VCON coming up and filk is looking mighty thin...
I am about to whine and complain and kvetch. I am unhappy and grumpy and so very disappointed. I am not feeling reasonable.
I was under the impression from my recent flurry of emails to a bunch of filkers, and their subsequent, very positive responses to me, that there were a fair number of folks who were not only interested, but actually planning to make it up to VCON this year.
I just talked to the head of programming and she told me that, 'cept for one person, everyone has either canceled or simply not bothered to respond to queries from programming. But. Except for two notable exceptions, no one said anything to me.
It's extremely disappointing, and massively frustrating, because I have worked so hard at getting filk to be an accepted part of the VCON over the last decade. Even just a few years ago, there were still people on the concom who were actively anti-filk, calling it a waste of time, saying programming would be better spent on panels that people would actually be interested in, denigrating any possible value filk music could have to fannish culture.
The last few years, filk has been growing at VCON. When I started out, we didn't have dedicated function space or any official programming. I've fought for both, and that has changed over the years, with the help of a chair who has been very filk friendly. This year I was so excited because we have a dedicated filk room! We have space on the program, and not just early Friday and late Sunday, but prime space on Friday evening and Saturday!
Unfortunately, dedicated filk space and room in the schedule are meaningless if I have no panelists and participants. So yes. I'm whining. I'm upset, goddammit.
I know that people have other draws on their time and that VCON is just a little con and it's not as exciting as Norwescon or Orycon. And I know that the economy is still sucky and that lots of people have legitimate employment (and lack thereof) issues. I know it, I get it, I *grok*. That doesn't make it any less disappointing. Especially in light of the fact that the responses I got were so upbeat, positive and filled with, "Oh, I absolutely want to come!"
I know that there will likely be some filkers there - we're nothing, if not hardy, and we've always had a few pop up even on the years when there was merely a nod to filking in the program, but - I was hoping for an actual filk track. We've got room for one!
*sigh*
There were only a couple folks that told me flat out they could not make it, so... yeah. I'm disappointed. Also, whiny, bitchy and pissy. I'm going to go sulk now.
/whine
I was under the impression from my recent flurry of emails to a bunch of filkers, and their subsequent, very positive responses to me, that there were a fair number of folks who were not only interested, but actually planning to make it up to VCON this year.
I just talked to the head of programming and she told me that, 'cept for one person, everyone has either canceled or simply not bothered to respond to queries from programming. But. Except for two notable exceptions, no one said anything to me.
It's extremely disappointing, and massively frustrating, because I have worked so hard at getting filk to be an accepted part of the VCON over the last decade. Even just a few years ago, there were still people on the concom who were actively anti-filk, calling it a waste of time, saying programming would be better spent on panels that people would actually be interested in, denigrating any possible value filk music could have to fannish culture.
The last few years, filk has been growing at VCON. When I started out, we didn't have dedicated function space or any official programming. I've fought for both, and that has changed over the years, with the help of a chair who has been very filk friendly. This year I was so excited because we have a dedicated filk room! We have space on the program, and not just early Friday and late Sunday, but prime space on Friday evening and Saturday!
Unfortunately, dedicated filk space and room in the schedule are meaningless if I have no panelists and participants. So yes. I'm whining. I'm upset, goddammit.
I know that people have other draws on their time and that VCON is just a little con and it's not as exciting as Norwescon or Orycon. And I know that the economy is still sucky and that lots of people have legitimate employment (and lack thereof) issues. I know it, I get it, I *grok*. That doesn't make it any less disappointing. Especially in light of the fact that the responses I got were so upbeat, positive and filled with, "Oh, I absolutely want to come!"
I know that there will likely be some filkers there - we're nothing, if not hardy, and we've always had a few pop up even on the years when there was merely a nod to filking in the program, but - I was hoping for an actual filk track. We've got room for one!
*sigh*
There were only a couple folks that told me flat out they could not make it, so... yeah. I'm disappointed. Also, whiny, bitchy and pissy. I'm going to go sulk now.
/whine