Guest Who

[robinpen]

Guests, who needs guests?

I thought it would be fun to open this with how we don’t need no guests. We don’t go to conventions for the guest, like we don’t go to the convention for the programming. But the truth is that guests are important to a convention (programming too, but that’s for another time). We need guests. We need them for us to

Comments

[stephen_dedman]

"We don’t go to conventions for the guest": that's true inasmuch as the identity of a guest isn't the major factor for regular Swancon attendees when they decide whether or not to go to a con. A guest known for extreme political or religious views, or for bad behaviour, might even discourage some attendees, but I don't recall that ever being a problem at Swancon. Some guests, however, may lure people who might be undecided about whether to attend a con - or which con to attend.

Say someone in Adelaide, who had only the time and money to attend one out-of-state con per year, had the choice of going to a con in Melbourne which had Neil Gaiman as a GoH, or to one in Perth that had Stephen Dedman as a GoH. All else being equal (convenient timing, expense, etc.), they'd have to be mad not to go to Melbourne.

There have been times when I've had to choose between cons, and it's usually been on the basis of which has the more interesting guests. However, that's the only point in this column I don't agree with: thanks again for writing these