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Conflict of Interest Disclaimer: I am a member of the Boston in 1998 Worldcon bid committee. Some of the contents herein could be construed as attempts to convince people not to vote for other competing bids. Please feel free to verify the factual content of this report with the recollections of other people who attended the NASFiC. Oh, and Gary Farber has given me permission to say that anything here that ticks people off can be blamed on him. <grin>
NASFiC this year was held in conjunction with Dragoncon, a long-running media/comics/gaming con. The results were....fascinating. This report is a comprehensive critique in the tradition of YaleF Edeiken's 1979 NASFiC report for File 770 -- pointing out key things that went wrong and right in yet another futile attempt to prevent wheels from being re-invented in the future.
When I first arrived in Atlanta, I was impressed by the registration staff. Normally, registration is one of the key areas when evaluating a convention. This is most fans' first contact with the committee onsite, and nearly everyone has to go through it. I was walking through a transfer membership from another Chicago fan, and was nearly dumbfounded when I was clearly directed which line to wait in, spent only a few minutes in line, and was processed quickly and politely. What a change from the last con I tried to do a membership transfer with! Registration head Robert Gann and his team did one heck of a job. My experience was not isolated; during the weekend I heard few complaints about registration. This is extremely rare among conventions, and Dragoncon/NASFiC had approximately 20,000 people on site (about half of those were one-day memberships), said one of the Directors on Sunday.
The badges themselves were reasonably attractive and quite visible. They contained name and city (though a somewhat larger type font would have been nice). Membership packets were handed out in handled plastic bags, and contained the program book, pocket program, various local discount coupons, and flyers for various groups. So far so good.
The standard voodoo message board and party board system was used. I assume Filthy Pierre set them up as he usually does (I saw him at the con), but don't know for sure.
I was impressed by the shuttle bus system. Most SF con shuttle systems stink. They had one (sometimes two) buses running every 15 minutes from 8 a.m. to 3 a.m. You couldn't quite set your watch by them, but just about when you started wondering where the bus was, it would pull up. The air conditioning in the buses worked fine, a good thing, since outdoor temperatures reached 100 degrees that weekend.
Downtown Atlanta is very clean, matching memories of my last visit 12 years ago. In preparation for the Olympics next year, even the homeless are prepping as tour guides. At one point when walking outdoors, Scott Merritt and I were solicited by a homeless man, and politely refused to donate. He noticed our badges and asked if we were in town for a convention. We said "yes," and he responded with,"Hey, man, you guys gotta make sure you see Underground Atlanta while you're here! It's really interesting!" -- and he proceeded to launch into giving us directions, then moved on. We thought it was incredible that even the homeless were getting into the tourism act!
Opening ceremonies went well. At one point, GOH George Alec Effinger commented on this being the 25th anniversary of his first sale. Harlan Ellison, another GOH, harangued him. George got frustrated and said, "Harlan, if you don't shut up, I'm going to tell everyone what that first sale was to!" Harlan, chagrined, immediately sat down and behaved during the rest of George's speech. (Yes, the sale was to Last Dangerous Visions! And it still has not seen the light of day.)
The program book contained a good set of biographies of many of the 1500 convention guests (defined as who got a comp membership), including computer iconoclast Cliff Stoll and some of the creators of Mystery Science Theatre 3000, and sf authors Bova, Haldeman, Hambly, Gerrold, Tyers, etc. A personal highlight for me was meeting David Prowse, whose voice sounds nothing like James Earl Jones'! Oh, and the program book DID spell NASFiC right,. On the critical side, there was very little material explaining fandom or telling what a NASFiC is. The bulk of the program book was given over to guest bios and ads. Oddly, only department heads were listed in the staff list.
The pocket program had the most common pocket program problem -- it was not designed to fit in a pocket. However, it did contain a good set of easy to read grids (which unfortunately contained only the main programming tracks and left out much of the special interest stuff), program item descriptions, hotel floor plans, and info about the shuttles. The Starfleet and gaming programs did not appear to be listed in the pocket program at all: I don't know if they were available in written form anywhere. Given the huge number of guests, an index as to who is on when would have been useful (but not a lot of cons do this). There was apparently no restaurant guide, which was incredibly surprising considering that the number of attendees was far more than the hotels could accommodate (and that Atlanta is a pretty good restaurant city).
