feuervogel | On cons and programming

My opinion is this: I don't give a flying fuck about an immersive/experiential/ren faire thing. I go to cons to talk about books, movies, or TV shows, look at costumes, talk with friends, and maybe meet some people whose books I like.

Speaking as a person who ONLY goes to cons if there's good programming, I call bullshit.

Personally I tend not to care about guests, but I recognize that that's just me. An immersive expereince that requires being there the whole time is pretty much impossible for those of us with jobs we have to work around to even consider.

I don't know what an "experiential experience" is, so this is hard to answer!

For whatever it's worth: I totally do see cons as an 'immersive' thing I do, to some degree; when I go, I want to go all day (and preferably at least two days out of three, if work allows), I want to stay late into the night, I want there to be lots of cosplayers around for me to take photos of/with, groups of people at advertising tables to talk to, etc. If that's "experiential", okay then, sign me up.

I definitely check the programming out, though, and I'm disappointed if there aren't things that sound interesting; I want to learn things and try things and hear opinions on things that matter to me in fandom. (And I want to sit down and rest, too!) Panels are great, and if there's a good anime showing I'll likely drop in on that, and non-discussion programming like the "Ball" at Denvention 3 was a lot of fun.

Guests... I went to WorldCon several years ago to hear the GoH read from an upcoming work, but aside from that it's not a huge draw for me. It's always nice to recognise a name on the guest list as someone whose work I enjoyed reading, but as long as it's someone I don't recognise for Unfortunate Things I won't weigh the GoHs in the balance very heavily.

The con Ben and I just quit wants to be a steampunk renn faire, with plot and cast and thematic events and this whole "step into the story" nonsense. That is what experiential means. They want to be TeslaCon South.

They axed panel programming from 140 hours to 37. Honestly, that is not enough programming to be worth the steep admission fee, because the whole renn faire crap can fuck itself. If I wanted to go to the renn faire, I'd go to faire.

Edited Date: 2013-07-08 12:18 pm (UTC)

On the meaning of experiental you give below (truly, it's not a word I'd come across before and "experiental experience" sounds like tautology to me) I can honestly say I can think of few things I would hate more.

For me, a) are my friends going to be there; and b) what's the programme look like are the two things which determine whether I'm going to a con or not. I tend to be much more likely to go to cons when I know I've got something to do - a panel to sit on or something like that. Guests I find only of mild interest.

I wrote "immersive experience" and my brain got stuck on how to include "experiential" elegantly. So I left the redundancy in.

It's not anything I'd be interested in at all, in general, either. When I go to Renaissance faires, I mainly go to look at shiny things, watch some stage shows, and hang out with friends. Apparently there's a queen? Who has a processional or something? Rennies apparently care about that sort of thing, but most people don't, considering the high people-in-jeans to people-in-Elizabethan-garb ratio.

I was absolutely delighted to be taken to the Renn Faire in Atlanta when I came over from England to attend a conference (professional) in 2004; I was assured that it was an absolutely unique aspect of US culture to which there was nothing akin on my side of the Pond, and the people telling me so (and making my attendance possible) were dead right.

In the good way or the bad way? It's a lot like Elizabethan Disney Land.

(The hardcore people are in the SCA and they do things like camp out in the wilds of Pennsylvania for 2 weeks and beat each other up in painstakingly accurate gear during Pennsic War.)

I know a con where you can sign up to be in a LARP. Players all know each other, and can interact with each other. They chose a Vampire LARP so that part of the experience would be "don't freak the 'danes" by nature of the Masquerade in that game setting. So people who want an "immersive experience" could sign up (and pay extra) for that, and people who wanted to go to some panels, buy stuff, play board games, they could all do THAT and not be bothered by costumed loonies.

My opinion is this: I don't give a flying fuck about an immersive/experiential/ren faire thing. I go to cons to talk about books, movies, or TV shows, look at costumes, talk with friends, and maybe meet some people whose books I like.

Utter and complete bullshit.

The last con I attended was Fourth Street Fantasy, where the only immersive experience was the unplanned "can you last 24 hours without electricity" test. It's nothing *but* programming and guests, and I haven't missed one in years. This week I'll be at Readercon, and similarly don't expect any immersive experiences except for the "hotel renovation maze".

I just printed out and highlighted the Readercon schedule. I need a time turner :S

We should say hello!

Indeed! I have made my semi-periodic (by which I mean "when I remember to make it") contact info post to my relevant filter, which you are now on.

How do you two know each other?

Magic. Where by "magic" I mean "

skogkatt".

