orbital_2008: I can go back to the Non-Euclidean now pls?

Elanor (

wildfyre) wrote in

orbital_2008,
@ 2008-03-26 00:06:00

I can go back to the Non-Euclidean now pls?
My con report is friends-locked (though pretty much anyone who was at the con is welcome to nudge me to be friended), so I want to add a couple of comments here.

(BTW, for those who don't know me, I'm Elanor aka Gopher Dad. I'm the one with the red hair who was most often seen either in Ops eating creme eggs or running around like a mad thing after Misha was sent to hospital.)

I dislike griping, especially about a con I enjoyed, but I do know how useful constructive criticism can be so I honestly tried to think of some...and it's surprisingly difficult. The con was amazing. I had a brilliant time (even though I only got to one programming item), the committee were all lovely and supportive and generally wonderful and so were 90% of the other members I spoke to.

The only genuine complaints I have are about scheduling - specifically, the art auction being opposite Neil Gaiman and the signing session being placed in Newbury right before dinner. The former made organising gophers difficult, and the latter had both the hotel and several members grouching at me. But I know from bitter experience how difficult scheduling a con can be (and I've only ever managed five streams!), so to have only two scheduling gripes after a con with that many streams is quite a feat.

Obviously there were a few hotel issues too. Not the layout, which I actually liked (being the source of plenty of jokes), but the weird temperature fluctuations, the lack of English-speaking staff and the fact that a malibu and diet coke was a different price every time I went to the bar. Still, they always seemed to want to help where they could (and where they could understand the request) and the food was generally outstanding, so those issues are incredibly minor.

And that is everything I could come up with even when specifically trying to think of stuff-what-could-be-improved. So seriously, great job everyone. I hope you all have a well-earned rest and feel very proud of yourselves.

(Post a new comment)

steverogerson
2008-03-26 12:18 am UTC (link)

Some things had to be against Neil Gaiman as we couldn't fit everyone in the main hall (plus we had to have something for those who didn't want to go to Neil's talk). As it was, we did fit everyone in the main hall, but without the alternatives, we might not have, or it would have been tight.

The Newbury and dinner problem was something that I hadn't appreciated the difficulty of before I saw it in practice. If I could replay, that would be one of a handful of changes I would make.

As to yourself, you were amazing the way you picked up the job after Misha was taken ill. Thank you so much.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

(Anonymous)
2008-03-26 09:34 am UTC (link)

As Steve implies, large cons do often run up against crowd control problems - I know some anime cons in the USA (even ones as "small" as 3 to 4 thousand) deliberately schedule 2 reasonably popular events simultaneously in order to alleviate this. I suppose Eastercon 2008 was just so popular!

One thing I might mention is that due to the nose-to-tail scheduling, gophers who were scheduled at a particular time did often have to miss the end of a previous slot in order to make it to the next room on time. I'm not sure how feasible leaving a 30-minute gap between all sessions would be (especially with the multitude of available programming - thanks, Steve :-) ) but I think some breathing space would also have been appreciated by punters maybe wanting food and toilet breaks...

And echoed thanks to Elanor who shepherded us without panic nor hectoring.

--
Chris "mrgazpacho" Kuan

(Reply to this)(Parent)

wildfyre
2008-03-26 12:37 pm UTC (link)

I completely see the point about diverting people from Neil, I just thought it a shame that the clash was with the art auction. Mostly from a gophering point of view, because I needed people to help with the auction but they all wanted to be at Neil's talk. Also from a personal point of view, I really wanted to nab me some art for the new house, but was forced to run between the two things and see neither. I'm sure a lot of people missed the auction in favour of Neil who would otherwise have spent money as well. Still, I do understand that you had to make some very difficult choices in a timetable that vast, and since it all worked out okay (we even had spare seats in Neil's talk!) it's not a huge deal.

The Newbury issue is a live-and-learn thing, I think. In future if there's one guest who is vastly more popular than the others I would recommend having separate signing sessions - ought to make timing and queue management easier and would also be less demoralising for the other authors who had to sit there chatting while Neil had a three-mile queue!

As to my part, it really was my pleasure. Some great groundwork was already in place, plenty of people showed up to volunteer their time and the committee went out of their way to help, so my job was made as easy as it could have been :-)

(Reply to this)(Parent)

	bugshaw 2008-03-26 01:21 am UTC (link)
	Hi Elanor, I'll e-mail about gopher parenting issues if that's okay? (Reply to this)(Thread)

	wildfyre 2008-03-26 12:38 pm UTC (link)
	Absolutely! Sorry I didn't get to catch up with you - I was running around like crazy and then it was suddenly 11pm and I needed to catch the last tube. Email is elanor.isolda [at] gmail.com (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	bugshaw 2008-03-26 01:34 pm UTC (link)
	I spent a couple of hours doing teardown in the main hall before I had to leave, thus gaining invaluable firsthand experience :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	despotliz 2008-03-26 10:24 am UTC (link)
	I thought you did a great job as emergency gopher leader. I've friended you, in case you're wondering where I found your journal. (Reply to this)(Thread)

	wildfyre 2008-03-26 12:39 pm UTC (link)
	Thanks :-) Have friended you back. (Reply to this)(Parent)

watervole
2008-03-26 10:41 am UTC (link)

We knew we'd have problems with anything against Neil, but imagine if Neil's main talk had been like his first autograph session with people being turned away...

