Worldcon Size Dilemma

[kevin_standlee]

There are ways to make Worldcons less expensive and to make them have more "buzz" in the sense of making them much more crowded. Because Worldcons jumped up a size quanta, we are now too small for the pieces of convention centers we're obliged to rent. Part of this is because we really don't want to have to turn people away from the most-popular events. We could get away from that. If we were willing to accept, for instance, that not every member who wants to attend the Hugo Awards or the Masquerade will be guaranteed a seat, and if we were willing to accept a much higher level of crowding than I think most members would enjoy, we could make Worldcons more affordable by shoehorning too-large events into too-small-but-cheaper space. That's the gist of what I said in my latest reply to this discussion, in reply to George R.R. Martin's contention that Worldcons could easily fit back into cheap hotel space.

Comments

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Over there you mentioned that you think that young people today are more reluctant to spend $160 for a membership, the cost inflated equivalent of the $75 that you paid at the door for your first Worldcon. I agree, but why did you go to your first Worldcon? How did you hear about it? What did you think would happen?

I know that I went to my first Worldcon because it was talked about in interesting terms by the local fans I hung out with. I spent the money (far too much, remember paying off credit card debt for a while) because one of them bought me the first installment of a membership for my birthday as a way to give me a kick in the pants to go. And it worked. I never went back because the job I had then would not let me go for that length of time and between that and the cost of jetting off to wherever it was (a huge factor for someone as poor as I am) it never became a priority.

For a time it seemed I might become more of a local fan. One who at least jetted off the Minicon every year, but that fell apart when I became unemployed in 2005. And I've become the sort of person who is less and less happy to travel at all. Plus very little money for the last three years. If a recession is when your neighbor is unemployed and you're worried I've bounced between recession and outright depression for the last three years. My own fault, but that's why I don't go. And probably never will given how expensive taking a week off work is, when I have work.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I agree, but why did you go to your first Worldcon? How did you hear about it? What did you think would happen?

That's an easy (and possibly unexpected answer): Elfquest The original Elfquest comic book series was coming to an end, and they were releasing the twentieth and last issue of the series at L.A.con II in Anaheim. They were also holding what they were calling an "End of the Quest" party. I had to go. I figured out that from my college savings, I could sort-of afford to buy a Greyhound bus ticket Marysville-Sacramento-Los Angeles-Anaheim, and pay for (as I recall) four hotel nights at the Anaheim Hilton at about $55/night (about $110/night in today's money, so you can see that hotel prices are increasing faster than inflation). I didn't know anyone, so I didn't know about sharing rooms, and I was a naive kid from rural Northern California who hadn't traveled a lot anyway, so I might have been a bit scared of the idea.

I had a ball. Besides all of the Elfquest stuff, which was a blast, I attended panels, explored the many exhibits, bought too much stuff in the Dealers' Room, enjoyed the art show, got to meet my idols, the Pinis (and got lots of books autographed -- I'll not forget how heavy my luggage was going back, and no wheeled luggage in those days, either). In fact, I sort of laid the groundwork for many of the things I would end up doing in fandom for the next twenty years. (I later ended up running the MythAdventures Fan Club (modeled after the Elfquest Fan Club, for instance.)

I even attended something called a "Business Meeting," where my sole contribution to the proceedings was to move the adjournment of the Preliminary Business Meeting. Ten years later, I chaired the meeting.

By the time I left Anaheim, I had my memberships to the next two Worldcons (although I ended up not being able to attend), and my life would never be the same.

I put L.A.con II at the very head of my Worldcon experiences, out-classing everything else including co-Chairing ConJose and being deputy Chair of ConAdian. I've spent the rest of my life trying to pay forward the favor that fandom did for me on Labor Day Weekend 1984. I want to find ways for more people to catch that sensawunda that I had.

$75? That weekend was worth five times that much in retrospect, even though it obliged me to ride a long-distance bus overnight, and even though I had to go to my first day of college straight from the bus station, still wearing my convention badge on my vest and looking pretty dorky, I expect. I might well have been put off if the membership cost had been $225, but $75 didn't seem insurmountable to me, even working at a minimum-wage job (which was around $3/hour then as I recall).

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I think if you talk to all fans about their first con/Worldcon it will be something like that. Something you were (or are) so in love with or star struck by that you'll part with your hard earned cash to do it. Patrick Stewart and Star Trek: TNG was my reason for my first convention. And then I learned all my high school friends were doing it. And after high school I was still into roleplaying games and went to conventions like that until I discovered literary fandom.