She is pretty magical :)

Wait, this is weird. I only know you from comments on

ricevermicelli's posts (and perhaps the odd confessional thread). How the heck do you know

akiko?

DaP and V's new year's party.

It's a fine way to run a con for a certain audience. The notion that it's the only way to run a con is silly, obviously. Lots of ways to run a con.

It sounds to me like you've gotten in an argument with a crazy person, whether directly or indirectly, which seems to me like a singularly unprofitable way to spend your time.

The crazy person is the vice chair of ConTemporal, who used that as an explanation for taking panel programming from the 140 planned hours to 37 this year.

(That's another reason I quit.)

Programming is, in fact, one of the major draws for me.

Any blanket statement like that is likely BS because people attend for so many different reasons. Me - I mostly attend cons to spend time with people I like in an environment where there will be lots of other people I like, and/or fun or interesting things to do together. How much the con programming matters depends on what it is and what kind of con it is. There are some events I go to primarily because of the programming, and some where I don't care much about the programming as long as there will be something or other fun to do. I know people who get really excited about guests, whereas I rarely care.

I never have gone to a con for the "immersive experience." I'm an introvert and an HSP and if there's one thing I can't stand about things like Renn Faires, it's when the performers try to interact with me. Look -- I'm just here to watch the jousting and buy shiny things, drink beer from a leather mug, and eat a giant turkey leg onna stick. Huzzah.

I go to conventions to see interesting programming, to hopefully participate in interesting programming, and to visit with friends. I do not go to conventions to spend a whole weekend being yelled at by crazy people with gears and goggles.

Edited Date: 2013-07-07 10:56 pm (UTC)

What the hell is an "immersive/experiential experience"?

The "experience" is important, duh, but i'm not sure that's what they were talking about, because programming and guests can be a very important part of the experience. If a co had no panels and no guests, what kind of experience are they intending to provide?

I mainly go to Anime Expo fir the cosplay, the dealers hall, the AMV contest and AMV room, and the Masquerade.

I mainly go to DragonCon for the cosplay, the media guests, the musical acts, and the party atmosphere.

I mainly go to WorldCon for the guests.

I mainly go to BayCon and LosCon for the other people who go, the parties, and the panels.

I mainly go to PAX for the panels and the relative novelty of being at a con focused on video games rather than books or visual media..

The con Ben and I just quit wants to be a steampunk renn faire, with plot and cast and thematic events and this whole "step into the story" nonsense. That is what experiential means.

I like the RenFaire. I'll go to it occasionally. Like for a day. If i've got the free time. I totally missed the RenFaire this year because i just never got around to it, and whatever. It's a fun diversion if i get the chance to do it, but it's not like a con.

I've never planned a trip to the RenFaire for months in advance (well, as much as i plan anything =) I've never driven 300 miles or taken a plane to get to a RenFaire. I've never spent the entire weekend at a RenFaire and yet still been sad when it was over. As far as i can remember i've never written a hundreds or thousands of words in LJ talking about what happened at the latest RenFaire.

You certainly _can_ attract people to a RenFaire like experience (cause duh, RenFaire) but that's certainly far from the only kind of experience i want to go to, or even the one i want to go to most.

I haven't been to that many cons, and on some level, I think I'm not very good at going to cons, if that makes any sense. (I've begun to get the impression that a lot of the most awesome bits happen in room parties, for example, but I've never actually been to one. Walking into a party where I don't know anyone is probably one of the attractions in my personal Room 101 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Room_101).) So maybe my impressions aren't the most useful. That being said...

It would not have occurred to me that an immersive/experiential experiential experience was something one should expect at a con. I could imagine there being people who would really like those sorts of experiences and who would seek out cons or other venues that featured them. (Murder mystery dinners? Alternate reality games?) Heck, I might like to try it myself from time to time. But I'd certainly want to know in advance that that's what I was getting! My actual con experiences have been almost entirely focused on panels and (to some extent) on featured guests. It boggles my mind to think that the majority of con-goers could find those things entirely unimportant. But as I said, I don't think I'm typical, and I suspect I'm not getting the most out of my cons (even as a second-tier featured guest at the last one).

Edited Date: 2013-07-08 04:58 am (UTC)

Whether room parties are important is kind of a jein. If there's an advertised room party, like for a con or a book release party, those are fun and can be ways to meet new people. If it's an unadvertised room party, that's a little different, because it's like being a Mason (you have to ask). Unadvertised parties range from authors of one particular house only to a person inviting their friends over to drink.

