenses are travel expenses.
Be upfront. Tell people that they’re going to have to pay for shuttle
fare from the airport to the hotel. I factor in airline costs,
taxi/shuttle costs and shipping costs. If I want to go to the con, I’ll
figure out how to pay for it.

> The hotel costs are very scary for our CC, and I would be interested
> in learning more. We did have a choice of charging more per room, and
> getting a cut rate on convention space. We opted for cheap rooms, but
> boy, it makes the hotel cost intimidating. It could make a difference
> if there are lots of cheap rooms close by. It would not make sense to
> scare everyone away from the hotel, and then not make the room-count
> price-break. If no cheaper hotels a close by, then it is safer to let
> the room rates rise a bit.

Hotel negotiation is something we all have a lot to learn about. I’m
looking towards seeing Marty’s model contract (and if he hadn’t
mentioned it I was going to ask for some real and model contracts).

Remember, in different areas of the country, hotels negotiate in
different ways. In some cases, they want a single all-encompassing
contract. In other cases, they want only the dollars/space in the
contract and you have to get everything else in a secondary agreement
and get them to sign that.

> I joined the Chicago Yahoo chat list. I thought I could learn
> something by eaves-dropping. Whatever happened at Chicago, did not
> happen on the list. (CONduit has a chat-list, and it’s used quite a
> bit, but is not considered official. Which is not to say the things
> don’t get turned into policy anyway.)

Some things happened on-list. Some things didn’t.

For successful list-based committee work, you’ve got to set a few
ground rules:
1. Responsibility must be delegated clearly.
2. If you see a hole, take it to the con chair rather than just
assuming the responsibility.
3. If it’s not your area and you have a suggestion, take it off-list
first.
4. If negotiating with other departments off-list, results must be
posted on-list.
5. Status reports must be required each month, with a defined format.

I’m guilty of not doing #4 myself on one or two occasions. After
clearing the F&SF schedule with scheduling and the chairs, I should
have posted it to the committee list.

#5 gets back to that list of areas and responsibilites we talked about
at “Build a better CC.” Without such a list it’s difficult to determine
what’s missing in any status reports.

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

Nice segue, Andy!

Betsy

Andrew Trembley wrote:

>
> #5 gets back to that list of areas and responsibilites we talked about
>
> at “Build a better CC.” Without such a list it’s difficult to
> determine
> what’s missing in any status reports.

—
Betsy R. Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist
Costume-ConNections (http://www.Costume-Con.org/)

Hi, folks!

I’m taking a quick break before starting on CC11. The following raw
outline is the data from the meeting at CC21. It’s really rough, and not
terribly clear what we were trying to accomplish other than to break up
the contents of the current outline into more manageable sections. The
main sections are:

General
Bid
Before
During
After

So…

I’m also including a text version of the current online outline. Anyone
care to take a shot at realigning the content based on our proposed
structure while I finish reformatting the rest of the site? That is, if
this is the way we should actually lay out the document. I think it’s a
dandy idea, but I’m open to suggestions.

That way, we can get started making all this very useful feedback work
with the final goal.

And by the way, while I’m thinking about it…While we’re in this
process, in all ways, I defer to Karen. I’m just the coordinator here.
Karen’s word is law.

Thanks!

Betsy

—-

From CC21:

General

Accountability
Organization Chart
ConStitution
Corporate Structure
Contact Information
Timeline
* Deadlines
Communication
* Committee
* Membership
Privacy
Budget Templates
Logistics
* Facilities
* Master Schedule
* People
* Spaces

Bid

Publications/Marketing/Publicity
Hotel
Locality
Administrative Services
* Budget
* Logistics
* Membership
* Treasury/Accounting

Before

Everyone

During

After

Masquerade/Competition Directors
Chair
Treasurer
Hotel

—-
And from the web site:

