Since last I updated...
Oct. 6th, 2005 11:06 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
grinninfooleI have returned, safely, from Mexico, and worked at a con for the store. I have been wanting to post since the day after my last one, but work commitments and an interest in spending time with real people have prevented me.
So, starting at the end: The day after my return from Mexico, I worked a full day at the store, and then on Friday drove to Boston to work at the Wizard World Boston convention for the weekend (shared the ride with St. Whats-Her-Face, which was really nice.) Then, spent Monday at work putting things away. Tuesday I got to play and saw the exciting Battlestar cliffhanger we missed while in Mexico, and yesterday we got a huge number of new graphic novels--it was the first time since we started getting the comics at 9 that we weren't ready by opening time. Today, I am posting all this, finally working out contract proposals, and going to see Serenity with Millari tonight. I'm very excited.
Anyway, Wizard World Boston was a poor excuse for a convention. I was bored much of the time, and unimpressed by the organization, planning and management of the con. Some of this can be forgiven as first time kinks, since this was the first Wizard con in Boston... but it's far from the first Wizard con over all. The hall at the Bayside Expo was crappy, bare cement floors,exposed rafters and fluorescent lights, horribly expensive bad food. We were also moved to a different hall and assigned to a location markedly inferior to the one which we had actually paid for. Also, the big companies, like Wizkids, DC, and Lions Gate Films were given terrific support and placement at the front, while dealers like us were stuck in the back.
Going beyond that, this convention had almost no programming. No panels, no round tables, no costume contests, no charity auctions, almost no interesting guests (Eliza Dushku was there on Saturday, Greg Rucka there all weekend), and no apparent interest on the part of the organizers in promoting the con as anything other than a vehicle for their big advertising partners to market directly to a core audience with an attached comics and collectibles flea market. For one thing, the location has no attached hotel, and for another, everything wrapped up at 6 pm. As in, by 6:15 they were turning out the lights and rousting the dealers (not just the paying attendees, but the merchants) from the room. We had gotten a suite at a nearby hotel with the idea of setting up a hospitality suite (as would make sense at pretty much any other convention that I have attended), but we scrapped it because absolutely no one cared. (Upside, we went to the Chindi Bazaar on Newbury Street for fabulously good Indian on a balmy autumn night, which I didn't quite manage to ruin with my usual memento mori observations on oil depletion and earthquakes. :)
So, starting at the end: The day after my return from Mexico, I worked a full day at the store, and then on Friday drove to Boston to work at the Wizard World Boston convention for the weekend (shared the ride with St. Whats-Her-Face, which was really nice.) Then, spent Monday at work putting things away. Tuesday I got to play and saw the exciting Battlestar cliffhanger we missed while in Mexico, and yesterday we got a huge number of new graphic novels--it was the first time since we started getting the comics at 9 that we weren't ready by opening time. Today, I am posting all this, finally working out contract proposals, and going to see Serenity with Millari tonight. I'm very excited.
Anyway, Wizard World Boston was a poor excuse for a convention. I was bored much of the time, and unimpressed by the organization, planning and management of the con. Some of this can be forgiven as first time kinks, since this was the first Wizard con in Boston... but it's far from the first Wizard con over all. The hall at the Bayside Expo was crappy, bare cement floors,exposed rafters and fluorescent lights, horribly expensive bad food. We were also moved to a different hall and assigned to a location markedly inferior to the one which we had actually paid for. Also, the big companies, like Wizkids, DC, and Lions Gate Films were given terrific support and placement at the front, while dealers like us were stuck in the back.
Going beyond that, this convention had almost no programming. No panels, no round tables, no costume contests, no charity auctions, almost no interesting guests (Eliza Dushku was there on Saturday, Greg Rucka there all weekend), and no apparent interest on the part of the organizers in promoting the con as anything other than a vehicle for their big advertising partners to market directly to a core audience with an attached comics and collectibles flea market. For one thing, the location has no attached hotel, and for another, everything wrapped up at 6 pm. As in, by 6:15 they were turning out the lights and rousting the dealers (not just the paying attendees, but the merchants) from the room. We had gotten a suite at a nearby hotel with the idea of setting up a hospitality suite (as would make sense at pretty much any other convention that I have attended), but we scrapped it because absolutely no one cared. (Upside, we went to the Chindi Bazaar on Newbury Street for fabulously good Indian on a balmy autumn night, which I didn't quite manage to ruin with my usual memento mori observations on oil depletion and earthquakes. :)
