AARDVK wrote:
I never thought ineptness was the sole province of NTN/BT, but I was reminded today that it's certainly permeated other organizations. Today was the start of Comicpalooza, Houston's three-day ComicCon wannabe, which for the past two years has been a remarkably well-conceived, well-run convention, attracting people not just into comics, gaming, anime, and meeting actors from sf movies and TV, but like me into sf/fantasy writing and film.
The con was being held at the George R. Brown convention center, which is a loooooong building that easily houses more than one convention or event at a time. Accordingly, generally there's a lighted sign above each entrance indicating where to enter. Today--no such signs. I turned down toward the space it had been in for the past two years, and ended up having to walk back to the con's new space--which doesn't include any of the nice auditoriums or conference rooms previously used. In fact it's just a huge space set off with curtains, with "panel rooms" labeled by some writing out "Room No. 1" etc. on a piece of paper and pinning it to a teeshirt which is then pinned to the curtains. Picture if you will that events going on in adjacent spaces include panel discussions, musical acts, a Quidditch match, and a roller derby game, and you can imagine what a challenge it is to hear what you want to hear.
The first program item I want to attend is Michael Biehn talking about making "Terminator." He's scheduled for what is labeled the "Main Stage," which is an elevated stage packed with sound and lighting equipment on which something that looks like a cross between WALL-E and No. 5 is sitting behind a drum set, every once in a while flashing its eyes and hitting the drums in such a way as to send shrieks through the sound system. Come the start of the program and there's no chairs and no Mr. Biehn. He eventually shows up; the chairs do not, nor has any mic been hooked up for him. But he gamely sits down on the edge of the stage and we gather around for a Q & A.
Then here comes the con staff, telling all of us in a not-friendly way (including the guest speaker) that we have to move, but not telling us where. Meanwhile MB's assistant starts wondering aloud if they should just go back to their autograph table and the rest of us can come along. "Oh no!" says another con staff person, but then he can't figure out any place either. Finally he insists we kind of stand where we are, and he brings a chair over for MB, but MB quickly realizes that if he sits down, no one will be able to see him. By now we've been relocated sufficiently close to speakers blaring music from another event that only the people closest to MB have a chance of hearing anything, and as that group did not include me, I gave up. I'd wanted to hear Sean Patrick Flanery talk about "Boondock Saints," but that was scheduled to come up next (at this point only about 30 minutes away) in the same non-space, so I gave up on that too and went home.
The theory put forth by my ex-husband (who has been on the committee for smaller cons) is that either I'm right that they didn't want to pay for the better space where everything would already be set up, or that they didn't want to pay for people to do the setting up, relying instead on unreliable volunteers. Either way, it does not bode well for things improving tomorrow, when attendance will be up (last year's total attendance was 10K, which makes it bigger than most World Cons). At that level, everyone has to be acting professionally for things to go smoothly--and I got a huge "we don't really care" vibe from this group.
Brooke/AARDVK
I am basing this on the five quite long paragraphs of your post, and your choice of words. It looks like they really pissed you off. Sorry, I wasn't there, but I have a feeling that if I were, I would have posted six paragraphs letting the world how pissed off I was too.
DANTE, has a group of sci-fi junkies, who play the "SciFiles" Buzztime game every Wednesday night, and they are pretty damn good. If you are ever in the Louisville area you might want to join them at Old Chicago on Westport Road. (This is not a joke, but as you might have guessed, the rest is.)
p.s. It might be a good idea to call ahead to make sure that they are back from the planet Mongo.
p.p.s. They don't usually stay too long on Mongo. It doesn't have many bars, and none of them have NTN trivia yet.
.................................................. ..................................................................... The closest bar is a couple miles over the mountain ridge on the right.
............................................................................. ............................................... "DANTE, you and Flash need to back off. I just signed a contract with NTN. Mongo will have NTN trivia very soon."