A Blast from the Past

[kevin_standlee]

While searching for something else, I stumbled across this Interaction review that I don't recall seeing the first time around. I added some of my own comments to it, particularly the sections that personally mentioned me or over which I had some management control. I don't mind people saying that I talked too much -- I usually do. However, in the case cited, if it hadn't been me making the announcements, then someone else would have needed to do so.

The posting and the discussion of it, however, reinforces what should be obvious that it is utterly impossible to satisfy everyone with a Worldcon. Interaction was, in my opinion, one of the best-planned, best-organized Worldcons I've ever attended, and I'm not just saying that because I was a division manager. Actually, being a DM means that I could see how well organized it was from the inside. Yet we still have people saying how badly organized it was for this reason or that. And I'm convinced that if we'd made the areas about which there were complaints better, it would have caused something else to fail.

The specific example over which I had some control was the "care and feeding of your Hugo Award trophy" speech that is a fairly common part of the pre-Hugo Award reception. The complaint was that "only about fourteen people in the room need to know this anyway" and "just give us a handout after the ceremony if we win and we can read about it." My response was, "People don't read handouts, and much of this was stuff you needed to know before you held the trophy." Hugo trophies are heavier than they look. The rockets are not, as some people think, hollow, but are solid zinc castings with a chrome plating. Zinc is heavy. We don't want a winner to drop the trophy or do anything foolish that could possibly break it. Most of the trophies are not that fragile (some have been), but grabbing it by the rocket and swinging it around over your head, for example, is probably not a good idea -- there's too much lever action going on between the trophy and its base. And this is about the only time we'll get to talk to the Hugo Award winners as a group, and while, yes, they're mixed in with a larger crowd of people who will never hold one, we need to take this opportunity to tell them because otherwise we're not doing our jobs as planners.

And if we repeated a few of the messages multiple times, that's because the messages were sufficiently important that we couldn't afford not to saturate people with them. In particular, I was worried that we'd get at least one Hugo winner who would wander off after the ceremony instead of coming to the Forth Room for the photo session. Therefore, we needed to be absolutely certain that not only did the potential winners know what was happening, but also everyone else around them, so that none of them would allow the dazed winner to wander away.

Unfortunately, some of this knowledge has been gained over time and painful experience. If you've never been involved in a Hugo Awards ceremony or the pre-ceremony reception, you're unlikely to know any of this. But if we did not take these precautions and someone broke their trophy (or their toes), then we the organizers would be chastised for not taking proper precautions. Once again, you can't win. You can only do the best you know how, and hope that nothing goes wrong.

Comments

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Zinc is heavy.

No kidding. Having had to haul around a box with twenty of those rockets in it, I can testify to that.

and while, yes, they're mixed in with a larger crowd of people who will never hold one

In theory, of course, nobody knows which of them is in which group.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Exactly! I've only known who the winners were during the reception once, and that was in 1994 when you and Seth had to tell me on account of neither of you going to the convention. I hated it! I had people who I knew were winners talking to me trying to worm things out of me, and I had to act impassive. What I don't know, I can't be compelled (or tricked) into revealing.

Hm, now that I think about it, I might have known at ConJose, for a brief time while dealing with trophies just before the ceremony, too, but that was different; moreover, even if I'd seen the winner list, I didn't remember it during the reception, and that's the important thing.

[yourbob.livejournal.com]

Some people will not be happy. Some of those of us who enjoyed the hell out of it did so for many of the same reasons sited as "bad".

[bigblued.livejournal.com]

So, someone who was not actually a nominee is complaining about an official gethering that they didn't really need to be at. They complain that they only got one glass of free wine and had to listen to stuff that didn't relate to them.

I was there. Threre was a large crowd of potential winners who were clearly interested in what you were saying. True, they may not get a Hugo, but then, they might. And I assume they all hoped that they would be the one who would need to know this stuff.

