[ST] [SA] Events Report

[David D'Antonio]

Hi all,

I was, as you know, Events DivHead this year. I (and Samantha) put on  
a total of 17 events (including the Blood Drive, which is a quasi- 
event but should be a real event next year) as well as Films, Video,  
Anime, and, at least to some degree, ArisiaTV.

In general, I think things went very well, all things considered.

Some of the highlights this year:

o A record-breaking Masquerade with 39 entries not counting the  
Kamikaze Kids.

o An excellent Blood Drive with, I believe, 66 pints of blood  
donated. They stayed an extra hour due to last-minute appointments.

o The Club Dance was shut down by the hotel at 7am for the room turn  
(but they requested a song from Johnny before they shut him down! :-)

o Patri and family ran a very well-attended Period Dance with live  
musicians. Given the situation, I was *very* pleased by this.

o "Walk the Labyrinth" was added at the last minute and proved quite  
popular, with people walking it more than once.

o Two radio plays; I only saw parts of the first but it was standing- 
room only and quite funny.

o Luke Ski participated in numerous events and was flexible in  
adapting to the extended Masq rehearsal. This did preempt the film  
trailers but we were able to run some video ones and still have Luke  
do his thing.

o Higgins did their usual excellent job, both for Events (both stand- 
alone and for First Night) and for Fast Track. The Jedi demo seemed  
one of the most popular, judging by LiveJournal posts. :-)

o Rocky Horror had 383 people come in the room (they had a clicker  
counting people).

o Tech did a fantastic job in dealing with the new space. Joel Lord,  
the TD, has submitted a report that can be summarized with his  
opening paragraph:

"Looking back at last year's report I see an interesting trend.  My  
first year we got many kudos from the committee.  Last year we got  
lots of compliments from the talent.  This year we definitely got  
both, plus plenty of compliments from the audience.  Even if I  
weren't burned out, it's not possible for me to take Arisia Tech any  
further, which is another clue it's time for me to stop."

The full report has been sent to Technofandom.

o Esther did several readings for Charity; she had a audience for  
most of the 9pm to 11pm that First Night ran after the Prom took over  
President's A.

o Anime, Video and Films all went well, despite either room sharing  
and being given wrong room dimensions, respectively.

Alas, all wasn't roses; there were some issues and problems that came  
up. To whit:

o Having programming in Pre-function A caused quite a bit of  
confusion, since there were no signs directing people to the  
President's C corridor entrance to Pres A. It would have been better  
to have signs telling people what was running in Pre-function A and  
directing them elsewhere for the events in Pres A. We did what we  
could with the easels and event listings, but apparently people still  
went in there and either crossed through panels (which is disrupting)  
or left when they expected Juggling and saw a panel instead.

o Jude did a great job decorating and running First Night, for the  
most part, but she got it handed to her late in the game.

o ArisiaTV had a number of issues, including being off the air for  
most of Friday, despite the best efforts of those involved.

o The size of the Masquerade caused problems both in emergency  
rescheduling because of rehearsal and in having space in Green Room  
for everyone involved. This also impacted our half-time entertainment  
but most, if not all, of it was invisible to the attendees.

o In addition, the Masq Green Room caused some flaring tempers and  
hurt feelings. It was too small and crowded but there was no extra  
space into which to expand; we had already taken over space we hadn't  
planned on using and this was disruptive to both the hotel staff for  
last-minute room turn changes and the con staff for lots of reasons.

o Speaking of Green Rooms, Program Green Room security denied  
entrance to some Event Participants despite it being established that  
they had access. Most of the time, they were let in but the message  
should have been clearer, and the security folks involved could have  
been more polite.

o There were several power issues in the Ballroom(s). The hotel only  
had 2 of the 3 promised PDUs and although they eventually went and  
got a third, it delayed Films quite a bit. Also, they had to have  
their electrician look at one panel due to ground problems and,  
according to Kludge, the other panel should have been looked at, too.

o There was a problem with the airwall between President's A and B;  
it didn't seal properly either time the hotel assembled the airwall.  
While the light admitted could be dealt with via tape, the sound  
wasn't as easily squelched. Films also had a problem with the room  
dimensions; they were wrong and so new lens had to be gotten quickly.

o Tech had to deal with Program A/V and did a pretty good job of it.  
But they shouldn't have had to scramble at the mostly last minute to  
deal with it.

As I said at the beginning, though, I think things went very well.  
Most of the issues were completely invisible to the attendees and  
several will be less of an issue next year because of this year's  
experience. Everyone pulled together and we got the job done; it was  
an honour to be part of such a thing.

DDA

--
DDA
Events DivHead, Arisia '07 (retired)




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