Concom Minutes 26 Aug 2007

Minicon Concom Meeting - August 26, 3pm

In attendance - Keith Malgren, Matt Strait, Andra St. Arnauld, Kelly Strait, Bonnie Somdahl, Chas Somdahl, Peer Dudda, Marian Turner, Seth Breidbart, a ginger cat

Chas checked out music rentals (sound board) - hotel is $250/day; someplace else is $200 for weekend; may be able to borrow one from friend; snake is $35

Hotel Update:

Contract signed, have all space pool-side, programming in Veranda rooms; dealers/art in center ballroom; furthest back ballroom for science? large space - might be too big for science room; Bonnie mentioned robotic people - maybe they could go in there; Science Museum? Anecdotally, sounds like Ben has indicated he’d love to have more room. East ballroom splits into 2 parts - forward for music; kid’s programming in back room - or could swap these two. Obviously, want good signage either way. But might be kind of fun for kids to go down “secret” hallway.

Rachel previously (?) mentioned something about alternating sides for entering programming rooms - but might be confusing?

Note: any programming room that’s open after 10pm can be used for music. Shipside for daytime music, concerts. Previous concerns about music space being hard to find. Marian thinks kids/music should share front half - since music only needs it later, and kids’ will be done - only Sat afternoon. Secure storage on “opposite side” of that room (space outside?) - coat check thing that’s usually closed off. One idea if to run registration across that, or out in the space in front of that.

“We have all our space, and we have more space than we need.”

Signage - CONvergence put signs EVERYWHERE, but our contract doesn’t say that we can do that - we’re trying to get that changed, Keith has been playing phone tag.

Late checkout - Sun 2pm, in contract. 300 room-nights in contract. (We made 284 last year.) $87 for regular room; $97 for cabana; $102 “deluxe king”; $289 suite

What about people who find their own deal? If they’re involved in the con, do we get credit toward room block? A year or two ago, Northwest had a flight/room combined deal that included nights at the Sheraton.

Do we have a hotel link? So that people already get the con rate by clicking on it directly. Keith will work on this.

GOH:
Shawna McCarthy - Wayne Barlowe’s wife - is editor; she’s coming anyway, she’d like to participate. Unless any objections come up, we’ll name her “Editor GOH”. Seth mentions that if we offered her GOH now, it might seem like we’re only doing it ’cause she’s coming anyway… but it’d be nice to let other people know she’s coming, and calling her GOH is the best way to make her prominent; if we don’t, no one will really notice that she’s there.

$265-$400 for round-trip (?) tickets as of today. Al Reynolds is also bringing wife, but she’s not as interested in participating - but if we buy her a ticket, she’d feel obligated to participate

Sending out previous stuff to Wayne so he can see what we’ve done. After this communication, mostly turning over communications to Andra.

Other cons list “guests of note” - as a way to maybe get around GOH (?).

Would she be willing to do a panel something like “meet an editor” - this should NOT be “bring your book and pitch it at an editor”? Would she be interested in being involved with writing workshop?

PR1
Aiming for Oct 1. Next concom meeting Sept 23 (this might be wrong on website - check and fix). Should have it done for that to check for typos, etc.

Include: GOH bios - Chas will write for Nate; hotel info (rates/dates); room parties; dealer’s room (how to participate); art show (how to participate); hospitality; volunteers; hall costume awards; concerts (how to participate)/ non-performance music programming (”expanded music programming” - two panels on songwriting; “Jamming 101″ - music circle do’s and don’ts); programming

Open Heads
Art Show - Sarah Cain (and friend?) may be willing to do this. Keith has been in touch with her. She has some connection to art that he thought was interesting…

Green Room - we think Karen Cooper may not want to do this, but who knows? LJ is probably easiest/best way to get in touch with her; if she doesn’t want to do it, Andra will cover

Volunteers - friend of Keith’s (Matt) - don’t know if he’ll do it or not - hasn’t said one way or the other.

Film - we’re working on it.

Meeting Time
We’ve moved from 2 to 3, but we’re not really sure why. Should we go back to 2? Everyone thinks it’s at 2:00, so let’s just put it back.

Bank Status
Checks have been cashed. We have partially signed board letter, hopefully to get Matt as signer on account. Seth IS signer. If this does not work, we’ll try something like “The Board has voted that these people have been designated signers for this account. Blah blah blah. Signed so-and-so for the Board.”

Other
No update thus far on reg numbers.

Locker clean-up - really need Beth and/or Joel to be there, but haven’t been able to get a hold of them to see what dates work for them. Still pending - any weekend in September? Predominantly, we need to label stuff better, some reorganization.

Keith and friends - stealth microprogramming. Participatory game - Clue essentially played at con; hotel is spaceship that wants to launch at closing ceremonies; need to get launch code from someone’s head (not even the person who has the code knows that they have it). Something like 15 different personas; 30-40 “did you knows?”. You can ask “yes or no” questions to other people about “secret info”. There are 15 personas, but multiple copies, so lots of people can play - something like 100 copies?

In previous years, our penny hunt has been really popular; the “infection” game was really popular at CONvergence this year… doesn’t seem to be any reason not to do it. How would we get people into the game - could possibly have things at Reg, but they might be too busy; maybe Sales (t-shirts, etc.) - want people to go there anyway, might get more people to go there. Doesn’t really require anyone to run it - need something at closing ceremonies? maybe just announce the answer.

Might need to create check-off sheet - at least with list of all possible people on it, so people can mark it off. When people come in with guess, have to turn in card, ’cause they’re done playing; if they get it right, they get a “master detective” sticker (?), others get “bumbling assistant” sticker - but does this get the “right” answer out there - will people really not tell? Maybe first person to come in with correct answer gets something?

NOTE: this requires a LOT of signage; if we can’t get more leeway on signage, might be really hard to do. Or maybe put them in places - sign(s) in art show, science room, etc. - where we control the space.

Maybe unused art show panels? Too big for outside elevators, etc, but in open space outside ballroom, “garden court” would be reasonable spots.

Making Minicon more youth-friendly - general bulk discount idea has been tossed out; maybe, instead, extend specific invitations to groups instead. We need to make specific decisions about what this deal is. $35 or lower seems okay, but not as low as $30… sounds like $32/33 is a group concensus.

We have a fair number of ad swaps for program book.

Lisa is still in Japan - we have at least one real inquiry re: dealer’s.

Wayne has a novel coming out in October - God’s Demon; its cover art is our t-shirt.

Is our expense form on the web? (Matt doesn’t think so.)