WESTERCON 58!

Most people know what I feel about attending this event, so I'm not going to go into that.

HOWEVER - but it seems to me the promotions is going much the same way as last year's event. (IE: minimal). For years, on a consistent basis, I've been able to ask friends and co-workers who are scifi/fantasy fans if they've ever heard of this event, and almost consistently, they've said no every time.

I was also in horror when I talked to you (Gerald) last year about ComiKazi going (one to two weeks before con), and you mentioned you'd not recieved any info from them. Also asking a few of the vendors who did actually make it to the dealer room, I got the same impression (that contact times were awfully tight).

For that matter, due to issues related to health and just poor planning in general, the con would have never actually had an art show if they'd not been pushed. Me getting put on the job 2 weeks before it actually happened was stressful, to say the least.

This is not to say that Westercon WILL be like that, given that it's a slightly different group that's running it and it's supposed to be 'different', but things certainly do seem like they'll be heading that way.

I've also noticed the same thing Andrew seems to have noticed, re: programming.... yep, WC does have 8 streams of programming, and they have everything blocked out, but I find it very hard to believe that people will be willing to actually spend the membership fee in order to provide programming/discussion to fill those programming slots. For that matter, ConVersion always had trouble filling those spots, and even then they let people in free for those particular talks. This is another thing that's been argued over and over again, but WC people have never seemed to move on.

I think it's a great thing that some people DO want to spend that amount of money to speak to a relatively small amount of people... but I can also understand that most other people simply can't afford it (or aren't really able to make use of the full cost of the membership).

Incidentally, they ripped the code of the front end of things from my sample site... so things look... odd. (To me at least)

Gerald--

Took your concern to my only real contact on the WC committee, Randy McCharles (he spearheaded the movement to get WC in Calgary, though he's not the official guy in charge at this point), and got this back:

<Hi Andrew.
Actually WC has done 10 times more local marketing than CV, only we have no
one who frequents comics stores putting out flyers.
I'd do this myself but I've been stuck doing 10 other jobs as well and
haven't had any time to help with local marketing. I still haven't event
contacted many regular participants. Trying to catch up...

Randy>

I realize this doesn't exactly square with your experience, but there it is. Hopefully the note will rectify things, somewhat.

Personally, I suspect WC is relying on a lot of people to show up from out of town without needing to be nudged/reminded--WC is a fairly major convention, and I gather there are a couple hundred "regulars" who will attend regardless of where it's being held.

As a convention, Con-Version has been on the ropes for years--a lack of new blood, either from lack of interest or isolationist/elitist practices from people in charge of the con, is the critical problem, and the absence of promotions now looks to me like another symptom of the greater disease.

Fewer volunteers have led to stalwarts like Randy struggling to get everything that needs to get done done, often at the last minute (one year...maybe even last year, my memory's shot, I ended up contacting, or trying to contact, everyone who might be interested in taking part in comic programming the week before the con, simply because, to the best of my knowledge, NO ONE ELSE HAD DONE IT YET and I didn't want to end up alone on seven panels {I've got a soft spot for comic programming at the con, having been drafted to run it for a couple years}.)

If things continue going the way they have been, I seriously doubt there'll be a Con-Version a couple years down the line. Actually, I'm kind of surprised they've pulled it out of the fire the last couple of years.

That said, if someone with a forward-thinking agenda and a few good people can see the use of a three-day convention (non-profit, which has turned some people off coming in and helping out) focused on sci-fi, fantasy, anime, costuming, roleplaying and, yes, comics (though never to the degree I was personally satisfied with), there is something in the way of a structure and a legacy pretty much up for grabs, as far as I can tell.

A