weekend part 1 (usual Ad Astra rant)
Quick recap.
Got into Buffalo Friday evening. I wanted chicken wings, so marahsk drove me to Duff's. We had them medium hot. (As the T-shirt says "Medium is hot. Medium hot is very hot.") Got home after 2 AM.
On Saturday, we had the traditional Ad Astra program meeting. As always, we talked about how annoying, clueless, and unreasonable the chair is (this seems to happen no matter who the chair and head of programming are). We talked about not having an author guest yet, about how great the costume program is, how we need to get some filkers in, Yvonne talked about how horrible things were last year and how she's not doing conventions anymore, but she will deign to tell people what to do for one more year. The head of programming commented that if the chair had suggestions, he should perhaps mention them to her. A cat wandered around. We discussed how certain annoying people should not be invited back to be on programming, and I mentioned how I'd sent email saying they shouldn't have been put on programming. Still describing just about every Ad Astra program meeting I've been to over the years. Paul Kuypers made pancakes, that was nice. Another thing that was different about this meeting was that it happened in May rather than October.
Apparently the people who used the con suite for crash space and then cursed at the con suite staff in the morning for daring to wake them up were Andre Lieven and his wife. It was suggested that (a) they not be invited back to be on programming and (b) they not be permitted to register for the convention if they were going to do that. The convention seems to go out of its way not to have an institutional memory, so we'll see what happens.
Apparently the chair thinks there are too many program participants sucking down alcohol in the green room and this is costing the convention too much money. His solution is to have fewer panels and fewer program participants, but to keep all the "fun" stuff (i.e. the non-literary programming, not that Ad Astra has a reputation as a literary con...). I pointed out that the reason the convention has more panels is because the crappy hotel has tiny rooms. Others pointed out that in general the program was well-attended, except for a few items where a large audience wasn't expected. A couple of people suggested that the green room perhaps not spend so much on alcohol; it almost seems sarcastic to be making suggestions that are sure to be ignored. Someone suggested that Ad Astra follow Polaris's example and not let program participants come for free. A couple other people tried to point out that having published authors on panels at a literary con was not quite the same as having random fans talk about their favorite shows at a media con. Whatever. Several people pointed out that the comics panels were poorly attended and that it was hard to get enough panelists to be on panels, not to mention some of the panelists just not showing up (and then complaining about the lack of programming afterwards). I suggested the logical solution to these problems was to have less comics programming, since Ad Astra isn't really a comics convention anyway. We talked about signs; apparently the people who've been doing signs have been getting free memberships. I opined that, cute as they are, maybe the signs aren't really that important, since barely 200 people actually pay for memberships at this con.
Oh yeah, we went through the surveys. Both program participants and audience members enjoyed the program. All the program participants who responded said they want to come back. This is basically why I haven't given up completely on Ad Astra years ago. The convention has a very good program every year; there are so many good program participants that the program almost runs itself in spite of the committee, and also the very few clueful people on this concom tend to end up in programming. Alana may only know half of what Kelly does and a quarter of what Amanda did, but Alana has a very organized mind and she's very easy to get along with. It's been my consistent observation that a good organized personable conrunner puts together a much better program that the knowledgeable but antisocial prima donnas that sometimes end up in charge of a program (Russell being the local example, though many other cons have such types).
The sequence of events leading up to the meeting was:
Francois scheduled the concom meeting for May 6
I said I could come in whichever weekend Alana preferred
Alana scheduled the program meeting for May 5 so that I could attend both meetings
I booked a flight for the weekend of May 4-6
Francois changed the concom meeting to April 29
I kept my booked flight and attended the program meeting but not the concom meeting
I've been thinking about Ad Astra's strengths and weaknesses for some time. It has some strengths, mainly, the program, and some weaknesses, mainly, the fact that most of the concom isn't actually into science fiction or fandom in the way most fans would understand such things. I've been torn for years, trying to figure out how to fix Ad Astra, not wanting to split the volunteer community. I've come to the conclusion that Ad Astra is worth continuing to support, but that some of its problems are not solvable in the short to medium term. A convention more than three months apart will not significantly split the volunteer base (people are able to work on Ad Astra and Toronto Trek without a problem), and a little competition in ideas and practices will likely be good for all concerned.
So I've decided that I will continue to help with the Ad Astra program, and I'm also going to start exploring options for starting a new convention, probably in October or November 2009. There will certainly be Ad Astra people who aren't interested in a literary convention, and we will likely pick up a few people who aren't into Ad Astra, and there will perhaps also be some people who do want to help more than one con. I think a downtown location will attract people who don't want to drag out to some isolated venue. I won't be able to work seriously on it until I get back to Toronto full-time.