The crowds. The crowds were everywhere, every time. One night at 3 a.m. I walked on the main mezzanine for ten minutes and saw hundreds of people before recognizing anyone. Part of the way crowds were (usually) kept to manageable levels is that the gamers were all placed in the Westin just down the street, and Starfleet was in the Ramada. They went in and we didn't see them again until Sunday. Fine by us, fine by them.
The hall costumes were terrific: a 9' tall Japanese anime robot, a Klingon in a tuxedo, Doc Octopus (Spiderman's foe -- with only one elongated arm, but the one arm looked really good!), and some barbarian women who actually had the figure for the costumes they were wearing....
An impressive thing was how many concerts and theatricals they ran. Two in particular stood out:.
Atlanta Radio Theatre Company is a group of sf fans who make old-time radio presentations of sf and horror stories. Much of their repertoire comes from H.P. Lovecraft and H.G. Wells. I particularly recommend that you send for the tape of their performance at NASFiC of "Into the Labyrinth, Volume 4: Special Order." This tape is $9.95 plus $2 postage from Atlanta Radio Theatre Company, P.O. Box 1675, Duluth, Georgia 30135-1880. (they have a free catalog)
Glass Hammer is a rock band that played at NASFiC. Their latest album, Journey of the Dunadan, is a 74-minute song cycle about Aragorn's adventures in Lord of the Rings. Their sound is sort of Alan Parsons-like; the vocals could be stronger at times, but the lyrics and most of the arrangements are top notch. Available from: Lazeria Music, 1612 Cooling Avenue, Melbourne, FL 32935, (800) 997-9137. CD is $17, CD/Poster set is $25.
I also met the editor of Wonder, an sf semi-prozine that I had somehow not seen before, though Barnes & Noble is one of their national distributors. This quirky little magazine is primarily oriented towards SF and anything to do with a "sense of wonder." Typical are articles about old-time radio, X-Files, history of Japanese monster movies, etc. It also includes such oddities as a history of miniature golf and a column by G.K. Chesterton. Highly recommended. Subscriptions are $15/4 issues (quarterly) from: Wonder, 2770 Fairlane Dr., Atlanta, GA 30340.
Two department heads who people were complimenting were Kelly Lockhart (online services) and Regina Kirby (Member Relations/Info desk).
As I walked around the hotel on Friday, orienting myself and getting used to the crowds, I kept hearing,"Have you seen the art show?" -- and not in tones of admiration. Curious, I went directly down there ...and found myself facing the ultimate horror of Dragoncon.
Two explanations were in circulation. One blamed problems on art show function room floor plans that mistakenly included the access corridor footage in the room square footages, a mistake not discovered until they measured the room at two weeks and counting. This story has a couple of problems. For one, I personally have not ever seen floor plans that included access corridors in square footage counts. Secondly, for as much experience as they have, they should know better than to trust floor plans -- you always verify room sizes with your own measurements, especially with critical things like art show and dealers' rooms. To measure the room at only two weeks and counting could be considered a measure of incompetence. But even more -- this is not the first time Dragoncon used the Hilton: if their floor plans were grossly wrong, shouldn't this have been discovered last year? Or the year before?
The second version (heard at the gripe session), the concom's official version, said they originally used more footage in the room, but the art show crossed a sightline between the escalators and the exits, and the fire marshal ordered them to use less space. They then crammed the art show into the allowed space (without reducing the number of panels). The committee then claimed the fire marshall had gone through the con on Saturday and approved the layout; supposedly the art show aisles passed by two inches.
Version two doesn't make sense, either. I can believe the sightline issue (I've had similar problems with fire marshals at other cons). But to scrunch the art show into less space and keep the number of panels the same? And the fire marshal approved this? I can see the concom doing the scrunching. But if an emergency had occurred and people had to evacuate quickly there was no way to get out of there without knocking over panels (which would have created a domino effect) -- people would have died. One theory bouncing around was that the fire marshal had been paid off. There are some cons where the fire marshal has ignored minor violations while accepting a "tip," even where to the uneducated eye there was simply a dangerous situation. A fire marshal may ignore a table that sticks a couple of inches in front of a doorway, but this was far more dangerous. I simply don't know.
