Random Arisian Impressions

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was Really Good Programming. I was struck by how many different things I wanted to see this time, causing almost Worldcon levels of indecision. :)

Also I have to give props to the program people for finding me excellent panels to be on with little time to spare after my questionaire went walkabout.

The Dresden Dolls concert was amazing.

Mechanical thingies in the art show were Way Cool.

Two minor critiques:

Scheduling the Tom Smith concert against Tim Powers' GoH speech was unfortunate. Indecision is one thing, but I almost sprained something. :)

Masquerade broadcast to rooms ended up missing a lot of stuff.

And a suggestion for next year: add a smoking con suite, like they do at Darkover, or at least a smoking lounge? Newly strict Boston law (no smoking in bar/lobby as in the past) and exceptionally cold Boston weather combine badly, and even the heat lamps only do so much. It would be a Great Good Thing to be able to pop in someplace for a cigarette without having to schlep a parka around or risk pneumonia. I would volunteer to work this, but business trip conflicts make me miss Arisia sometimes.

Thanks to everyone who worked on it, you guys give great con.

Mer

Comments

Masq Problems

[fireheart.livejournal.com]

From what I hear, the video board was wired backwards. What went out over the air was supposed to be on the preview screen, not what was supposed to go out.

Re: Masq Problems

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Yikes! Well that would certainly account for it. I know how hard it is for technofandom to pull everything that goes into a masquerade together in such a small amount of time. If that's the worst that happened, I'd say it went great. :)

Mer

Re: Masq Problems

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Actually - what happened was that whoever was the cameraperson disappeared during halftime, leaving the camera focused on Bob Greenburger. They only found this out when Michael Burstein called Bob on his cellphone five previews in.

At least, that's what happened during halftime.

What happened for the rest of the broadcast - that makes perfect sense.

Re: Masq Problems

[bridgetminerva.livejournal.com]

Actually many people called. Alex call the Sound guy directly.

[flyingwolf.livejournal.com]

add a smoking con suite, like they do at Darkover,

oh lord! PLEASE DON'T. I was so glad that the lobby was non-smoking this year. Actually did a happy dance when I arrived. It meant that I could actually be in the mezzinene and ballrooms this year! And didn't get a migraine just from walking out of the hotel to get food.
I go to Darkover, but have not been able to go to the con suite at it for years (and I used to run the damn thing) because of the smoke. And I've talked to a lot of other Darkover attendees that have the same problem with the con suite being on a smoking floor.

Re:

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

Sorry, my misleading phrasing. I didn't mean "put the whole con suite on a smoking floor, so they can be next to each other as they are at Darkover" I just meant "have a smoking con suite on a smoking floor, in addition to the usual nonsmoking con suite on a nonsmoking floor." I would think having a place for the smokers to go, away from the nonsmokers, would make both groups happier.

Re:

[flyingwolf.livejournal.com]

Maybe Arisia has enough volunteers and is large enough to pull something like this off. Darkover sure isn't. I don't know what the final numbers where, but when I last had looked at the hotel bookings very few people were requesting smoking rooms. And those are now all on quiet, non-party floors. (a trend I'm personally very pleased with) For somthing like what you're proposing to happen smokers would need to volunteer to staff the room and provide a buffer around it.

Re:

[stakebait.livejournal.com]

*nods* Arisia's quite a bit bigger than Darkover, and not, that I know of, short of volunteers. How many of them are smokers is a different question and one I'm not in a position to answer. Reaching the smokers who don't usually volunteer would be a problem the first year, since there's not a smoker's mailing list to post to or anything.

But I think a smoking lounge without food would be trivial to run, and I'm pretty sure we could find enough people to empty the ashtrays periodically.

I'm not sure how good an indicator of number of smokers at the con number of smoking reservations is. Personally, I don't get a smoking room, because I have to have roommates to make the con affordable and I don't have 3-5 smoking friends who go to Arisia and want to share. Even one non-smoker in the room makes the room nonsmoking. If I *had* a smoking room, I could just go there and smoke and wouldn't need a smoking lounge. It's the fact that there's no indoor public space for smoking that makes this an issue -- which means it mostly hits daytripping and other broke folks with roomies, as well-off smokers can simply get their own rooms.

There's also the issue of, are smoking reservations dropping off because people are quitting, or because former Arisia attendees are choosing not to come to a con where they have to go outside in January to smoke. In which case, something like this might get them back, or at least stop the loss.

I strongly suspect smokers would volunteer if they knew it was an option. Most of the smokers I talked to when we were shivering together outside the hotel had not been to enough cons outside the Northeast to realize this could be done.

Mer