🚀 go-pugleaf

leah@smith.chi.il.us (Leah Zeldes Smith) writes:

>Farrell McGovern (ai474@FreeNet.Carleton.CA) wrote:

>>> I know some cons choose guests simply on their "draw" potetial. This I
>>> feel is bad, since it cheapens the relationship between the con and their
>>> guests to one simply of commerical interests. Cons are about community &
>>> relationships, and should not be a money grubbing venture.

>In article <sTRxkKGhazB2075yn@io.com> crackers@io.com writes:
>>I would agree that GOHs shouldn't be selected "simply" on their draw
>>potential, but non-profit or not, we've still got to pay our bills. If
>>you know/suspect that your GOH will not be a draw, I would think it
>>would behoove a committee to make sure there's a draw somewhere in the
>>line-up. Otherwise, it's all too possible to end up with a line-up that
>>only a handful of people have ever heard of, and the average con-goer
>>has no interest in going to see.

>Most con-goers fall into three categories: 1) Locals, who are going to go
>to their nearby con no matter what; 2) traveling jiants, who go to a number
>of cons every year across a wide region and/or the country, and chose
>those based on the cons' reputations and which ones their friends are
>going to; and 3) tourists.

Hmmmm. Two comments.
I.
The con-going habits of locals I think would depend also on the number
and kind of cons that do happen locally, and how many cons they wish to go to.
My average is one a year, to touch base with people that I only tend
to meet at cons anyway.  When I was living in Brisbane, there was
only one con a year, an ongoing media fen institution called ConQuest,
so, naturally, I went to that, no matter who the guest was.
Now that I live in Melbourne, the situation is different.  There are
no "regular" cons here that happen every year, but on the other hand,
there is usually more than one con happening too.  In that case, I'd
pick a con for the guests; and maybe if the NatCon was being held in
Melbourne that year that would be a factor too (though it's usually
the guests, since the national convention tends to have interesting
guests anyway).  I'm not cluey or connected enough to know the abilities
and reputations of con organisers, though I can think of one person
in the recent past that I have put on my to-be-avoided list (which is
one person long... 8-).

As for non-locals, if I go to a non-local con, it's not because I
cruise around the country going to cons.  If I am going interstate
for a convention, it is because there is a not-to-be-missed guest
at the con.  I am also more likely to go to a convention in a state
where I have friends-and-relations, so I can combine the trip and
a holiday in one.  (Which is one reason why the only non-Australian
WorldCon I've been to was ConFrancisco, because my parents were
living in the Bay Area at the time, so I combined two trips into one).

II.
Guests that we get in Australia don't tend to be very famous anyway.
Famous guests cost too much, and there are too few fen here to bear
the costs.  I am talking media fandom here, because that's the kind
of con I tend to go to.  Not that I don't read books, it's just that
if I am going to a convention to meet a GoH, than I am more likely to
be mildly interested in even an obscure media guest than in an author
I haven't read.  I may be wrong, but there also seems to be more Media
cons around here (Melbourne) than Lit cons.  Unless I am just not
connected to the Lit grapevine...

Another factor may be cultural cringe, or simply the fact that all the
"big" SF shows (and authors) are from overseas - in Australia, when you
are talking guest, you are inevitably talking International Airfare.
Oh you can lure them here with dreams of parakeets and sandy beaches,
but it still costs.  This blindness causes a failure in searching for
*local* talent, and even so, I suspect fen don't think much of local
guests simply because they're local.  And I mean local to be not only
local-area but non-international...  8-(

But it would be nice some time to go to a con here that had as guests
Greg Egan, George Turner and the stars of "Ocean Girl" and "The Girl
from Tomorrow"...

Kathryn Andersen
(con-goer since 1985...)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Travis:    You used me like some automatic fault tracer.
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		 (Blake's 7: Weapon [B3])
-- 
 _--_|\		Kathryn Andersen	<kat@werple.mira.net.au>
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