As some of my friends know, I’ve been the head of the Volunteer Department at CONvergence for a couple of years. I think I got there the way that one should, start by getting involved with the convention some how, then work your way up through the ranks, learning more about what you are doing, and doing what you can to make the convention a better place for everyone.
And as far as that goes, I think I’ve done fairly well. That said, I think that very few people would envision me as running the Volunteers part of a convention. Not because they wouldn’t think I could do the work, but because, if anything, I’m not exactly a charismatic personality. And I do think that it is important that the people trying to get other people to help out at the convention do be charismatic. OK, not at the level of a evengelical minister, but at the very least at the level of having people help out with very little in the way of a push or pull into the task.
I am hoping that the proceses that I’ve helped get set up, are at least useful for people to follow along after me. I’m fully willing to acknowledge that I’m not ‘great’ at the entire wrangling volunteers, and strongly suspect that I’ve had some quiet help along the way, for which I am very, Very appreciative.
When I started out at the lowest wrungs of the volunteer department, the latest significant development or discover was that we had a lot of people ghosting the convention. Ghosting the parties is more or less an expected activity. We know that there will be people who visit the convention, just to attend the parties. I’m not going to tell people not to do that. Mostly because it’s entirely up to the hosts of the various parties at the convention to decide if they will allow people who are not attending the convention as a whole to attend. If you really want my opinion, you’re missing the point by doing so. The convention is a fundrasing event. CONvergene and it’s sister organization MISFITS are a charitable organization, working with schools to bring interesting guests, authors, scientists, and writers into schools to let students know how each of these people find what they do to be exciting, and worthy goals to strive to achieve. Just going to the parties, and ghosting them to do that is an insult to the goals of the people providing the opportunity to enjoy the party. But that’s your decision.
Perhaps the most common excuse given for ghosting the parties, and not paying to attend is that it costs ‘too much.’ “If only you offered a ‘day pass’ or so, I’m sure you would have more people paying to attend.” Right. Now I’ll grant you that $65 (this year’s at the door) or $60 at the door (next year) membership may seem steep in comparison to going to see a movie ($20-$40 if you buy popcorn, softdrinks tickets for 2 people) or the ‘cheep seats’ of the local baseball games, but I would note 3 things about those prices:
- they arn’t keeping people away
- if you compare what you can get to what that would cost you, it’s a great value
- that’s the price you pay at the last minute.
Regarding item 1. every year they anounce the ‘warm body’ count as well as the ‘registered body’ count for the convention. I may not have attended each and every closing ceremony, but I do know that every year the number of people who attend has gone up. That number reflects both pre-registered and at the door registrations having gone up every year.
As to item 2, sure you can think of it as just a party that you can attend, get a little drunk, etc. But there is a lot more to it. The guests of honor very often demonstrate what they do at the convention. You get to see authors reading from their works, makeup and special effects artists doing their thing, prop makers showing off their wares, scientists explaining esoteric and comon topics, movies, musicians, artwork both simple and complex. You get fed, free coffee, soft drinks, and a whole lot more. I challenge you to find that available elsewhere for $65 that you can enjoy at any time over 4 days.
And yes, Item 3. The $65 at the door fee is only applicable if you can’t plan out more than about 7 weeks in advance. We do do 4 price ‘tiers.’ If you are at the convention, and you decide you want to attend next year, it’s $30. From the end of the convention till the end of the calendar year it cost $40. From then till the middle of May the price jumps up to $50. And only after that point do you end up having to pay the At the Door rate.
You might be wondering why we are willing to offer such steap discounts that far in advance. Just as we recognize that you can save money that way, we end up saving money as well. The better information we have regarding how many people we should expect at the convention, the better deals we can negotiate with people who are providing services. Live performer fees to ASCAP and BMI (etc.) are due in January for the year that they will perform. If we can tell them that our history says we will see 3200 people, fees are significantly better than if we have to say ‘well it could be 1,200 people, or 5,500.’ Want to take a guess as to which number will be the basis of the amount paid? With a range like that you are likely to pay the 1200 people rate over the 5500 people volume. Likewise if we are way off, say we predict 2000 people, and 3000 people show up, then the licence management companies are going to take a higher percentage, even if no more people could possibly hear the performers. Beyond licence fees, we can negotiate better prices for food from large vendors, rather than waiting till the last minute and going to Cub. We can get better deals on bulk materials and so on. And we can negotiate better room rates with hotels in the area if we fill the room block.
And as mentioned beforewe are not doing this to earn money for ourselves. Every one of the members of the convention comittee and board for both MISFITs and CONvergence pays their own way into the convention. And we all work our tails off both before, and at the convention.
There are other reasons not to do things like ‘day passes.’ Chief among them is that no one has demonstrated that the costs associated with managing day passes is less than the additional sales would be generated. If you really want to know what the costs are, think of the artwork, training, and handling of the materials involved, then remember that even a $20 day pass will be looked at as ‘too expensive’ by a significant percentage of the ghosts we have already.
Lastly, remember that the cost of registration is not a ‘ticket fee.’ It is a membership. Your contribution is going to far more than just the stuff you see at the convention.
Some of you may want to continue to moan and complain. Fine. I’m not really interested. I pay for my own registration, and will buy additional registrations for people I think deserve the ‘reward’ as I can within my means. I don’t ask anyone else to do that but it would honestly surprise me if there were not a few people doing that. Likewise I’m pretty sure that there are a few people who buy registrations in the last half of the year, so that they can sell them after pre-registration has closed for the year, and potentially earn some money by selling them for less than the ‘at the door’ rate. I don’t know who they are though.
OK, enough. And that’s in more than one way enough.
This last year was both rough, and rewarding. We did a lot more this year, with only a few more people. We dealt with a variety of surprises, including people going missing, as well as some really stupid situations at the convention. I’m sorry people having been up late the night before is no excuse for snapping at 10 year olds trying to make sure that you can get to your destination. And yes that did happen. I wrote software I wasn’t sure I was up to, built hardware that I couldn’t aford to buy an alternative for, and ultimately had the time of my life with a lot of really great people.
And this is the only time in this blog entry that I will even note that I spent entirely too much time at the convention in costume as Jamie. If you see pictures of me on the web, feel free to send me a note pointing them out to me. I know about some of them, but the rest are also of interest.
Thank you, I’ve had a great time, 2009 is going to be my last year as the head of Volunteers, and I hope to have someone who is better at working with other people involved at every level next year with me, who if they don’t want to take over for me, can at least work with whomever comes in after me. I may be called in to help out after that, but if I do, I will feel very much that I have personally failed in handing off the reigns. I don’t know who will be in charge in 2010. I really hope to be solving another set of problems that I see. A side effect that I would very much love to have is that I hope to be enjoying a lot more of the convention. (Realistic knowledge suggests that I won’t be seeing much of that in 2010, but I think that we will get a lot of problems worked out then anyway.
CVG2008 – 4 days of some of the best parties I’ve seen. Thank you to all.
~Rusty
