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

[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).

[sfrose.livejournal.com]

Because N4 had been able to offered general wireless and wired access

Ironically, it was partly because of the needs of Reg for Internet Access (letting people register/pay at home) that the Internet was installed in the Hynes, but because of the configuration and usage elsewhere that by the end of the con, the access availability at Reg was practically non-existent.

Yet there were still complaints that what we did was not enough.

I was skeptical of the Internet Lounge at Interthingy at first. I thought that there would be long lines, or long waits for sign-up slots. But when I went over to try the first time, there was a short wait and the next time there was a PC immediately available! I thought that it was a good system given the restraints. I'm sorry that you got criticized.

[palatinate.livejournal.com]

I can't remember for sure how many stations we had - I think it may have been 8. Pre-con we would have liked to have gone to 10 or 12, but in practice 8 was pretty much enough. I walked past it quite a few times and there were lines, but never very long, and everyone seemed pretty happy with the service.

[querldox.livejournal.com]

Well, the general lack of lines would be because you signed up for a slot. If the slots for the next, say, hour were all filled, there was no point hanging around waiting since you knew both that it'd be an hour and that you would get that slot without having to be there until then.

8 stations as I recall, and InterThingy did do a good job with 'em.

[(Anonymous)]

There are two separate issues here. From a Worldcon point of view, the problem is convention centers. They've always screwed people wherever they can, and the only real surprise is that they've taken so long to wake up to the Internet opportunity. Because Worldcons need conventions centers, they will find it hard to provide Internet lounges in the convention centers from now on. (Wasn't ConJose's in the Fairmont?) The US and UK are equally affected by this.

The other issue is hotels. As has been pointed out, mid-range and cheap hotels in the US often have free wi-fi. If they don't it is very cheap (around $10/day). Many major US conventions take place in hotels that have free Internet access (Wiscon, to name but one). The top flight hotels that Worldcons use may not have free access, but there are often cheaper hotels nearby that do (there are in Anaheim). In contrast the daily rate for Internet access in UK hotels is very high, and cheaper hotels may not have access at all. (Some Quality Inns still plumb their phone lines into the wall instead of using jacks, which means you need a tool kit even to get dial-up. I've also stayed in UK hotels that deliberately block access to ISP phone numbers.)

So some of the flak we got was a result of historical accident, and some of it was justified. But as the guys in LA are finding out, much of the flak comes because, given the opportunity, some fans will complain about anything. See the title of Kevin's post.