We deliberately programmed some good stuff against him to try and reduce gophers having to face that particular nightmare.

I totally agree that the temperature was a real pain. Every time I thought I'd got on top of it, it would swing the other way. Royal was roasting on one occasion and like ice on another. The hotel seriously need to improve their air conditioning. Snow outside is not a suitable excuse.

(Reply to this)(Thread)

wildfyre
2008-03-26 12:43 pm UTC (link)

Yes, as I said somewhere above I completely understand the logic behind it and I did greatly appreciate not having to ask gophers to turn people away from that one!

Someone pointed out on Monday (I think, the days kind of blur together) that Commonwealth has external walls on three sides and that the floor is also pretty much open to the elements, which might explain why it had particular issues. I would love to meet the architect who designed that hotel and find out what s/he was on (I suspect his name might be MC Escher).

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

alex_holden
2008-03-26 01:28 pm UTC (link)

It has clearly accrued over a number of years. I suspect the lifts may have been an afterthought given their inconvenient locations, Ascot and Tetworth are little more than portacabins stuck onto one of the wings, the area with the very low ceiling at the back of the County is where a small room has been torn out, and I think the reason the Newbury main floor is higher than the rest of the ground floor is because there's the remains of a swimming pool under there somewhere. The satellite map makes for interesting study. Did you ever see the maps the hotel provided us with? They are entertainingly bad - "not to scale" doesn't even start to explain it.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	bopeepsheep 2008-03-26 02:12 pm UTC (link)
	Yup, it had major building work in 2000 when they renovated it (1970 build); I don't remember how big it was before (family live locally so I've never stayed at Heathrow, just driven past the hotel an awful lot!) but it was definitely smaller before. (Reply to this)(Parent)

	crazyscot 2008-03-26 04:24 pm UTC (link)
	Good grief, what a twisted building. I hadn't realised the bedroom corridors looped. (Or, at least, they appear to from that aerial shot.) (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the_magician 2008-03-26 04:46 pm UTC (link)
	I tried to convey that in the floorplans in the ReadMe http://www.orbital2008.org/hotelmaps.html (Reply to this)(Parent)

the_magician
2008-03-26 10:56 am UTC (link)

Thanks Gopher Dad for your sterling work on Orbital. Unsurprisingly you've impressed a lot of people who didn't know your work before, so don't be too surprised if you start getting requests from other teams wanting you to work on their cons :-)

It was great seeing you, and next time we'll have to assign you your own personal tea gopher to make sure you're kept properly topped up!

(Reply to this)(Thread)

wildfyre
2008-03-26 12:48 pm UTC (link)

Ah, this is my great plan for world domination, you see.

Step 1: Learn trade in obscure, disconnected fandom.
Step 2: Move into mainstream knowing what you're doing. No one knows that you had to learn it the hard way so are thought brilliant.
Step 3: ???
Step 4: PROFIT!!

And yes, tea gopher is a definite must for the future. You're very good at it, will you be applying for the job?

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	the_magician 2008-03-26 01:34 pm UTC (link)
	I would be honoured :-) (Reply to this)(Parent)

	crazyscot 2008-03-26 04:25 pm UTC (link)
	Concur with the need for a tea gopher, though I suppose we could have pinched some from the Green Room ? (Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

the_magician
2008-03-26 04:50 pm UTC (link)

That's where I was getting my tea for Gopher Dad from ... the tea/coffee bought in was for Green Room and Ops to share, but the kettle was in Green Room. Part of our deal with the hotel was that we could supply food and non-alcoholic drink in green room and ops/gophers for our staff and programme participants. Also that we could supply tea/coffee to the dealers and they had their own supplies down there.

Ops was authorised to order tea/coffee from the hotel whenever they wanted and did so many times over the weekend, though we were charged for those.

(Reply to this)(Parent)(Thread)

	(Anonymous) 2008-03-28 05:11 pm UTC (link)
	This also relates to the point Gopher Dad made up-topic, but I did mention to gaspode afterwards that the gophers were told to be on the alert for random ad-hoc staff requests. Well, I didn't get one all Con. Don't be shy about bothering us - we volunteered, so we knew what we were getting into :-) -- Chris "mrgazpacho" Kuan (Reply to this)(Parent)

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