I've been on programming operations enough to know that programming not only can, but pretty much has to, run on time. (The fact that a major use of prog-ops staff is to run the "5 minuets remaining" and "times up" sings, at many cons is strong evidence of this).
But, events does seem to at least function differently. As you showed in 2005, if the expectations are there, it doesn't have to - or at least start times should be met. I can see a situation where masquerade could end up runny longer than planned - if it got significantly more enteries than expected.
On the other hand, tech can be an area where there is a smaller pool of volunteers capable of doing skilled work, which can lead to delays. For example, I know that last year we risked delays with the concert at Westercon (since it was on Friday) given that was a smallish pool of capable people who were able to work on getting the lights set up - and they were the chair, treasurer (who was functioning as more of a vice chair than the vice chair at that point), a very skilled volunteer (a lighting pro from local public TV, IIRC) and Rick, who was there to discuss Worldcon issues while we were trying to get this done and ended up helping a bit. We also had a similar issue with the masquerade since the sound tech was doing double duty and was covering concert sound during rehearsal and nobody was there to sort out the sound cues correctly.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2016-07-16 06:07 pm (UTC)But, events does seem to at least function differently. As you showed in 2005, if the expectations are there, it doesn't have to - or at least start times should be met. I can see a situation where masquerade could end up runny longer than planned - if it got significantly more enteries than expected.
On the other hand, tech can be an area where there is a smaller pool of volunteers capable of doing skilled work, which can lead to delays. For example, I know that last year we risked delays with the concert at Westercon (since it was on Friday) given that was a smallish pool of capable people who were able to work on getting the lights set up - and they were the chair, treasurer (who was functioning as more of a vice chair than the vice chair at that point), a very skilled volunteer (a lighting pro from local public TV, IIRC) and Rick, who was there to discuss Worldcon issues while we were trying to get this done and ended up helping a bit. We also had a similar issue with the masquerade since the sound tech was doing double duty and was covering concert sound during rehearsal and nobody was there to sort out the sound cues correctly.