As I have said elsewhere, Interaction was probably one of the best run cons I'd been to, Worldcon or otherwise. From the overall tone of the report, it sounds like this person just wanted to complain about stuff.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

The Interaction trophy seemed to me to fall into the "some have been" category. bohemiancoast let me pick up her's, and if you held it by the rocket, the struts attaching the base tried to rack a bit. When I saw that happening, I set it down quickly but gently. None of the six Hugo trophies nwl and I have are fragile, and three of them even survived a fire!

[edgreen86.livejournal.com]

At the LASFS clubhouse, we have (on display of course) Rotsler's Hugos. One of which was also involved in a fire. Although the rocket was burnt (the chrome (?) coating is gone and the zinc is pitted, the whole award seems to have survived mostly intact.

Every now and then I think about suggesting we pay to have the damn thing recoated, but I'm not sure its the right thing to do.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Hm, if it was one awarded after 1984 when Peter Weston started making them for Worldcons, you could just order an extra one the next time he does a batch of them and replace the rocket completely. But as it's probably from before then, trying to get the existing rocket rechromed is probably all you can do. I'd say it would be the right thing to do, assuming you could find a place willing to do the work.

[rwl.livejournal.com]

You shouldn't get it cleaned. Here's what Bill wrote us (in Mimosa 18) in response to our M17 opening comments about our fire:

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[cherylmorgan.livejournal.com]

Having had to follow Interaction online rather than be there, I decided very quickly that I should discount much of what was said by UK fans about the convention. There are a number of good reasons for this:

1. Much of UK fandom, especially the older segment, was dead set against having a Worldcon at all. These people will have gone to Glasgow expecting to hate every minute of the con. I'm not surprised that some of them did.

2. It was very clear that some of the commentary was being made by people who had either not been to a Worldcon at all or, if they had, did not have any practical experience of running one. One of the classic comments I saw was about how the program at Interaction was so much better than the Worldcon norm because it involved serious discussion of real issues, whereas at American conventions all that ever happens on panels is that a bunch of authors pimp their novels.

3. There are some cultural issues involved. Again a classic post was the guy who dismissed the entire Events concept, apparently on the grounds that it was morally wrong that some people should be up on a stage while the rest of the membership was relegated to being a mere audience. That's an extreme example, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear some British fans saying that award nominees should count themselves lucky to be there and not expect anything in the way of special treatment.

I suspect that criticism of this type is inevitable as long as Worldcon continues to hold to its laudable policy of going to the people rather than expecting them to come to it. I'm expecting a lot of complaints from American fans about Yokohama because it isn't what they are used to, and if I could read Japanese I'd expect to see a bunch of complaints from them about those weird Americans who do things so differently.

But the real issue from a conrunning perspective is the congnitive disconnect. By all accounts Events at Interaction were very successful. We know that was because of the hard work and attention to detail put in by the staff. When fans see that work being done they tend to dismiss it as stupid and unnecessary (as per the reaction to Kevin's "care and feeding of your Hugo" speech). They don't connect that hard work with the end result. Short of giving them actual practical experience, I'm not sure how to make them do so.

[avt-tor.livejournal.com]

There is the slight issue that some of the people who do need to know what to do with a Hugo will not at the time have a convenient pocket to put a handout into. Some people get dressed up.

I think that sometimes we don't take feedback well. A defensive response is not helpful. Explaining sometimes comes across as lecturing. Instead of presenting a decision as the only possible outcome, one can either present alternate scenarios or examples (e.g. "one time, the Hugo ended up in...") or ask a series of questions ("what should we have done differently? how much do you think we should have spent per person? what areas of the convention should we have cut back in order to pay the extra cost?") Guiding people to the same conclusion is not the same as telling them what they already know you've decided. And you can always learn something; too many fans start an argument from the position that they are right and the other side is wrong, and that results in a lack of communication and, ultimately, a lack of participation from the side whose opinions dismissed by those in positions of authority.

By the same token, many complaints are ill-founded. I don't complain about things unless I'm willing to help fix them, and I interpret complaints as offers of help. That works really well on the egalitarians who think that nobody should be above anybody else.