If you wish to see scans of Polaroids from the con, start the tour by clicking here.
Flashback! was held in the Northwest Inn in Brooklyn Park, MN (the city where Jesse Ventura had been mayor), Oct 30-Nov. 1 1998. Halloween weekend.
Sharon Kahn, Rick Gellman and myself put on a nice relaxicon. Almost everything worked, and the things that didn't go according to plan generally leaned in our favor. Rick is Mpls' only true SMOF, but Sharon's credentials are getting impressive.
We wanted Flashback! to be a relaxicon in which people would remember and relive some of the previous Mpls convention experiences. In practice more a motif than a leitmotif; some harkening back, but not all.
The con was held in the Executive Courtyard. With our room block being 30 rooms on two levels surrounding the open area. We had no other function space than the courtyard, but it was large enough for the whole con to fit in comfortably. A half-dozen or so big round tables, one long table and a smaller one up front. Smoking over on one side and non-smoking everywhere else, including the courtyard. The rooms had sliding glass doors opening directly into the courtyard on the first floor, to a balcony overlooking the courtyard on the second. Quiet rooms were available, and we were right next to the pool, a large smoking area that had video games and a Jacuzzi. Halloween was not a good time for the hotel and therefore an excellent time for the con. The hotel was not nearly full, and we had the run of the place. Only a few members of the hotel staff seemed all that on the ball, but for the most part that worked in our favor. They gave us everything we wanted and were very nice, if you didn't get mad at them for screwing up your reservation.
Steve Brust was an wonderful GoH. He was available, friendly, modest and seemed to have a good time. He was more than happy to talk about Doc, his parrot. and show Doc's trick. Doc and Lojo (Liz' parrot) seemed to have a good time, happily perched on various people. Steve gave several readings in several bodies of water (though I'm not sure the nude reading w/naked babes in the con hot tub happened).
Sharon, who was very busy with Hotel stuff, called the Programming "frenetic", but I acted as Ringmaster and MC for most of it and while there was a lot going on, most of it was fairly low-key. We didn't have a Program Book or any written schedule, but Sharon and Richard brought the Tower of Parties. Richard made the ToP for Minicon, but it didn't really catch on. It's a big transparent cube (roughly 3'x3', iirc) with Christmas lights on the inside and metal strips on the outside. There are magnetic holders that attach to the ToP, into which you slide the listings of the party/event you want. Sharon posted the Programming Schedule.
Opening Ceremonies was scheduled for 6:30, but few people had trickled in, so we made it for 7. I wandered around the courtyard announcing the event. At 7, I sat down at one of the big round tables, Steve sat a few chairs down, and I called the con. People filled the seats at this table, grabbed chairs from the others or just stood around. I introduced Steve, who gave a short GoH speech. Then everyone introduced themselves. I didn't count, but there were perhaps 40-60 people, roughly half the eventual total membership. I went around the room, making sure everyone I could see said something, including people who had just come in. The con drew several out-of-towners, and there were people I didn't know. I love small cons...
Barb Jensen's 45 party inspired a dance. Jeff Schalles had lots of 45s and was more than willing to bring his sound equipment. While I liked the flashback aspect of vinyl singles, I go with CDs as often as I can. I brought my CD player and an assortment of CDs. After Opening Ceremonies we set up and Jeff went off to dinner letting me DJ a dance. As it turned out, not much of a dance but a fairly successful music event. A few people had their bods moving, but we didn't play very loudly and turned down the music whenever a party complained we were interfering with conversation. Still, I had fun playing with my collection and people did dance. I started off with "The Locomotion" and mixed odd danceable songs with classics. I had most of the requests. One of the kids wanted Alvin and the Chipmunks, so I played their faithful cover of "Time Warp". I was able to honor Karen Cooper's request "The Martian Hop", but alas I didn't bring "The Monster Mash"; a glaring omission. At one point I'm merrily spinning Brave Combo's "O Holy Night Cha Cha Cha" and the dancers are dutifully doing a cha cha when Karen stops dancing and yells at me, "This is a Christmas carol! You can't fool me Dave! This is a _Christmas carol_!" Ah, the joys of being a fannish DJ. Jeff comes back from dinner and starts spinning 45s as well as CDs, giving me a break. An event scheduled for about an hour and a half went about two and a half. I was running out of music... A bit of a dance, a fair amount of fun.