It is absolutely the worst to go to a party where you don't know anyone. But for eg a WorldCon bid room party, the people staffing the party will answer questions and give you food, and there may be interesting conversations going on that you might be able to join in. At cons, people generally expect they'll be spoken to by strangers. I've chatted with line mates at DragonCon about all sorts of random stuff. (The tricky part is figuring out which strangers are welcome to random conversation.) They won't usually be new friends or anything, but passing the time is fun. Working up the courage to initiate that conversation, or to say "oh, I overheard you two talking about [topic], mind if I join you?" is hard. It gets less hard over time?

The experiential thing the con we quit wants to do is like having a ren faire during the con, but also to have very limited panel programming. Because according to the vice chair, "people won't pay" to come unless there's a story to step into, an Experience to have. I call bullshit, because I won't pay to go to a con unless there are a lot of interesting panels.

I mean, ffs, I'm flying to fucking Boston on Thursday to go to a con because they have a ton of awesome programming. (And also I'll see some people I don't see very often. But programming.)

So the blanket statement is inherently false the moment you generalize like that. I will go out on a limb and say "some people want an immersive experience, but they are in the minority"

We mostly have done fur cons this year. And I will say that roughly 10% are there to (fur)suit, don't want to (and can't!) suit 24x7, and the other 90% are there for panels, art, guests, etc.

We just got back from AnthroCon, and their GoH was Mercedes Lackey & Larry Dixon. Peter S. Beagle had a table this year (and he was GoH last year!), and frankly there would be no reason for them to come to an immersive furry experience.

I call bullshit, as the only places that have been successful in that sort of experience are ren faires and theme parks. Would we GoH at something like that? Nope, because the fans aren't there. Would we pay to deal at something like that? Nope, because we won't make any money. Will people go to it the first year as a novelty, and then not go back the next year since they'd have seen it before? You bet.

I call bullshit.

Yeah. Mike and Markell went to TeslaCon and got this bug up their butts to make ConTemporal basically TeslaCon South. Eye. Roll. Sure, some people are interested in going to a steampunk ren faire, and that's fine--but do one or the other. Make it a steampunk ren faire OR have panel programming and guests. There wasn't enough programming this year for it to be worth me spending money on a badge, and the "step into the story" stuff doesn't interest me.

Apparently the gaming room was very popular though?

If I wanted to go to a ren faire, I'd go to a ren faire. Taking a perfectly good sci-fi/fantasy con and turning it into a ren faire is stupid. If the vice chair wants to start up a new type of convention, then that's up to him. Our Steamcon over in Seattle has plenty of programming and scheduled time for immersion party/role play. http://www.steamcon.org/concrete5/index.php/programming Besides that, just being at a con and having fun is great, but it gets boring if there is nothing to do or no guests to meet. I go to cons to learn, meet people I wouldn't get to meet otherwise (authors, editors, publishers, artists, etc), and cosplay. It's nice when the con decorates the hotel/con space to match the conventions theme to add to the experience, but don't cut programming! Sounds like a good idea to drop this one.

The con was always conceived as experiential, but last year we had 100+ hours of panel programming. this year, we had 37. Changing midstream, especially when at the first planning meeting you said we'd have 140 panel hours, is crap. Changing between years, OK, but honestly? NC fans don't want to go to a ren faire!

Their problem is they want to be TeslaCon South. And local fan culture doesn't support that.

I like immersive experiences up to a point. I love me some RenFaire. But I have never really gone to a con for one. I do the shopping-for-discounted-books thing, and attend panels. At NY Comic-Con I went to author readings and publishers' "coming attractions" dos. At other local cons I went to panels on discussion of craft and such. My first con 10+ years ago was more of a meet-people-from-my-very-small-Internet-fandom-for-the-first-time, without that much participation. (Then again, it was a tiny con at the time and that could be considered part of it, really.)

Even at RenFaire, I wind up going to the shows.

I know this is crazy late, but...

At the initial level, you need to have a hook. A reason for anybody to even look at your con. As you've been established for a while, yeah, most people go - because they went last year. At a certain point, though, you again need to start thinking about being more than just This Year's Con.

Easy example - what makes this year's Otakon different from the last few years. One name - Yoko Kanno. For a lot of people who might otherwise have dropped, or just gotten too busy to care - that one name makes it worth it.

Yeah; this particular con is not interested in guests or panels at all. They want their hook to be "we're a steampunk ren faire." Which is not my thing on so many levels it isn't funny.

I went to Animazement for the first time in years last year because ITANO. He told the story of how he put rockets onto his bike to test the physics of what would become the Itano Circus. Also signed my DVD liner notes on a VF-1.

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No glorious Valhalla would await us.

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