Got into Buffalo Friday evening. I wanted chicken wings, so marahsk drove me to Duff's. We had them medium hot. (As the T-shirt says "Medium is hot. Medium hot is very hot.") Got home after 2 AM.
On Saturday, we had the traditional Ad Astra program meeting. As always, we talked about how annoying, clueless, and unreasonable the chair is (this seems to happen no matter who the chair and head of programming are). We talked about not having an author guest yet, about how great the costume program is, how we need to get some filkers in, Yvonne talked about how horrible things were last year and how she's not doing conventions anymore, but she will deign to tell people what to do for one more year. The head of programming commented that if the chair had suggestions, he should perhaps mention them to her. A cat wandered around. We discussed how certain annoying people should not be invited back to be on programming, and I mentioned how I'd sent email saying they shouldn't have been put on programming. Still describing just about every Ad Astra program meeting I've been to over the years. Paul Kuypers made pancakes, that was nice. Another thing that was different about this meeting was that it happened in May rather than October.
Apparently the people who used the con suite for crash space and then cursed at the con suite staff in the morning for daring to wake them up were Andre Lieven and his wife. It was suggested that (a) they not be invited back to be on programming and (b) they not be permitted to register for the convention if they were going to do that. The convention seems to go out of its way not to have an institutional memory, so we'll see what happens.
Apparently the chair thinks there are too many program participants sucking down alcohol in the green room and this is costing the convention too much money. His solution is to have fewer panels and fewer program participants, but to keep all the "fun" stuff (i.e. the non-literary programming, not that Ad Astra has a reputation as a literary con...). I pointed out that the reason the convention has more panels is because the crappy hotel has tiny rooms. Others pointed out that in general the program was well-attended, except for a few items where a large audience wasn't expected. A couple of people suggested that the green room perhaps not spend so much on alcohol; it almost seems sarcastic to be making suggestions that are sure to be ignored. Someone suggested that Ad Astra follow Polaris's example and not let program participants come for free. A couple other people tried to point out that having published authors on panels at a literary con was not quite the same as having random fans talk about their favorite shows at a media con. Whatever. Several people pointed out that the comics panels were poorly attended and that it was hard to get enough panelists to be on panels, not to mention some of the panelists just not showing up (and then complaining about the lack of programming afterwards). I suggested the logical solution to these problems was to have less comics programming, since Ad Astra isn't really a comics convention anyway. We talked about signs; apparently the people who've been doing signs have been getting free memberships. I opined that, cute as they are, maybe the signs aren't really that important, since barely 200 people actually pay for memberships at this con.
Oh yeah, we went through the surveys. Both program participants and audience members enjoyed the program. All the program participants who responded said they want to come back. This is basically why I haven't given up completely on Ad Astra years ago. The convention has a very good program every year; there are so many good program participants that the program almost runs itself in spite of the committee, and also the very few clueful people on this concom tend to end up in programming. Alana may only know half of what Kelly does and a quarter of what Amanda did, but Alana has a very organized mind and she's very easy to get along with. It's been my consistent observation that a good organized personable conrunner puts together a much better program that the knowledgeable but antisocial prima donnas that sometimes end up in charge of a program (Russell being the local example, though many other cons have such types).
The sequence of events leading up to the meeting was:
I've been thinking about Ad Astra's strengths and weaknesses for some time. It has some strengths, mainly, the program, and some weaknesses, mainly, the fact that most of the concom isn't actually into science fiction or fandom in the way most fans would understand such things. I've been torn for years, trying to figure out how to fix Ad Astra, not wanting to split the volunteer community. I've come to the conclusion that Ad Astra is worth continuing to support, but that some of its problems are not solvable in the short to medium term. A convention more than three months apart will not significantly split the volunteer base (people are able to work on Ad Astra and Toronto Trek without a problem), and a little competition in ideas and practices will likely be good for all concerned.
So I've decided that I will continue to help with the Ad Astra program, and I'm also going to start exploring options for starting a new convention, probably in October or November 2009. There will certainly be Ad Astra people who aren't interested in a literary convention, and we will likely pick up a few people who aren't into Ad Astra, and there will perhaps also be some people who do want to help more than one con. I think a downtown location will attract people who don't want to drag out to some isolated venue. I won't be able to work seriously on it until I get back to Toronto full-time.