Worldcons & Entitlement Culture

[kevin_standlee]

As I expected, L.A.con IV will not have convention-provided internet service because the amounts the hotels and convention center want to charge for it are absurdly expensive. I should be, but am not, astonished at the people who have complained that the convention should do it anyway, who have said, "But [fill in local convention name here] held somewhere else has free access; that means you should, to," or assume that the L.A.con IV committee only just now noticed the situation.

Internet access has been one of many, many things the committee has been chasing down. Despite what some people may think, I expect it was not the most important thing. In fact, there were a lot of more important things. I know from my own experience that one of the hard parts about chairing is having to pick between multiple things when you'd like to have them all. You can't always get everything you want. Deal with it, folks! If you need internet access that badly, you can buy it yourself from the hotel or convention center. Would you really be happy to see your membership go up by enough to cover the cost of "free" internet service?

Some things are more important at a Worldcon than free internet service. Holding the Hugo Awards or the Masquerade, for instance.

Comments

[lunarvixen.livejournal.com]

I've seen that hotels have been offereind complimentary highspeed with their rooms.. ever at the Best Western where we are holding CV this year.. and for crying out loud.. if a guest can get free internet with their room.. Why not grant access to an Event being hosted there?? I don't get it...

Other Internet Access

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

In response to the deleted post: If you don't mind walking around the corner to Harbor & Katella, there are several shops, one of which (I don't remember if it's coffee or a smoothie place) claims to offer free wi-fi.)

It's perfectly okay to express disappointment. What I don't think is okay is treating internet access as a guaranteed entitlement that the convention should beggar itself and cancel other major functions to provide to its members. I doubt you said that. There are other people (see kremmen) who would prioritize free wi-fi and computer services over something as important as the Hugo Awards Ceremony.

There are degrees here. Some people have said, effectively, "That sucks, but of course you can't afford to pay that much." That's reasonable. Claiming that the committee is incompetent because they "only now noticed" this issue is unreasaonble. See the difference?

[palatinate.livejournal.com]

I find this turn of events very ironic in terms of what happened last year at Interaction.

Because N4 had been able to offered general wireless and wired access, we had a number of complaints (mainly pre-con) about the fact that we weren't doing the same - primarily from USians. Many of these focussed on the "general availability of cheap access in the US" and the backwards nature of facilities in the UK.

I think wired lines into the convention centre cost us around £80 each for the week including setup (bear in mind this was an exhibition hall so the lines had to be installed). The Internet lounge area, including hire of the PCs, power, cabling etc, probably came to less than £2000. General Wifi would have been at least 10 times that, if not more - way above our budget.

Given some USians criticism of our approach, it does therefore seem ironic that a major Worldcon the middle of California is suffering exactly the same problem. And it does confirm my suspicion of last year that those people who did complain were not necessarily well informed, but were perhaps extrapolating from a narrower experience at another con (maybe a much smaller one).

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I've always thought internet lounges at cons were a little strange. After all, isn't the point of being at the con (whether Worldcon or PoDunKon, to, you know, attend the convention and perhaps talk to other fans? Kind of feel the same way about computer gaming.

[sfrose.livejournal.com]

Would you really be happy to see your membership go up by enough to cover the cost of "free" internet service?

Well, $31,000 for WiFi access (plus a bit more to rent a few PCs for those who are laptopless) would only come to about $6 per member for a 5000 person con. Put in those terms I wouldn't mind paying another $6 for the access (that's less than a day at either hotel), but that way does lie madness.

Not using your extreme points of Hugos or Masquerade, but I also feel that it is important to subsidize childcare or have a staff/gopher lounge to feed volunteers (other areas that not every convention member may be using.) But those are already in the budget and we are not allocating each members membership money for each additional "add-on."