On Convention Events and Running on Time

In a venue that I cannot name or quote, I saw a sarcastic retort from someone working in a technical position on a certain convention's events that I interpreted as, "But of course big events will always run late, by their nature, and we techies will be held responsible for it, so we simply have to work until we drop dead." I started to reply, but thought better of it. However, I'm going to get it out of my system here.

( It is in fact possible to make events run on time. That doesn't mean that it's easy )

Events is not my responsibility at this Worldcon. I'm merely a staff member over in the Business Meeting. But I'm saying here that it is possible to make things run to time, as long as everyone involved, including the event participants, commit to doing so. If you assume that things are going to run overtime, they will run overtime.