Introduction

The Genesis of Costume-Con

The Name

The Organization

The Costume-Con ConStitution

Corporate Structure
* Chair(s)
* Treasurer
* Other Departments/Staffing Positions
Managing the Staff
* Selection
* Replacement
* Contact Lists
Meetings
* Agendas
* Scheduling
* Minutes
* Timeline
Contact Information
E-Mailing Lists
Themes and Artwork
Operations/Logistics
Supplies
* The Floating Costume-Con Supply “Bin”
Security Considerations
Copies & Reproduction
Signage
Budget
Policies (“Code of Conduct”)
* Weapons
* Smoking
* Parties
* Personal Conduct

Conference Hospitality Suite

Supplies
Hours
Refrigeration
Video Availability (Masquerades)
Cooking/Hot Food
Corkage Requirements
Volunteers & Assistants
Sponsors

Membership

What a Membership Includes
Categories
* Attending
* Supporting
* One-Day
* Kid-in-Tow
* Student
* Volunteer
* Special Events Access
Prices
* Rates
* Increases (and scheduling)
Registration
* Pre-Reg
* Lost Souls
* Publishing the Roster
* At-Con
* Early Pick-up (Thursday Night)
* Badges
* Badge Numbers
* New Members
Member Packets
* Pocket Program
* Program Book
* Future Fashion Folio
* Whole Costumers’ Catalog
* Freebies
* City Information
* Restaurant/Amenities Guide

Competitions

Directors/Coordinators
Science Fiction/Fantasy Masquerade
Historical Masquerade
* Rules – ICG Guidelines (Link to ICG site)
Future Fashion Show
Future Fashion Folio
Doll Contest
Other Competitions
* Single Pattern Contest
* Hall Costume Awards
* Themed Social Costume Contests
* Single Clothing Item Contests (Bra, Codpiece, etc.)
* The $1.98 Contest
* Video Masquerades
Judges
Master of Ceremonies
Certificates
Awards
Gifts/Donations
Image Records
* Photography
* Videography
* Fan Photography
Greenroom
* Dens
* Repair Table
* Refreshments
Registration
* Injury Waivers
Technical Support
* The Stage
* Light/Sound Equipment
* Pipe & Drape
* Tech Rehearsals
* Rehersal Space

Program Items

Schedules
* Workshops
* Events
* Master Schedule (including everything!)
Panels/Workshops/Demos
* Identifying
* Populating
* Registration
Extracurricular Activities
AV Equipment

Dealers

Membership Rates
What a Membership Includes
Room Layout/Considerations
Promotion
Selection

Exhibits

Supplies
Acquisitions
Labels

Socials

Friday Night/Other
Flea Market
Music/Dance
Refreshments/Cash Bar
Dances (Regency or other)

City Considerations

Holiday hours
Restaurants/Eateries
* Hours
* Availability
* Location
Amenities
Sundries
Attractions
Competing Events
Information Desk/Concierge
Transportation (car, bus, train, plain, boat, etc.)
Directions

Hotel

Choosing a Hotel
Contracts
Set-up
Room Night Pick-up
Meeting Space Requirements
Hotel Map
Pool/Hot Tub
Parking
* Availability
* Fees
Transportation
* Shuttle to local Airports & Trains

Ribbons

Masquerade/Award
Identification

Advertising

Rates
Sponsors
* General
* Con Suite
Donors

Publicity/Promotions

Flyers
Web Sites
Giveaways (Memberships, prizes, etc.)
Press Releases
conference/Conference Tables
Other sources

Publications

Scheduling
Progress Reports
Program Book
Fashion Folio
Whole Costumers’ Catalogue
At-con Newsletter
Pocket Program

Site Selection

Ballot Printing & Distribution
Site Selection Fees
On-site Voting and Counting
Validating Members
Announcements
Bid Tables/Presentations

Volunteers

Miscellaneous

Sewing Room
“Logo” Giveaways
“What is Costume-Con” information for mundanes
Lost & Found
Child Care
Fundraising
* T-Shirts
* Raffles
Charity

Wrap-Up

The “Gripe Session”
Passing on Supplies
Settling the Hotel Bill
Final Receipts & Reimbursements
Committee Membership Refunds
Pass-through Funds
Closing the Books

—
Betsy Delaney
Costume-Con Archivist