What would I have done? Had the scrunching occurred without my knowledge, upon seeing the mess, I would have sent out an emergency call for the head of gofers and the head of programming, and informed programming that they were about to sacrifice a small meeting room -- pick one. Then moved a third of the show into the programming room, placed large signs advertising the second room (and notices in the daily newsletter), and refunded the hanging fees of the artists whose work was moved to the auxiliary show. Then if necessary, used a sleeping room to move the displaced programming into. No fun, but better than what NASFiC actually did.
Rumors were flying that all the artists were demanding their hanging fees back; scant comfort to compensate for lost or lowered sales. ASFA (the Association of SF Artists) had their annual meeting at Dragoncon/NASFiC -- they declined to do it again at Dragoncon next year, and accepted LA's offer to move it to the Worldcon. (No one was surprised by this.)
The Dealers' room also had some problems. While the aisles were somewhat better than the art show (at a guess, 5 feet), the crowds were so great that it was difficult to move easily. There were constant problems with dealers letting their merchandise creep into the aisles, and the concom's enforcement was very spotty on preventing this. There were very few book dealers, probably less than half a dozen who sold only sf/fantasy books (new or used) -- and this was a large dealers' room.
The concom was also spotty on enforcing the no-sales-except-in-the-dealers' room rule. They pulled Dave Berry's badge for unauthorized sale of Magic Cards™, but did not seem to make a major effort to universally stop it. Dave felt he was being picked on; my impression is he was in the wrong place at the wrong time when the wrong concom member happened by.
Another dealer-related problem was the huge amount of pornography and bondage equipment and such for sale (including a couple of models who demonstrated some pretty scanty stuff). In quantity and explicitness, it was more than I have seen at regionals or Worldcons. Given that this stuff was often right next to Mickey Mouse comics, and that the Dragoncon demographics included a number of families with children, I heard a lot of complaints. Interestingly, no one I spoke with said the stuff shouldn't be allowed; nearly all felt that an X-rated aisle should be created for those whose material is mostly sex-oriented, and that this would solve most of the problem.
Guest Liaison also had a number of problems. George Alec Effinger, the pro Guest of Honor, was not picked up at the airport by the concom. I heard conflicting stories on this, but when George was not asked to attend the committee dinner on Sunday, I felt like George's version is more accurate. George walked up to a group of us on Friday around 5 p.m., saying, "Well, I'm done." "What do you mean you're done?" George explained he had been asked to do one autograph session and one reading and no panels, and by 5 p.m. Friday he had finished. Talk about under-utilizing your guests!
Hotel liaison had at least one screw-up. On moving party supplies into the hotel, fans were being hit with corkage charges, despite advance assurances by the concom that this had been covered with the hotel. To my knowledge, these charges were later refunded, but it provided for some scary moments.
The hotel physical plant kept failing under the stress. Escalators were constantly breaking down, and waiting for elevators was a good opportunity for a nap. Elevator monitors were put in partly through the con, but there were simultaneously (e.g., "Internet and the WWW" and "Electronic Fandom;" "Writers of the Future" and "Advice to Writers;" "How to Build a World" and "Do your Historical Research"). While media programming was very strong, a number of traditional elements got short shrift. There was very little programming to do with traditional SF fandom (e.g., only one fanzine panel, and it was on Thursday). There was a panel on con-running and one on bidding for a con, both of which sounded sort of generic -- only one of the panelists was of the "usual suspects" one would expect to see on panels of this nature. (Both of these were on Friday afternoon, too!) There was no panel with the 1998 Worldcon bidders, much less a generic panel with all Worldcon bidders. If there was a film program, I didn't notice it. There was a video program, but it was not listed except at the entrance to the room, so I kept forgetting it existed unless I walked past it.
I did not go to the masquerade. My understanding is that buses were provided for the attendees, but not the costumers, which is odd.
