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Indylander - part 5
Oct. 13th, 2008 07:55 amAfter the autograph session I made my way to the hotel lobby where they had a complimentary spread of fruit, cheese, crackers, etc. laid out for the hotel guests. I was suprised to see an armed policeman standing guard by the door. That was the first inkling that I had that the big football game scheduled for the weekend was much more than a simple game. The Circle City Classic was held very close to our hotel and brought around 150,000 fans to the area. For any area residents who might have wanted to come to our con, this had a huge impact. Streets were barricaded for a parade and for the crowds making it extremely difficult to get to the hotel and at night the streets were simply flooded with fans getting rowdier the drunker they got. Since I was already at the hotel, it didn't impact me that much except for two things. If the con had been ANY other weekend I'm sure Matt could have negotiated a much better deal on the hotel rooms. Also, the hallway outside my room was extremely noisy with inebriated fans in the hallway off and on all night.
The concert was very lovely and here are the highlights. Lizzie sang a wonderful torchy love song. David sang a beautiful prayer for Yom Kippur. Lisa read a poem she had written earlier in the day about Dr. Anne. Stan read his story from Evening at Joe's. Peter read a couple of poems by Murray Lachlan Young. (Note to Peter: please pick some new poems, we've heard the cocaine one too many times. Love the intensity that you give to these readings, but Young's got other stuff and we would like some variety.). Braun did some standup, mostly about Canada and Canadians. James sang - those two words just don't do him justice. Why this guy isn't getting roles in musicals I just don't know. And Marcus. Ahh, I am a huge fan of his music and this time he performed solo. Just him, his guitar and his lovely sonorous voice.
From here on they happy tone of my con report is taking a turn. Sunday was when it hit me just how loosely organized the whole thing was. When I went down to see about the PWFC table Matt approached me about possibly helping get the auction stuff ready to go. I hadn't intended to volunteer at this event, but I had some time to kill so I said, sure. It turns out that other than get the items to the event, very little had been done to actually organize the auction. Sharon Gobioff and I hurriedly devised a numbering system for the items so it would be clear just which item was being sold. She and I transported the goods to the ballroom and she worked as spotter and got the information on the winning bids and bidders while I kept a tally. She also had a good idea that once the items were sold to place them in a separate piles for each winner. Before things got started we tried to get some things signed, but once things got rolling, Carol Stodola took up that task. There was no con staff at all to do any of this and if the three of us hadn't volunteered, I have absolutely no idea how this would have worked. We did draw the line about taking payments for the winning items. No way did I want to get involved in handling money, since I had no official function or liability regarding Indylander.
There was supposed to be auction and then some panels later on. Good plan, in a way, since it gave guests who might have partied a bit the night before a chance to get a bit more rest. Turns out that all panels were canceled. We had auction from around 9:30-3:30 with only a bit of a lunch break in the middle. Seemed kind of a sad situation trying to bail Matt from personal ruin for this very expensive and poorly attended event. It's a good think he had some of the better items posted online and selling for the reserve bids since there were only 35 of us and there are limits to how much we had to spend.
For me there were three highlights of the auction. Before coming to Indianapolis Lisa had been to visit her family in Canada and her mother sent her off with a home-baked apple pie (actually an apple crumble we came to find ou). This dessert made it through customs and the flight and she offered to sit it up to the auction, she would share her pie with the winning bidder. Sharon and I combined funds and won. Lisa was an absolute delight. After the auction was over we met her in the lobby of her hotel and she served us pie and ice cream and we had a bit of girl talk and a wonderful time.
The second highlight also revolved around Lisa. The day before she had lamented that Dr. Anne never got to play with swords. As Stan was auctioning the Graham Ashe/Richie Ryan sword, she was displaying it to the crowd and suddenly bid on it. Needless to say, she won. Who would deny her the chance to get her own sword?
The third highlight was Stan's camera, which I was lucky enough to get. He had a couple of extra shots left and offered to get his picture taken with me. Peter took the camera from him, Stan put his arm around me and I was very happy. I was even happier when the pictures were developed, there behind me was David with a big grin. I had no idea he was back there.
And so ended the auction. Later in the evening a group of us had a nice dinner at a nearby local Japanese restaurant and I wish I had thought to bring my camera along since we really had a nice time.
