Supplies
Hours
Refrigeration
Video Availability (Masquerades)
Cooking/Hot Food
Corkage Requirements
Volunteers & Assistants
Sponsors
CC16: Planning and Running a Hospitality Suite at a Costume Con
or “You Volunteered me for What?”
Let me start off by admitting I am not a costumer. I am a spousal accessory. My wife is a costumer. Oddly enough that made me a good choice to run a Hospitality Suite. As I did not to be at panels and demonstrations, I could be available to take care of the suite most of the time. Of course I did not think of this when I first found out that I had “volunteered” for this job.
I have helped run local game cons and helped with games at Science fiction cons. But the thought of running a suite at a WORLD Costume-Con was daunting. I will not go into too great a detail of all things that went into it. One thing I did find out early was that most of the con veterans had many stories about what went wrong with Hospitality Suites in the past, most were not sure what I needed to have to make it go right.
One note I should have, however. Who the Con Chairperson is makes a great deal of difference. Our Chairperson basically left most of the decision making up to me. That scared the hell out of me at first, but in the long run this made it easier because I did not have to get her permission before doing anything. She gave the information she could and left the rest up to me. It worked for us.
Drinks
We averaged 2 cans of soda for each person attending the con for a four and a half day con. My impression is that that is low. Weather and the time of the year will play a part in that, but if your con is in the same hotel as all the activities, you are pretty much in a closed environment and weather should not play too large a role in drink types. My suggestion is that you over-order from a supplier who will take back what you do not use, Also unless you have trucks to spare find a supplier who will deliver. Our first thought was to find a soft drink distributor. In our case we were too small an occasion to warrant price breaks or any special consideration. We wound up ordering from an office supply company that delivered for free on orders over $100. You may be able to get snacks that way too. We supplemented these purchases with spot pick-ups at sales at local grocery stores.
I would suggest polling your local folks who will be at the Con to find out what kind of drinks they NEED. Don’t assume that those that drink Coke will settle for Pepsi, After I was nearly lynched I realized I should not have made that kind of assumption. Have a lot of diet soda, Also have non-caffeine drinks. Many folks simply do not want caffeine (I think they are Communists or something myself). Also a little something different (Dr. Pepper or Root Beer or Ginger Ale) is smart.
Some folks NEED coffee or hot tea also. For the coffee folks, instant is not a very good choice, We found the individual coffee bags (like tea bags) gave good coffee. We did have to have some way to get hot water on demand. As for hot tea we were given a large variety tea, for a Tea Ceremony that was planned.
Snacks
I quickly discovered that chocolate is a necessity for costumers and that M&M’s are the perfect way to deliver a chocolate fix. There are no wrappers and they can sit out all day without trouble (not that a bowl ever stayed out all day). In fact candy was a big item, Next was the obvious snack food; potato chips, pretzels, corn chips, etc.
Vegetables and dip, and cheese were also popular but they present problems. Most hotel refrigerators are too small to store any large amount of this stuff. Either plan on doing this on a limited basis or have someone’s house to store perishables and make several trips.
One thing we discovered by accident. People love microwave popcorn. It is good and it is portable. If you want to have this item though have a big enough microwave that you do not burn more than you pop. Small microwaves are terrible at doing popcorn.
They are useful for warming water and that is about it.
Most conventions have something that is native to the area as a special treat. In our case we had toasted ravioli (I held out for White Castle hamburgers but I lost). Again pick something that is easily prepared, quick to do, and leaves minimal mess.
Finally it is a good idea, on one morning, in our case Saturday, to have portable breakfast food (ie bagels or pastry). You can make great friends by doing this one day. Any more then that is expensive.
Hours
We ran from 12 noon to 2 am. This meant we seldom had to feed anyone breakfast (see exception above). It was late enough that folks could gather after all events and see films, sew, watch TV, or just sit around and decompress. A couple times I wished I set the hours earlier, but on the whole that timing went well.
One last item to remember: Make sure you have help. Otherwise you will trapped in the Con Suite all the time. Make sure you coordinate as much as possible about when you need a stand in so you can go eat, Also make real good friends with the hotel staff. They have to supply little things like ice and trash cans. Finally don’t look around for too much help planning things. You are probably mostly on your own, No one else has done this before either. Good luck!!
–Dan Hillen, CC16‡