Further Confusion 2010 Post-Con Report
I think I had a chance to thank everyone of them in person, but I really appreciate my staff, and without them, we couldn't have pulled off registration so smoothly - Sharon, Denis, Kes, Brigideire, Rukario, Kasia Sundreamer, Puppy Wolf, Lisa, Khord Kitty, Moonlit, WolfWings, and Kat. Sharon was my second, and really helped take the load off of me. I hired here in December, having been having trouble finding a second, and she's an accountant, and has registration experience, but has never worked FC registration before. She stepped in, and was able to pick up the reg process and how we work, helping me keep registration going and handling all the routine and exceptional management tasks that we face. She was given the Lionman award by Business for her contribution this year.
I am also really grateful for my Reg Techs, from IT - Karl and Dan. Dan, especially, went out of his way to hang out around registration, and help us beyond just the simple technical side of registration. He definitely deserves recognition as well.
I had a wonderful set of gofurs this year - Lizzie (Spoon!), Donkey, and others I don't remember their names (I'm really sorry! I may not remember your names, but I still very much appreciate your contribution). They're instrumental in managing our queues. The queues for registration are always long on Thursday and Friday morning, and we need to keep hallways, doorways, and fire exits clear. My gofurs are absolutely critical in this, and they did a great job this year.
I'm also thankful for my department leads, Saelyc and Squirrel, and the IT department lead, Berg. Saelyc helps support me on the business side, and has as much or more knowledge of the registration system than anyone else. Squirrel provides more of the financial support from the business department. The two of them provide me an environment to be able to run registration in. Berg provides the IT support needed to run registration, and backs up his techs as needed.
Extra special thanks to Kai, who spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning working on getting us a workaround for an issue with the credit card machines; it came down to the wire, but we were able to process credit cards on Thursday when we opened.
Okay, now that I've got that out of the way, on to an actual report. This is going to be registration-biased as that's most of what I see at the convention. I did get a chance to walk through the dealers room and artshow, attend a panel and go to a couple of the dances, but other than that, it was all registration, all the time, for me.
This year, we were trying something new - opening registration at 1400 instead of 1600, for pre-registered attendees. Part of my condition for this was that we had to have the system tested the night before. It's always on our to-do list, but it usually gets skipped, with no testing until the day of the convention, and any issues end up delaying opening. Well, this year we had the biggest issue we've had so far.
The system wouldn't boot. While it ran fine in the colo, once shut down and pulled onsite, it wouldn't boot back up. Saelyc, Berg, and myself ended up working on the server until ~0200, trying to get things fixed. By the time we went to bed, it was working again and partially tested (we tested the regular badges, but not the hard badges - turns out, that would bite us lightly later)
Up early Thursday morning to start getting the registration area setup. This went fairly smoothly, actually, and with the new hotel we were able to run the queues without blocking the hallway much. We were a couple minutes late in opening still, but a full two hours earlier than any year previously. There was an additional few-minute delay with patrons and sponsors as the hard badges weren't printing, but we had that fixed very quickly. We were scheduled to open for at-con memberships at 1700, but that was pushed back due to the credit card issues, and due to a miscommunication, was not running as well as I'd have liked, but once resolved things picked up. We processed our last registration on Thursday at 2205, 5 minutes after our posted closing time. Traditionally, we close the line and it takes another hour to process everyone who is waiting. This year, it took 5 minutes. Next two hours for packing everything up, and then off to bed. While I enjoyed registration being in the lobby at the Doubletree, I really have to say, I won't miss having to tear down and setup again every day.
Friday went fairly smoothly, as did the rest of the convention in general. I need to plan for more staff for the first couple hours of Friday, but then I don't need as many for the remainder of the day, which creates for some complexities for staffing levels. Having three people to handle fursuit photos works well, although is personal intensive. One to print up the badges, one to handle wrangling and data collection, and one to handle the photos.
Monday is always slow. We're open, but we rarely do any business. Traditionally, The Hand would come by on Monday and register, but the past couple years he's had full memberships. Without him coming by, we have no sales on Monday. I think he's the only one to ever buy a Monday-only pass. This year we were also responsible for pre-registration for next year, and that worked out fine. We're there already, so it wasn't a big deal for us. Because we were using internet-based credit card terminals this year, we did have to leave a minimal amount of infrastructure up until we closed pre-reg, though.