A music party never materialized, but the smoking and non-smoking parties were active, and several people had their own. Doug Wickstrom had his MIDI keyboard set up, and expounded on various musical themes, such as the actions of different violin bows and music from O'Brian books.
Flashback! only had one formal panel: The Alien Intelligence Panel. Sharon moderated Steve and Liz talking about and showing off their parrots. The divers intelligences of parrots were explained, and Cute Parrot Stories were told. A good time was had by all, including Doc and Lojo. Those large round tables served us well again.
We couldn't be firm in planning most of Saturday afternoon because GoH Emeritus Gordon R. Dickson might give a GoH speech, but he might not. By Friday we were pretty sure he was going to come, but he said he wanted to limit his time to twenty or thirty minutes. He arrived with someone named Rick who pushed his wheelchair. The hotel let us use a room (for free) where Gordy rested before he spoke, and where Rick spent his time watching tv.
Gordy wanted some Ginger Ale. Cold. So I put a two-liter bottle in one of the ice buckets, surrounded by ice and dry ice, just to be sure. He came in on his wheelchair, behind the one long table we'd used the previous night for the DJ table. (The Marscon and Convergence people graciously giving up their promo space, though we left the flyers for the Klingon Language Institute and the Toronto Filkcon.) We moved some chairs over from the Alien Intelligence Panel and I made a brief introduction. Most of the con watched as Gordy rambled around topics from being at rocket launchings of missions to the moon to working for John Campbell to his ancestors in Scotland. He was sharp and interacted well with the audience, but would occasionally lose track of where he was in his story and need prompting. About an hour and a half into it, Gordy showed no signs of wanting to stop, but I thought I'd give him an out, and urged him to save some energy for autographing. He took a break, but then came back and talked/signed for another hour, and stayed to schmooze for a while longer. He was having fun, and indicated he would come back next year...
Some people came just to get autographs from Gordy, one all the way from Alabama. They were not disappointed. As a prize, we gave Gordy a bottle of Grenadine.
I'm really glad our Programming Schedule was loose enough to accommodate Gordy. Most of the rest of Sat. afternoon was filled with informal on-going events. Linda Lounsbury had kids (and others) making Halloween masks, and Karen had brought pumpkins to carve. Various cards and other games also made use of the courtyard area.
Later that night, Halloween, we held a small and short Trick or Treat for the kids. Sharon had prepared small bags of candy that we gave to everyone with a room, and the kids went around to everyone who participated.
At night we held a semi-formal Masquerade. Short and sweet, but fun. And we gave out more Grenadine.
Unscheduled, the Marscon people (iirc) wanted to show The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The hotel provided a tv and VCR, and an Audience Participation Event ensued. My feeling is that RHPS is a brilliant movie ruined by the audience, and this event only reinforced that opinion. At first, a large audience gathered, as old timers heard new responses and the audience spoke in unison. But gradually people were turned off by the profane and not terribly clever comebacks, and after a while only one person was yelling at the tv. I tried to get him to stop, so people had a chance to see the movie, but he wouldn't, so I left. The consuite was a good refuge.
There were no organized events Sunday, but plenty of wind-down activity and even some music. Steve, Nate Bucklin and Doug played songs old and new. Steve and Nate had been interacting for years, but it was nice to hear Doug's violin in the mix, plus some of those O'Brian sea songs mentioned earlier.
An overview from the committee: Mostly, it all worked, and worked better than planned. We were dead on target in our budgeting and attendance projection: As of the committee post-mortem yesterday (11/7), we were within $25 dollars of breaking even one way or the other. Depending on the last few bills and collecting errant registrations, we either made a little money or lost a little money. As near as we can count, there were 104 warm bodies at the con, counting Gordy and Rick and the one-day kid memberships.
The three of us, Rick, Sharon and me, were the only committee members and we really could have used a larger concom. Still, we had plenty of help from volunteers and our Sofa.