I don't know that I would have gotten into fandom if I had learned about in high school. Because looking at the list of GOHs they had at MileHiCon when I was a teen and they're not authors that would have wowed me back then. Looking at the long list I find that of the author GOHs in 1991-1994 only one would have impressed me as a teen, Anne McCaffery at ConAdian. And I did not hear about Worldcon for the first time until 1999 at the earliest. Probably 2000.

[howeird]

shoehorning too-large events into too-large-but-cheaper space
Do you mean too-small-but-cheaper space?

Let me propose a compromise, one which has probably been done before. Rent space where the main event hall is too small, and pipe the proceedings into overflow rooms. The technology was there at Denvention. Also, arrange to broadcast the main events on one of the channels at each hotel. Not as easy, but it can be done. Finally, webcast.

[galtine1.livejournal.com]

"Let me propose a compromise, one which has probably been done before. Rent space where the main event hall is too small, and pipe the proceedings into overflow rooms."

OUCH! The budget for that could (and can) exceed the budget for the Big Event Space. Expecially when dealing with venues that aren't attached. Depending on the location: you are talking possibly Union Labor on the camera(s), a T-3 connection to get the bandwidth out wihtout losing quality of image, a dedicated channel at each hotel (more than likely 3 hotels in most cities)...and not every hotel is set up to recieve internet feed or sat-feed for their private channel. Tape delay is not acceptable to Fans. And if the space you rented doesn't have the equipment to handle the outbound feed, you need that equipment. That also doesn't come cheap. If it's still in a CC or Hotel for the space, you are talking dealing with their prefered A/V company for most of the rentals (and the added service charge of 18-22%, using San Diego's standards--and then tax on top of that depending on tax codes/status of organization running event).

What we need to do is "right size" again -- and as a community, market ourselves to draw in more people to get us there. Just like the little conventions that can't find a hotel with enough function space to sleeping room ratio, we need to find better cities with venues that have better function space layouts to use, and not all of them need to be CCs. (For what it's worth, San Diego's proposed sites for 2015 are not CCs.)

[howeird]

My suggestion was for a right-sized con. I was envisioning overflow rooms in the same building, probably the same floor, as the main event. Union labor? That's easily avoided by choosing the venue. Every con I've been to has had equipment like this in several of the larger halls, again it's something to be negotiated in the contract.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure you can "right-size" if "right-size" means "significantly reduce cost and nobody is ever denied seating at major events." The costs offset each other.

Here's something that may not be obvious: Some of the stuff that is done at, say, BayCon, doesn't scale proportionately. There are certain sizes of SF conventions that just don't work well. 2,000 is okay. 10,000 can work. 4,000 is very troublesome.

This is a generalization, of course. Sometimes you can find a relatively inexpensive facility. Winnipeg, for instance, was just about ideal for the size Worldcon that was held there. In retrospect, the convention membership could probably have been $30 cheaper. (But we didn't know it during the run-up, resulting in a post-con surplus that ConAdian only finished discharging this past year.) But I'm not convinced that there's a lot of price sensitivity between $200 and $170. Even though $160 is the inflation-adjusted equivalent of what I paid in 1984, I still think the price point is somewhere around $100. And to make that kind of change requires some really significant differences.

I'm not saying it can't be done. I'm saying it would be very difficult. And if a Worldcon made those changes without having told people while they were bidding what they planned to do, they'd take a large goodwill hit. But any bid that admitted to planning such changes would be vulnerable to competition that said, "We'll stick to a traditional Worldcon." The people who vote on where Worldcons are held are the people who are least sensitive to changes in its price. The conclusion should be obvious.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Do you mean too-small-but-cheaper space?

Yes; fixed.

Let me propose a compromise, one which has probably been done before. Rent space where the main event hall is too small, and pipe the proceedings into overflow rooms. The technology was there at Denvention. Also, arrange to broadcast the main events on one of the channels at each hotel. Not as easy, but it can be done. Finally, webcast.

What galtine1 said. The point of going into smaller space is supposed to be to reduce the cost of putting on the event. I'm not convinced that any of the things you propose would do so. You're only trading space rental for tech equipment costs, and moreover the people points to run said equipment.

What we found with ConJose was that space didn't come in smooth quantities, which led to tradeoff that produced the pea-in-a-barrel effect. We didn't have to use the Civic Auditorium across the street from the Convention Center for our major events; however, the marginal cost of doing so was less than it would have been to rearrange the Convention Center to accommodate those major events. People would have probably grumbled more about a 2500-flat-seat ballroom (really poor views from the back) setup than they did about having to climb stairs at the Civic Auditorium.

