Archon/NASFiC

[filkertom]

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.

Comments

[norda.livejournal.com]

Hello, Tom. Not trying to spam you.... I'm a friend of hughcasey's.

I'm trying to take a survey of sorts about Archon, because we had a sales rep there [Daniel Geduld of B7 Media] who got the impression that this year's con had a far lower attendance than in past years, and certainly lower than a NASFIC "should" have.

He was new to the venue, so I am wondering how accurate his impression was. What were your impressions of attendance numbers?

Thank you in advance for any input you can give.

------Patty Cryan
www.mikescomics.com (http://www.mikescomics.com)
The Mike's Comics Presence on LiveJournal (http://mikescomics.com.livejournal.com)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Honestly, I'm not sure. I heard the number 1,500 at one point, but there were hundreds and hundreds of people in the line for seats at the masquerade. And I'm not sure, but I suspect the main hall was largely empty during the day because everyone was in programming.

[norda.livejournal.com]

That's still useful to know. Thank you!

My partner and I are trying to get a line of audio dramas off the ground, sales-wise, here in North America, and Archon was supposed to be our "big" convention, since the con reps we talked to told us there was an expected attendance estimate of 4000.

1500 sounds about average attendance for many of the other cons that we'd looked into. We'd hoped for more from Archon. Oh well.

I appreciate your reply.

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Bluntly, Dragon*Con. If you're looking for big cons that you have a chance of getting into. Alternately, pick a few decent-sized regionals, see what more local cons are nearby in a certain timeframe, and make a tour of it. Look into MarsCon, MiniCon, MarCon, PhilCon, AnthroCon (geared towards furries), BaltiCon, Arisia, Boskone, the Chicago cons, OryCon, and other people can help me out with the west coast...?