So, my overall impression of the con was that the fans had a great time with unprecedented access to the guests and that Matthew was very, very lucky. With such poor organization it could all have blown up in his face. But this will be a good lesson in management for him, because when you're name is at the top, it is all ultimately up to you. Unforeseen things will always happen and you need to both be prepared to face them and be prepared to accept results. Delegation of tasks is all well and good, but it should never border on abdication of responsibility. To his credit, he did pull off a con, but only the scanty attendance and the con-savvy guests saved him from a fiasco. I was a bit disappointed when almost right away one of his friends (who didn't even bother to attend) posted an extremely hateful post placing the blame everywhere but where it belonged.
The concert was very lovely and here are the highlights. Lizzie sang a wonderful torchy love song. David sang a beautiful prayer for Yom Kippur. Lisa read a poem she had written earlier in the day about Dr. Anne. Stan read his story from Evening at Joe's. Peter read a couple of poems by Murray Lachlan Young. (Note to Peter: please pick some new poems, we've heard the cocaine one too many times. Love the intensity that you give to these readings, but Young's got other stuff and we would like some variety.). Braun did some standup, mostly about Canada and Canadians. James sang - those two words just don't do him justice. Why this guy isn't getting roles in musicals I just don't know. And Marcus. Ahh, I am a huge fan of his music and this time he performed solo. Just him, his guitar and his lovely sonorous voice.
From here on they happy tone of my con report is taking a turn. Sunday was when it hit me just how loosely organized the whole thing was. When I went down to see about the PWFC table Matt approached me about possibly helping get the auction stuff ready to go. I hadn't intended to volunteer at this event, but I had some time to kill so I said, sure. It turns out that other than get the items to the event, very little had been done to actually organize the auction. Sharon Gobioff and I hurriedly devised a numbering system for the items so it would be clear just which item was being sold. She and I transported the goods to the ballroom and she worked as spotter and got the information on the winning bids and bidders while I kept a tally. She also had a good idea that once the items were sold to place them in a separate piles for each winner. Before things got started we tried to get some things signed, but once things got rolling, Carol Stodola took up that task. There was no con staff at all to do any of this and if the three of us hadn't volunteered, I have absolutely no idea how this would have worked. We did draw the line about taking payments for the winning items. No way did I want to get involved in handling money, since I had no official function or liability regarding Indylander.
There was supposed to be auction and then some panels later on. Good plan, in a way, since it gave guests who might have partied a bit the night before a chance to get a bit more rest. Turns out that all panels were canceled. We had auction from around 9:30-3:30 with only a bit of a lunch break in the middle. Seemed kind of a sad situation trying to bail Matt from personal ruin for this very expensive and poorly attended event. It's a good think he had some of the better items posted online and selling for the reserve bids since there were only 35 of us and there are limits to how much we had to spend.
For me there were three highlights of the auction. Before coming to Indianapolis Lisa had been to visit her family in Canada and her mother sent her off with a home-baked apple pie (actually an apple crumble we came to find ou). This dessert made it through customs and the flight and she offered to sit it up to the auction, she would share her pie with the winning bidder. Sharon and I combined funds and won. Lisa was an absolute delight. After the auction was over we met her in the lobby of her hotel and she served us pie and ice cream and we had a bit of girl talk and a wonderful time.
The second highlight also revolved around Lisa. The day before she had lamented that Dr. Anne never got to play with swords. As Stan was auctioning the Graham Ashe/Richie Ryan sword, she was displaying it to the crowd and suddenly bid on it. Needless to say, she won. Who would deny her the chance to get her own sword?
The third highlight was Stan's camera, which I was lucky enough to get. He had a couple of extra shots left and offered to get his picture taken with me. Peter took the camera from him, Stan put his arm around me and I was very happy. I was even happier when the pictures were developed, there behind me was David with a big grin. I had no idea he was back there.
And so ended the auction. Later in the evening a group of us had a nice dinner at a nearby local Japanese restaurant and I wish I had thought to bring my camera along since we really had a nice time.
So, my overall impression of the con was that the fans had a great time with unprecedented access to the guests and that Matthew was very, very lucky. With such poor organization it could all have blown up in his face. But this will be a good lesson in management for him, because when you're name is at the top, it is all ultimately up to you. Unforeseen things will always happen and you need to both be prepared to face them and be prepared to accept results. Delegation of tasks is all well and good, but it should never border on abdication of responsibility. To his credit, he did pull off a con, but only the scanty attendance and the con-savvy guests saved him from a fiasco. I was a bit disappointed when almost right away one of his friends (who didn't even bother to attend) posted an extremely hateful post placing the blame everywhere but where it belonged.