Now, with all the above, the question comes up: does this con constitute a disaster? This is a question that is near and dear to me, as I have been involved in the past with helping to bail out several cons that most fans agree were "disasters." One of the predictable aspects of fandom is that as every worldcon comes around, disaster is predicted. But just what is a disaster? Certainly, having a con actually shut down by the fire marshal would be a disaster. Losing the hotel right before the con would be a disaster. Losing, say, $50,000 (or more!) would be a disaster. Massive lawsuits afterwards would be a disaster.
But the above, while they do happen, are rare. Many cons with none of the above have been labeled "disasters." Also, a number of problems are internal to the committee, and while they might affect the con indirectly, the brunt is attendees generally were indifferent to the idea of an Atlanta Worldcon -- as long as a Dragoncon was held that year (and I heard that they are committed to a Dragoncon), the gaming and comics and media stuff would be there, and that's what they came for.
Also, Robert Sacks and Brian Burley took the first steps towards seeing if they can create a "Continental SF Convention." It will be interesting to see what comes of it.
Oddly, despite excellent breakfast and lunch buffets, the Hilton's dinner buffet was maybe half the size of the lunch buffet -- a real ripoff. I didn't understand how they could have such a chintzy dinner buffet in light of their generous lunch buffet. Fortunately, the dinner companionship (FOSFAX editor Tim Lane and contributors Taras Wolansky and Johnny Caruthers) made up for it.
At breakfast one day, Harlan Ellison, who was eating at the table next to us, called over and asked me if I had gotten any sausage from the buffet. I looked down at my plate and said, "no." He then asked if I wanted his sausage, as he was full and didn't want the food to go to waste. I accepted, and ate it to the consternation of the others at my table. "Hey," I shrugged, "This is a lot better than when I was a neo-fan in 1966 and Harlan grabbed a just-autographed copy of the Foundation Trilogy out of my hands, ran down the hall with it, and gave it to a fan at random."
Worldcon bidders were relatively scarce. Boston in 1998 showed up and held parties on both nights!! (brief commercial plug). Baltimore in 1998 was there, too, as was Niagara Falls in 1998. (equal time) Surprisingly, Atlanta in 1998 did not hold any parties or put on any special presentations (my guess: all their people were busy running the convention). The San Antonio 1997 Worldcon ran a party Saturday, featuring Debbie Hodgkinson's homemade guacamole. Philadelphia in 2001 also appeared. Chicago in 2000 and the 1996 LA Worldcon ran tables, but did not do parties. None of the other announced bids for 2000 and 2001 showed up (and none of the 1999 bids did anything).
Debbie Hodgkinson and I discussed the (relatively minor) controversy over the San Antonio Worldcon being numbered Lonestarcon *2*. Although I was initially on the other side of the fence, I ended up agreeing with her -- since Lonestarcon 1 (a NASFiC) was WSFS-sanctioned (as all NASFiCs are), then a second Texas con sanctioned by WSFS can legitimately call itself #2, and should not get any flak for doing so.
Oh, you wanted to hear about the Hot Smof Babes of Fandom?
Well, at one point I walked into the Boston in 1998 room party, and noticed that everyone in the room had convention-running credentials -- there had to be at least 150 years of con-running experience present. In particular, laying on the bed were Jill Eastlake, Janice Gelb, Becky Thomson, Judy Bemis, and Marcia McCoy. They were the only women in the room, and were chatting among themselves (about running special events at cons, as I recall). There were several men in the room, all standing around the bed, like acolytes. I paused for a moment, looking at this tableau. "Why, it's the Hot Smof Babes of Fandom," I thought to myself.
There was only one course of action. I went to the dealers' room the next morning and had five buttons made up (black lettering on hot pink) that read: HOT SMOF BABES OF FANDOM. As the day passed, I awarded one to each of the five women who had been on the bed at the Boston party. According to the ladies, the buttons were sources of many puzzled looks and questions during the rest of the con. Jill Eastlake said that several women asked where they could get one, and she preened and replied, "It's an award. You had to have been there."
Indeed, the same is true for all of NASFiC 1995. You had to have been there.
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