Rick found the hotel, and we had plenty of advice from Liz Cooper, who had been Hotel when a Fourth Street had been held there. Rick and Sharon went out to the hotel several times, identifying the one competent member of the reservations staff and trying to deal with him. Sharon wound up being Hotel at the con, which is always a busy job requiring lots of time.
We didn't recruit a formal Consuite host, but Rick wound up taking charge. A usually with Rick's Minnesota Munchie Movement events, Rick had lots and lots and lots of stuff. He keeps his eye out for bargains, then freezes the meat and/or stores the food. Without the help of Ron Searby and Ben Lessinger, Rick couldn't have moved everything to the hotel (and the leftovers back). Karen (and others) helped sort out the food items, tut tutting Rick's managerial style (or lack thereof). The con had too much of some things, but tended not to run out of anything. The food was good, ranging from chips to bagels and cream cheese to cold cuts and sandwich fixings to dim sum (brought in on Sunday) to real steak. We had real coffee, but no one was formally charged with making it in the morning. Some people complained at the selection, but we were unsympathetic. Our consuite was better than the hotel restaurant. But not well organized. Rick brought at least two extra microwaves and could have left some of the food at home, for a run on Sunday if necessary. On the other hand, we could easily have had a larger con and could have used it all. Not your standard consuite, but definitely a flashback to earlier cons...
Eight years ago, before the fallcon run of Reinconations, we ran Conscription. The committee was larger, though the con was the same size. To have fun and to train in some new people, we recruited 15-year-old Corwin Brust to be our Chair. That worked out really well. Cory wrote his first check ever, though (as the Jerry Corwin, the Treasurer who had to cosign put it) the check was _"a technical success but an artistic failure"_.
This year, we also wanted to have a bit of fun as well as revive the idea of the fallcon being a training convention. Almost immediately, Amber Tatge and Aliera Brust (15-year-old daughters of concom Sharon and GoH Steve respectively, though they had turned 16 by the con) took up the challenge. But the two of them didn't want to be co-chair. "Loveseat!" they suggested. "No!!!" said Sharon. So they were officially the Sofa.
The Sofa designed the badges, and spent a lot of time handling at-the-con Registration. Sharon set up a database and the bank account, and the girls did an excellent and responsible job over the weekend. It helped that Registration was in the main courtyard, so they were in the middle of the action.
The MN-STF Storage Locker had been cataloged the previous week. Lots of fun reading the descriptions of items in the locker. We had lots of Grenadine syrup, used in making blog. Lots of Grenadine. Lots and lots. We held a contest to guess how much Grenadine we had. Iirc Lydia Nickerson (in charge of the locker project) guessed closest at 48 bottles. Giving away Grenadine turned out to be an ongoing event and a running joke.
Richard Tatge did a splendid job decorating the courtyard with pumpkins and assorted Halloween goodies. Really set the tone.
Ice was a bit of a problem, but worked out ok. The hotel wanted to charge us $100 to fill up two bathtubs over two nights. I found a place comparatively nearby who delivered if we our order was over $35. Without really knowing how much ice we'd need, I got 5 bags of ice and 20 lbs. of dry ice. The five bags were too much, and the dry ice was underutilized, but both came in handy. If nothing else, the unused dry ice extended the life of the bathtub ice. When it was used (mostly by me, as I'd walk out into the courtyard with a bubbling cup), it worked out fine. Saturday we only got 3 bags.
Regrets: Well, our rates were too low (same as eight years ago) and we didn't clarify our at-the-door membership rate very well. We could have done more publicity, but not too much more. Still, we had a good turnout and broke even.
I regret not being able to run the Summarize Brust Competition. It remains one of those Lost Microprogramming Events. Lots of people wondered what it was, but unfortunately most people didn't catch the Monty Python reference and I couldn't generate enough interest to make it worthwhile. Maybe later...
But in general, I thought the con went very well. Thanks to Sharon and Rick and Amber an Aliera and Ron and Ben and all the members, especially Sue and Hilary and Seth (thanks for the subway maps!). I had a great time.
Mail to David E Romm