Packing up, I was able to reduce our storage footprint again this year. We didn't use the portmaster at all this year, and that worked well, so I sent it away. Without the portmaster, we have to share printers between two stations, but that was minor compared to having the additional complexity of having the portmaster in use, and the small print servers we use instead are readily available. I also sent away several change boxes we've had in storage for years. These boxes are designed for holding change only, not bills, and don't meet the needs of registration. Art Show and Con Store also use cash boxes, but I can't really see them finding these very useful, either. In the end, I was able to reduce the number of boxes registration sent to storage by two, the boxes going to replace damaged boxes used by other departments. We still have stuff we don't use anymore that can be trimmed from storage, maybe another box, although I would like to get more label printers and print servers for them, which will take more room, but it'll be room taken up by stuff we actually use.
I haven't been officially offered the position yet, but it seems likely I'll be given the right of first refusal, and I'll probably work again next year. Pondering if I want to move on to a different department, try something else.
Okay, enough about registration. On the con in general.
I liked the new hotel. More expensive, and not quite as open feeling as the Doubletree, but it felt like it fit us fairly well.
I attended the flowology workship this year, and practiced poi. Finally figured out how to do three beat weave, which had been stumping me for ages.
Desserts seemed less interesting than previously, but was still good.
We had two dances most nights this year, and they seemed better than ever. The decoration for the chill lounge on Saturday was nice, and the lighting and the music for the main dance that night was the best we've ever done, IMO, and we even had a really good DJ in the mix. Usually the DJs are only okay, in my opinion. Not bad, but could be better. Climbed up on one of the raised platforms to the side of the dance area, and danced with my orbit. Last year I danced a little. Previously, I slunk about on the sides wanting to dance. Big change. ;-) Lots of people took photos of me with my orbit, and had comments on my tetris-print pants and my LED-goggles. What can I say? I enjoy (positive) attention. ;-) Another kid was dancing on the platform with me, and commenting on my orbit, so I let him play with it. He'd never seen one before, but did some really interesting things that gave me ideas for new moves I could try with it. Talking to him a bit, he commented this was his first rave (yeah, noticed lots of people referred to the dances as raves ... oddly, never noticed that before), although he ended up meeting another local raver I'd seen around who gave him some connections. I imagine I may well see him again.
Art show had some interesting art, and I considered bidding on some pieces, but ended up passing.
Nothing really jumped out at me in the dealer's room, either, although it's interesting noting the changes over time in the type of dealers present. It may just be my imagination, but I remember the dealer's room being mostly art, books, etc previously. Now a decent sized chunk consists of dealers catering to popular lifestyles in the fandom. There has always been some percentage, but it feels like more now.
That's about it for me. I spend most of my convention sleeping, eating, or working registration.
I guess in the end, that's about it for me. I don't really see much of the convention.
I am also really grateful for my Reg Techs, from IT - Karl and Dan. Dan, especially, went out of his way to hang out around registration, and help us beyond just the simple technical side of registration. He definitely deserves recognition as well.
I had a wonderful set of gofurs this year - Lizzie (Spoon!), Donkey, and others I don't remember their names (I'm really sorry! I may not remember your names, but I still very much appreciate your contribution). They're instrumental in managing our queues. The queues for registration are always long on Thursday and Friday morning, and we need to keep hallways, doorways, and fire exits clear. My gofurs are absolutely critical in this, and they did a great job this year.
I'm also thankful for my department leads, Saelyc and Squirrel, and the IT department lead, Berg. Saelyc helps support me on the business side, and has as much or more knowledge of the registration system than anyone else. Squirrel provides more of the financial support from the business department. The two of them provide me an environment to be able to run registration in. Berg provides the IT support needed to run registration, and backs up his techs as needed.
Extra special thanks to Kai, who spent Wednesday night and Thursday morning working on getting us a workaround for an issue with the credit card machines; it came down to the wire, but we were able to process credit cards on Thursday when we opened.
Okay, now that I've got that out of the way, on to an actual report. This is going to be registration-biased as that's most of what I see at the convention. I did get a chance to walk through the dealers room and artshow, attend a panel and go to a couple of the dances, but other than that, it was all registration, all the time, for me.
This year, we were trying something new - opening registration at 1400 instead of 1600, for pre-registered attendees. Part of my condition for this was that we had to have the system tested the night before. It's always on our to-do list, but it usually gets skipped, with no testing until the day of the convention, and any issues end up delaying opening. Well, this year we had the biggest issue we've had so far.
