Well I made it through....

[lensman]

Another year, another Arisia....

Over all this year was a LOT less stressfull.... Though if you want Juicy details I'll have to tell you in confidence outside the scope of a public post.. ;-)

It took me going back over 500 comments to see all of the responces to the con out there on my various friends lists....

Some positive, some negative... Well we tried, and I think it's getting better all the time... (Queue the Beatles music)

Some interesting comments though that I'll try to summerize and pass along to help make thngs better. Actually there are soo many out there if you all wouldn't mind please post a link to your comments here.... This is one of the things I really like about helping out with Arisia we get to try and improve it by everyones feedback...

For instance I am also currently the head of the corporate "Hotel Search Commitee" (Our Currrent Hotel Contract is about to expire, and I am ACTIVELY looking for other posible options...) I have a behind the sences perspective on how things are run, but the attendees comments are also welcome, and as I hope you can see they are encouraged...

I'll post my view of the con shortly...

Comments

[tikva.livejournal.com]

If we're going to another hotel, please take accessibility factors into consideration! So many area hotels are inaccessible to people with disabilities. It's depressing.

Thanks!

Yeah we know....

[lensman.livejournal.com]

It's part of the "Charm" of living in "Historic Boston"....

For example the PP was originally designed and built to house "Traveling Salesmen"... A concept that has long gone by the way side... They've tried to make the PP "more accessable", but there only so much they "Can" do without taking the whole thing down and starting from scratch... (Their heating systems being another thing that needs a complete gut/replace...)

sorry that I only got to see you once officially...

[happypete.livejournal.com]

and once passing in the halls...there was no "Happy to Ops" this year--prettypammie wanted me to pay attention to my program responsibilities (and Pam and Quinn and friend responsibilities) instead of leaping at the beck and call of a voice on the radio...

In any event, aside from the cliches about the heat, the elevators, etc., I really love the park plaza...it's quirky, but we know its quirks, right?

I guess I wonder what the other possibilities are?

Re: sorry that I only got to see you once officially...

[lensman.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I like it's quircks too.oo, and it's one of the few hotels in Boston with enough small meeting space to meet our needs...

But some of the quirks that make it so interestig (the 3rd floor Maze is one of my fav's back from the days when we'd get drunk in the stairwells and hidden corners. ) are also what what give us problems (getting network connectivity to sections of the hotel, and running video feeds.)
and the stories of the Hotel liasions stuck in the elevators.... :-)

I guess I wonder what the other possibilities are?

Well, we're pretty much open to anything. We've used other Hotels in the past...

A'90 Swiss Shalete in Lafyette Plaza (Downtown Crossing/First Arisia)
A'9? + A'98 Waltham Weston (I liked the Jaquzzi in ConSuite) :-)
A'99 Copley Weston

[tk7602.livejournal.com]

since i didn't really write much as far as comments go, i'll put them here. first, things i'd like to have seen more of, then ideas as to how to achieve that.

- earlier schedule info / more info in general on the web site.
- more events/panels/vendors related to comics/movies/tv shows.
- more active costuming scene.

begin ramble:

so, for the schedule... people aren't necessarily techy. use the arisia lj (or a dedicated arisia_schedule journal) for a running schedule. link to it off the main page, and give people lj clients to post. then they just need to type into a box and hit post. minimal setup for you, and will get info out there quicker. if you wanted to go nuts, it's not very hard to just plain embed an lj into a web page.

as for the panels, vendors and such... all i can really think of is soliciting people to do it. my poll of the 501st seemed to show that most people just didn't think the group would fit in, and they were, for the most part, right. but i think that if arisia made an active effort to draw in more of that sort of thing, it could work.

for example, maybe having, in addition to the masquerade, awards for best genre costumes... not even a stage contest, but say have prizes for the best hall costumes in different categories. best anime, best movie recreation, best tv recreation... the prize could be free admission next year. then you get the people coming back. if you got enough people, maybe costume contests that aren't as rigid as the masquerade.

i think that the "media geek" is mostly left ouf of the con... i mean, there wasn't a single klingon there! what's up with that? ;)

maybe get some local comic stores in as vendors. there's also a store called the toy vault in the emerald square mall that sells collectible toys. more of that sort of thing. i'm sure that some of these places would be up for it.

it would probably take a con or two to get that part of things built up, but i know that's the sort of thing that makes me want to go to a con.

[krikket.livejournal.com]

I don't know what caused the lack of Klingons this year. We usually have at least one or two... (And one person I know refuses to speak anything but Klingon for the entire time he's in costume, which is usually the entire weekend.)

I'll have to ask Rich what happened, next time I see him...

[lensman.livejournal.com]

if you wanted to go nuts, it's not very hard to just plain embed an lj into a web page.

I've been thinking about that... :-) and I want to use the web interface to make management of some of the tasks for running the con work better... lots of ideas to play with must work on that....
my poll of the 501st seemed to show that most people just didn't think the group would fit in
Well you already know a couple of the people fit in, I think the group as a whole would work... if we had the right idea for an event at con.... For example the whole "Goth Dance" thing started from a Vampire LARP that wanted to use the ballroom for a midnight game set in a dance club.... It grew from there...
maybe costume contests that aren't as rigid as the masquerade.
Harasey !!! ;-)
i think that the "media geek" is mostly left ouf of the con...
Yes and no... It depends on the year. One of the early years we had the texture artists who were working on a show that hadn't come to tv yet called "Babylon 5" Their pre-lim work was A-Fucking-Mazing, and the past couple of years (even though it has little direct Sci Fi connection) We've had "Junkyard Wars" mini competitions... (Only missed that this year I think was due to scheduling conflicts with the MIT Anti-SPAM conference)

i mean, there wasn't a single klingon there! what's up with that? ;)

I know, but I hear there was a really sexy Bantha chick... and some anonymous tusken raider.... :-) so we weren't left compleatly out of the media loop... :-)

there's also a store called the toy vault in the emerald square mall that sells collectible toys. more of that sort of thing. Yeah toy evndors would be nice too, Though with the web that's really cutting into the profitability of dragging stuff to cons... (Cost of Transport, vendor fees, plus staying in a hotel.... Adds up quickly) Theres something to be said about being able to browse and actually pick up the merchandize, but the buyer will put it rioght back down if the cost isn't reasonable...

