On Holding One's Tongue

[kevin_standlee]

As I unofficially announced earlier today on laconiv, L.A.con IV will have an internet lounge after all. It will be small -- eight PCs and two notebook connections -- and it won't include wi-fi, thanks to the convention center's contractual monopoly on such service. I also know that the cost to provide it is substantially more than what it cost us at ConJose four years ago, where we had a whole room full of computers and a limited wi-fi capability. (Wi-fi networking wasn't nearly so important in 2002 as it is now; things have changed rapidly.) This is how monopolies work.

The frustrating thing to me has been not being able to say anything about this for some days now. I'm an SFSFC director, as you know, and have known that SFSFC offered $1000 to L.A.con IV to help pay some of the cost. I did not know until later that MCFI (Noreascon 4) put up $2000 as well, and together, our grants were enough to make it happen. I've wanted to sing out about this for days now, but have had to hold off until I saw something that was at least semi-public. As it is, I ended up leaking it from the convention's staff e-mail list; however, I hope this doesn't get me yelled at by the management.

As a minor aside, note that SFSFC is taking credit for the grant only in the name of the corporation, not as part of ConJose directly. The money in question did not come from the ConJose surplus, that having all been spent. If you had to trace the source of the funding, it probably comes from the surplus of the 1998 World Fantasy Convention held under our corporate umbrella. SFSFC has money -- not a huge amount of it -- that was not part of a Worldcon, and has always been held separately from the individual convention accounts. During ConJose, this was considered "last resort" funds, to be used if we'd run completely off the runway; however, it would have taken a considerable disaster for that to happen. On the other hand, it was reassuring to know it was there, just in case.

Edit, 20:30: Corrected year of the WFC that SFSFC ran.

Edit, 8/12 7:30: Corrected grant amounts.

Edit, 8/13 16:45: Corrected mistake noted in contents.

Comments

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

I'm glad that I suggested internet access for all, rather than coffee for the business meeting, to MCFI. Especially when we learned that SFSFC would put forward some funds for machines. But didn't MCFI run the '99 WFC?

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Rats, I typoed the year. It was 1998 (Monterey) that SFSFC ran. I've fixed it.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Checking your other post I see that the really prohibitive rip-off charge was for wifi, which LAcon didn't get. I hope the fixed stations and ports weren't too expensive: it's very kind of the other organizations to donate this money, but I'd rather do without the Internet lounge than see fandom succumb to extortion.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

The ten ports cost about $2,800. In 2002, the Fairmont charged $1,500 for a T1 line drop, to which we were allowed to attach as many machines as we liked. Here, the ACC charged $1,195 for the first IP address and $150 per each additional line, plus taxes and service charges.

Unfortunately, when dealing with convention centers, we often have to give in to the extortion. The coffee for the Business Meeting, for instance, will cost $1,100 for two days' service.

[elaine-brennan.livejournal.com]

one more nit -- first paragraph, you've got "convention's contractual" where I think you mean "convention center's contractual".

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Fixed. Thanks.