LJ event at Arisia 2006?

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Everyone seems to agree that there should be some sort of LJ event at Arisia next year. "Mixer" and "social" are the words I've heard most often. But what form should the event take?

I guess part of the answer depends on what people here would like to achieve. To meet LJ friends face-to-face? Increase their friend lists? What else?

Please share your ideas.

Comments

[darxus.livejournal.com]

Were you at the LJ panel on sunday ?

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

I guess part of the answer depends on what people here would like to achieve.

"Feed my ravenous ego, and meet hot bi chixxors." Obviously.

[cheshyre]

Something like the old @ parties at SF cons. Social space to meet other LJ users face-to-face. At Worldcon, somebody made stickers people could put on their con badges that showed their LJ names, so folks could identify one another in the halls more easily.

thoughts from previous events

[erik-j-meyer.livejournal.com]

there was a Sunday afternoon panel at arisia
there was a Friday night party at noreascon4
there was a daytime social gather at pennsic_war

all three are viable items that could be requested (panel) or planned (party) for the next con.

Re: thoughts from previous events

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

Panels tend to be pretty formal and space-limited though. I'd like to see panel+social thing, for more structured discussion vs. actually meeting people.

Re: thoughts from previous events

[erik-j-meyer.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of panel as 'set time daytime event'. The Terrace Room would probably be good for a decent sized event that could be loud.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Yup. In fact, that's where the idea of a mixer was first brought up.

The only thing is, I'm not 100% sure what a mixer is. It sounds like a prom dance, or something, and I'm firmly opposed to that.

Re: thoughts from previous events

[tisiphone.livejournal.com]

That would be good, yeh.
I like the sticker idea, too. I know someone was offering them, but I didn't manage to catch one, shall have to make a more devoted effort next year. (It confuses me when people actually call me "mathilde", but it also bears no resemblance to my real name.)

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Somehow I don't think my wife would approve of the hot bi chixxors.

She's used to the ego, though.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

There were stickers this time, but they were on the small side...and people were filling in their names by hand. Man, some people have terrible handwriting!

A party might work...I guess the question in my mind would be what sort of party it would be, and that ties in to another issue: the different types of LJers.

Would it be right to divide LJers by age? Maybe it's just because I'm creaking with age, but to tell you the truth I have a hard time connecting with younger LJers. Half the time they're talking about their fabulous sex lives, which depresses me no end, and the other half they're using that crazy beat language talking about their hot rods and the Frug and raccoon coats, those crazy whippersnappers!

(I'm going to have a nice glass of chamomille tea and lie down, now. )

Re: thoughts from previous events

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Loud? Why loud?

If I had money to burn I'd consider setting up an LJ suite...preferably with at least a few laptops connected to the net, so that people could make entries in their journals round the clock!

Ah, dreams...

Re: thoughts from previous events

[erik-j-meyer.livejournal.com]

Loud? Why loud?

Potentially lots of people talking? I figure that could annoy other folks nearby if they were trying to have a panel, hence the suggestion of the Terrace room.

As to your question about seperating the LJ folks by age - the daytime item is a nice all ages social, the evening party for those young 'uns out there that just want to party all night, "Feed my ravenous ego, and meet hot bi chixxors." type of stuff.

Have the Party on Friday night (usually a low party night, better chance of drawing more folks) and the social on Saturday noon-ish (the party types should be semi-concious by then). Easy enough?

then again I can say this when it is far away time wise and there is nothing stopping the idea from being easy.

Re: thoughts from previous events

[dda.livejournal.com]

As you may know, Events controls Terrace so any suggestions should be sent to events@arisia.org. Note also that Terrace is pretty far from any (current) net connections in the hotel so any posting would have to be done off-line and then people could scurry over to Alcott or the Mezzanine to hit Send. ;-)

I would see this as similar to the Drum Circle event; essentially unstructured time to be handled by the event runner. No tech requirements (unless a net connection could be gotten down there) and probably minimal food/drink.

A similar idea would be to hold a panel in Terrace for the 50+ minutes but have time afterward for mingling and exchanging names, picking up HBBs, etc. so people don't have to run off to make room for the next panel.

[cogitationitis.livejournal.com]

"There were stickers this time, but they were on the small side...and people were filling in their names by hand. Man, some people have terrible handwriting!"

I can make larger stickers, but there's no way to fill in names pre-con. (I used return address stickers because they were handy & wouldn't cover too much of the badge.)

I'll aim for larger ones for Boskone & see how they work.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Well, this is probably not a practical suggestion...but how about finding someone with the best/clearest handwriting possible, and getting them to fill in the labels? Preferably all in caps.

Just a thought. If that option had been offered to me, I definitely would have accepted.

Of course, my name's too bleeping long to be readable on a label anyway.

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

A mixer is kind of like the smoothie of dances. Throw a bunch of people into a room, add good converstation and blend until smooth.

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

And what, someonecatchme isn't?

It might be easier to have someone stationed at the badge producing thing writing LJ names on the tags.

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Uh-oh. At that sort of thing I'm always the chunk that fails to get blended, and ends up sitting by itself in the bottom of the cup.

Re: Tech requirements

[xdaemon.livejournal.com]

If the hotel can give me a place to plug in, we can have a line run down there and a WAP dropped in... we can run it along with the intercom feed for the Masq. green room. I think the nearest place we could jack in is up on the Mezz, but that's not a problem. :-)

[zarhooie.livejournal.com]

Terrace room might be *too* big, but I don't know where else you'd hold an event like the mixer.

happypete and I talked about this, and we thought that maybe someplace with either wired or wireless 'net could be used. If we could arrange for people like me to bring in their wireless router boosters/repeaters, we could theoretically string internet to where ever we were meeting and then ask for other users to allow people to use their laptops to post, etc. Also is good for "converting the masses"

Perhaps...

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Maybe I'll just have someone write it on my forehead with a Sharpie. I have a lot of room up there.

Heck, I could rent my head out to a few other people, too.

Hey! I think I just got an idea for the Masquerade...

[bobquasit.livejournal.com]

Given the number of people jammed into the panel room on Sunday, the Terrace room might not be too big...particularly if the event started off, say, with a panel about whatever Six Apart or Yahoo had done to LJ over the past year.

As far as a mixer goes, I'm just envisioning everyone sitting around for hours staring at each other awkwardly, in dead silence. Sort of like most of the parties I throw.

Maybe some sort of six degrees of separation thing would work to get things moving...some way of sorting out who has friended who. Of course, it's almost inevitable that someone will have no friends there, which would suck.

You know, I just realized: for all we know LJ might not BE here by the time Arisia 2006 rolls around. Or it might have been so screwed up that we'll all be on The Greatest Journal instead. Who knows?

[dda.livejournal.com]

As far as a mixer goes, I'm just envisioning everyone sitting around for hours staring at each other awkwardly, in dead silence. Sort of like most of the parties I throw.

I suspect if you left a bunch of net-connected machines out, you'd have everyone lined up commenting to each other; there might not be any actual discussion going on in the room. :-)

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

You're not so old that you can't have a fabulous sex life, believe me.... you act like we're ready for the old age home just because we're not in the 20-something crowd.

Re: Perhaps...

[unquietsoul5.livejournal.com]

What we need is a button maker so someone can make buttons as needed with things like

"Alias

on livejournal"

We used to have button making dealers at Arisia for many years... whatever happened to them?