The system wouldn't boot. While it ran fine in the colo, once shut down and pulled onsite, it wouldn't boot back up. Saelyc, Berg, and myself ended up working on the server until ~0200, trying to get things fixed. By the time we went to bed, it was working again and partially tested (we tested the regular badges, but not the hard badges - turns out, that would bite us lightly later)
Up early Thursday morning to start getting the registration area setup. This went fairly smoothly, actually, and with the new hotel we were able to run the queues without blocking the hallway much. We were a couple minutes late in opening still, but a full two hours earlier than any year previously. There was an additional few-minute delay with patrons and sponsors as the hard badges weren't printing, but we had that fixed very quickly. We were scheduled to open for at-con memberships at 1700, but that was pushed back due to the credit card issues, and due to a miscommunication, was not running as well as I'd have liked, but once resolved things picked up. We processed our last registration on Thursday at 2205, 5 minutes after our posted closing time. Traditionally, we close the line and it takes another hour to process everyone who is waiting. This year, it took 5 minutes. Next two hours for packing everything up, and then off to bed. While I enjoyed registration being in the lobby at the Doubletree, I really have to say, I won't miss having to tear down and setup again every day.
Friday went fairly smoothly, as did the rest of the convention in general. I need to plan for more staff for the first couple hours of Friday, but then I don't need as many for the remainder of the day, which creates for some complexities for staffing levels. Having three people to handle fursuit photos works well, although is personal intensive. One to print up the badges, one to handle wrangling and data collection, and one to handle the photos.
Monday is always slow. We're open, but we rarely do any business. Traditionally, The Hand would come by on Monday and register, but the past couple years he's had full memberships. Without him coming by, we have no sales on Monday. I think he's the only one to ever buy a Monday-only pass. This year we were also responsible for pre-registration for next year, and that worked out fine. We're there already, so it wasn't a big deal for us. Because we were using internet-based credit card terminals this year, we did have to leave a minimal amount of infrastructure up until we closed pre-reg, though.
Packing up, I was able to reduce our storage footprint again this year. We didn't use the portmaster at all this year, and that worked well, so I sent it away. Without the portmaster, we have to share printers between two stations, but that was minor compared to having the additional complexity of having the portmaster in use, and the small print servers we use instead are readily available. I also sent away several change boxes we've had in storage for years. These boxes are designed for holding change only, not bills, and don't meet the needs of registration. Art Show and Con Store also use cash boxes, but I can't really see them finding these very useful, either. In the end, I was able to reduce the number of boxes registration sent to storage by two, the boxes going to replace damaged boxes used by other departments. We still have stuff we don't use anymore that can be trimmed from storage, maybe another box, although I would like to get more label printers and print servers for them, which will take more room, but it'll be room taken up by stuff we actually use.
I haven't been officially offered the position yet, but it seems likely I'll be given the right of first refusal, and I'll probably work again next year. Pondering if I want to move on to a different department, try something else.
Okay, enough about registration. On the con in general.
I liked the new hotel. More expensive, and not quite as open feeling as the Doubletree, but it felt like it fit us fairly well.
I attended the flowology workship this year, and practiced poi. Finally figured out how to do three beat weave, which had been stumping me for ages.
Desserts seemed less interesting than previously, but was still good.
We had two dances most nights this year, and they seemed better than ever. The decoration for the chill lounge on Saturday was nice, and the lighting and the music for the main dance that night was the best we've ever done, IMO, and we even had a really good DJ in the mix. Usually the DJs are only okay, in my opinion. Not bad, but could be better. Climbed up on one of the raised platforms to the side of the dance area, and danced with my orbit. Last year I danced a little. Previously, I slunk about on the sides wanting to dance. Big change. ;-) Lots of people took photos of me with my orbit, and had comments on my tetris-print pants and my LED-goggles. What can I say? I enjoy (positive) attention. ;-) Another kid was dancing on the platform with me, and commenting on my orbit, so I let him play with it. He'd never seen one before, but did some really interesting things that gave me ideas for new moves I could try with it. Talking to him a bit, he commented this was his first rave (yeah, noticed lots of people referred to the dances as raves ... oddly, never noticed that before), although he ended up meeting another local raver I'd seen around who gave him some connections. I imagine I may well see him again.
Art show had some interesting art, and I considered bidding on some pieces, but ended up passing.
Nothing really jumped out at me in the dealer's room, either, although it's interesting noting the changes over time in the type of dealers present. It may just be my imagination, but I remember the dealer's room being mostly art, books, etc previously. Now a decent sized chunk consists of dealers catering to popular lifestyles in the fandom. There has always been some percentage, but it feels like more now.
That's about it for me. I spend most of my convention sleeping, eating, or working registration.
I guess in the end, that's about it for me. I don't really see much of the convention.