[angelovernh.livejournal.com]

Has the Park Plaza decided NOT to renew the contract????? Or has the Arisia committee decided not to renew? If so, may I ask why? What are the main complaints about it? Is the Park Plaza still an option? I personally like this hotel compared to other sites of other cons I have attended so I don't know if we can do much better. Hrm.

The heat thing (on or off steam heat in the Mezz./Lobby) was annoying, but tolerable. The most annoying part to ME was the fire drill thing - but primarily because I had JUST fallen asleep and was sooo utterly sleep deprived. I know many people ignored the alarms, but having had my house burn down as a little girl, I ended up with a fire phobia and don't think ignoring those is a good idea. So I threw on clothing and grabbed jacket and purse and ran down 15 flights of stairs. ::shrug:: When we reached the Mezz. we got the message that it was all clear.

[lensman.livejournal.com]

The contracts are only written to last a certain ammount of time... It gives both the hotel and the convention a chance every few years to re-evaluate what we're paying for/getting out of it....

Just because the contract has expired and we have a search committee to write a new one doesn't mean it won't be WITH the park Plaza, but we have to look at what is best for the convention...

Fire alarms happen (We've been pretty fortunate in the Park Plaza overall across these many years), but there have been many conventions where an alam was pulled (as a joke, Yeah funny NOT) by attention seeking teenagers.

[angelovernh.livejournal.com]

ok, thanks for the clarification. Wasn't sure if we'd been booted out or what. Glad it isn't that and that we have this time to consider options without being forced to leave.

Read my review...take from it what you can...

[billporn.livejournal.com]

But I cannot stress this point harder...

PLEASE get the con out of that hotel. I'll help!

I'll put more reasons to paper, and you are free to AIM me whenever.

1) Reconstruction. For God's sake, how long does it take to renovate a hotel? Building the new WTC won't take as long as it's taking to put that hotel together again.

2) Room assingment "mishaps" - We've heard of "A cry for help?" my opinion is that if it was a luggage maker convention or something to that effect, room assignment issues would suddenly become alot less of a problem.

3) The aforementioned Network connectivity issues. I don't have a wireless computer, but the problems still exist.

4) Price increases. WAY. TOO. HIGH. I'd like to know what kind of rates FF got this year. Probably worse, which would just prove my point about how "freak friendly" the BPP has become.

I have other issues about the con itself, that have been ongoing for years, some of which I believe I have discussed with you. This year, I was not in a position to be able to be of much help. This year, I'd like to be more pro-active. Since I don't believe in bitching without lending a hand.

Re: Read my review...take from it what you can...

[lensman.livejournal.com]

For some parts of that sentiment I can completely agree... :-) (Although I'll admit to some nostalgia about the place as well)

To the numbered ponts I'll reply:
1) We're holding Arisia in the Hotels "dead" cycle of the year. The time when they use the least ammount of rooms. We do this to get the cheeper rates. The hotel wins by seling rooms when they would otherwise be empty. They also use this time of the year to do their yearly maintainence It needs to be done at all hotels, so we'de run into similar issue no matter where we go.

2) a lot of this happens on our (Arisia's) end because we block rooms diferently from any other type of convention. everybody else just blocks by the size of the room. We block by both size and location relative to other events (Party block for noise, quiet blocks, dealers rooms, etc....) For a total of about 8 diffecrent blocks of rooms. Not including the non Arisia Guests that stay in the hotel...

3)The connectivity issues are for both wired AND wireless... :-/ and don't even get me started on the dead zones in that bldg for radio, beeper, cell phones, GPS, etc... We've mapped them all out its frightening.

4) Actually those prices for rooms at a hotel in Boston are pretty damn good... We(Arisia) by contract kept them artifically low for a number of years, but durring the last round of contract negotiatins we finally had to break the $100 / night mark (Oy the ruckus THAT caused)... Yeah you can get cheeper rates but not and be able to block large segments of a hotel, and get function space as well... At least not inside city limits.... We have to look at it from a larger point of view how can we keep the costs down, when even adjusting a video screen on a stage costs money to have a hotel tech "push a button" (Really don't ask me that price, It's not even funny, but from the hotels point of view that tech has to get the screen set weather it means pushing a button or climbing the rigging when the button is stuck to clear the jam.... Two entirely different tasks, one price...)
But the last round of negotiations was pre 9-11... We may be able to get that back down a tiny bit, but there is something to also be said for being loyal customers... (Many things I really CANT mention or we'de loose those privaledges, but they could make good barganing chips. Make both ours and the Hotels life easier)...

Re: Read my review...take from it what you can...

[tk7602.livejournal.com]

4) Price increases. WAY. TOO. HIGH. I'd like to know what kind of rates FF got this year. Probably worse, which would just prove my point about how "freak friendly" the BPP has become.

the prices looked really cheap to me!

our room at dragoncon was $170 a night.

A full on report.

[billporn.livejournal.com]

Some of it will piss some people off (esp. if these said people are on ConCom)

But what the hell. It's my .2 cents darn it! :)

http://www.livejournal.com/users/billporn/151096.html