Another ConJose story: We had Art Show/Exhibits/Dealers in the three exhibit halls, separated by the air walls. Based on our actual space usage, we probably could have put all three of them into two halls. This would have increased density and thus made more "buzz." But this might have actually cost more than what we did do, because we then would have had to use a bunch of running pipe and drape to separate the sections, and we would have had to hire a bunch more paid security people to protect the Artists and Dealers whose areas were no longer separated by hard walls. And on top of that, we would have lost the smaller function rooms at the west end of the convention center, because they threw those in for free with the rental of the hall.

So we could have made people think the event was bigger (by making it more dense) but it wouldn't have reduced the cost.

[redneckotaku.livejournal.com]

Galtine1 has a good point. I am starting to think that we need to spend a few years in some hotels to grow to 7,000-8,000 to become a convention center con. Convention centers are very expensive places. It costs Otakon several hundred thousands of dollars to rent and decorate the BCC. They have to be in a convention center. Worldcon can take 20% of the cost by being in a hotel.

[bosswriter.livejournal.com]

I agree with the hotel with convention center idea, the problem is how do you guarantee that for the bid process? In some cities, there are probably not hotel/convention centers big enough for even a 3-4000 attendance. What do you do if that city wins the bid?

I think the real issue is not the price of admission, it is the price of everything else: hotel, travel expenses, meals.

Denvention was a perfect example - all the convention hotels downtown were way more than the last few years. Some folks were smart enough to find alternatives. We stayed at the Days Inn less than 10 minutes away for less than half what the big hotels near the CCC cost. And we didnlt have to pay a $25 a day parking fee at the hotel. We ran into others who stayed there as well but the website doesn't offer those low cost alternatives. I understand that they need to fill rooms to get free or reduced space but if they don't sell the rooms anyway what have they gained?

I think future con committees may be better served looking at how to help attendees minimize the total cost of attending a Worldcon and also selling that to the potential ballot casters.

I'm thinking of KC vs Montreal and I would venture to say that the cost to attend in KC would have been at least a third and as much as half what it will cost in Montreal, unless the Anticipation folks pull rabbit out of the hat.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Don't expect Montreal to be inexpensive. After all, it's a top-tier city, and the savings that Americans have previously come to expect when visiting Canada -- effectively a 20% discount -- have vanished with the fall of the American dollar. OTOH, your hotel tax is effectively zero, because you can get it refunded (in USD, drawn on a US bank; no tricks, and I've done it myself before, so I know it works).

The key issue is that the people deciding where to hold Worldcons are the people who are least sensitive to price. People who are sensitive to price are unlikely to vote in a contested election because they perceive that they are potentially "throwing their money away" if the bid they prefer doesn't win. People like me, who vote every year, never make that sort of calculation.

[bosswriter.livejournal.com]

I would agree about the people voting on the Worldcon, but that tells me that the attendees may not understand completely that no matter which site wins, voting gives you a supporting membership and if your site wins you pay the same to upgrade anyway (unless you pre-supported which if you bother to do that you are probably a regular attender).

Maybe a campaign to explain that better at the convention would help. Also has there been any thought to eliminating the fee to vote and allow all paid members to vote? I know that limits the upfront cash for the winning site but possibly there are other ways to make that up.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

...the attendees may not understand completely that no matter which site wins, voting gives you a supporting membership....

I think they mostly know. I also think that they don't care. They don't perceive any value in buying a membership of any sort to a convention they couldn't conceive of ever attending. Voting rights and publications have zero value to them; they would never vote in the Hugo Awards, anyway. So they won't pay.

has there been any thought to eliminating the fee to vote and allow all paid members to vote? I know that limits the upfront cash for the winning site but possibly there are other ways to make that up.

You sometimes hear this, but there's a sound constitutional reason for it. Remember that it isn't really a voting fee. It's an "Advance Supporting Membership." You're buying a supporting membership in the Now+2 Worldcon, and in consideration of that purchase, you get the right to participate in the process of choosing where to hold that Worldcon. From a constitutional point of view, we don't want people voting who aren't willing to consider WSFS as a whole when they make their decision. That's why we also put an 800 km/500 mi exclusion zone around the current Worldcon -- this reduces the effect of "I'll vote for it because it's close, not because it's any good."

And as far as eliminating a Worldcon's initial cash -- well, I suppose they could immediately start charging even more money for memberships, but that just exacerbates the problem of driving people away due to cost, I think.