filkertom | Archon/NASFiC

Didn't have a wrap-up for Archon/TuckerCon/NASFiC, so here we go.

First, many, many thanks to

mofilker and his wife Jamie, who went way above and beyond the call trying to make everything better for the musicians.

And many, many thanks to

huskiebear, who also went way above and beyond the call in a lot of ways helping me out this weekend in particular.

And it was fantastic actually getting the chance to hang out for awhile with

min0taur and Sally and

tollers and

harperjen and

quadrivium (and I briefly met her husband Wesley and didn't even know it) and

gorgeousgary and

the_sheryl and ~~lemmospice~~

lemmozine and

shsilver. And

lukeski and

pixelene were there, and Ken, and

filkferengi and

hlynna and

popefelix and

janmagic and

singlemaltsilk and

starcat_jewel and I can't even remember who all else. I only saw Sally Kobee and Barb Van Tilburg briefly, and that's my fault for not getting to the dealer's room.

It was a working con, so I ended up not going to the open filk at all (I was in one hotel, the filk was in another hotel, and the con was mostly in the Gateway Center, aiee). I heard from Gary and Sheryl that it was pretty good, mostly. I thought my concert sets went well enough, and it was really great to hear everybody else as well. Wild Mercy seemed especially crisp Saturday, and Mary Crowell impressed the heck out of us -- as I mentioned in an earlier post, I really hadn't heard her do her stuff, and we happily traded CDs.

A few rough spots, nothing worth really going into. Except... con programming people? Don't put programming after noon on Sunday. Or at all on Sunday. Seriously. Not more than a few people will be there. Most people are checking out, saying goodbye, and making those last few purchases, and all you're doing is making the panelists wait a few hours before going home. This has been My Opinion On The Matter™, and you don't have to listen. Thank you.

Anyway, a pretty good time had by all, methinks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

...so I guess the invited guests don't get a whole lot of input on when/where their stuff is on the program? I mean, it'd probably mean something to me were I (stupid enough to be) a con programmer and were you to tell me that you didn't want to do Sunday afternoon programming because you had a long drive home. I admit that if the only reason you gave was that "nobody was going to be there", I'd put you down as a whiner - I mean, come on, you're TOM F&&&ING SMITH, of course people will be there! - but I would want to be accommodating to travel schedules if possible.

Your Saturday concert was great, and the main reason I'm enjoying the Homecoming CD so much. I don't normally go in for live recordings because it's sometimes hard to hear all the words, but in this case it's great because it reminds me of the energy of the Archon concert. Oh, and I *still* haven't listened to "A Boy and his Frog". I stumbled onto "Rainbow Connection" while playing selected tracks for the housemate, and THAT song always makes me cry! I am not ready for your piece.

Lastly, I know it's not as inspiring as "307 ALE", but I did see "666 SPF" when coming home from the airport Sunday evening.

We get some input. The programming people usually try to accommodate pretty well, actually, and travel plans are taken into account. But driving is different from flying. And it may just be more acute right this second because A/T/N had so damn much programming, with way too many people (in my opinion) on panels. I mean, my first panel Thursday, on SF soundtracks, had eight panelists. That's just berserk.

About the panel over stuffing - you ain't kidding...Raise your hand if you were at a panel where the Panelist:Audience ration was greater than 1! Yes, this happened more than once this weekend.

As far as con programming goes, I can speak from experience, just not on the scale of A/N/T. MidSouthCon runs about 1100-1200 in attendance, while a good Archon can top 2200+. What I try to do when starting programming is get as much input from the panelists as possible - what sorts topics they might like or are expert on, what times are good/what times are out, how many hours they want to be on panels for, who they don't want to be on a panel with, etc and then accommodate those wishes as much as humanly possible while giving the artist/writers/musical acts as much time to plug their stuff as possible. However, when crunch time hits - generally starting about 2 months before the con - then the programming committee has to start making choices based on programming requirements rather than personal preference. This is especially true at a single-hotel convention like mine - not all of the choices are popular all of the time. As much as I would love to grant every single panelist his or her preferences, sometimes it just doesn't work out - and someone gets stuck with the 9AM Sunday panels, no matter how hung over they are...

Archon/NASFiC

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