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This post is taken from a bunch of replies on a friend's journal, that it was decided we should stop hijacking and move the discussion somewhere else.
The problem is that a lot of fans want to get along, and many longer term fans don't like change, so the old fans don't change and the new fans try to fit in. The newer folks aren't encouraged to exptress their ideas, and fans have always been good at shouting down those they see as wrong.
I tend to think that when one is well-known and respected in the scene, they have a responsibilty to the newer folks to keep an open mind and to give them the chance to express themselves.
For instance, I have the newer people in Melbourne saying they don't see the point of having fan guests. I disagree with their opinion, but respect and understand that if they feel that way, then many more new folks will as well. So I either need to justify why we do it well enough that they can see my point-of-view, or rethink having fan guests in order to be relevant to the newer folks.
Though that said, I think the fan guest issue is a tiny one compared to how magnificently irrelevant our style of cons currently are to the new crop of fans.
New fans aren't coming to cons. They see them as over-priced, they don't see that they will get any value for money, and when they do come along, they have a hard time making friends because they're shy and because many of us are shy, we're more comfy talking to people we already know.
And then they hear us slagging off 'mundanes' and similarly showing fandom's intolerance for those not like themselves. So to new folks we come across as more exclusive than inclusive.
So discuss... and especially if you're one of the newer fans, please, please, please speak up and tell us what you'd like to see at cons, and what you think needs to be changed.
The problem is that a lot of fans want to get along, and many longer term fans don't like change, so the old fans don't change and the new fans try to fit in. The newer folks aren't encouraged to exptress their ideas, and fans have always been good at shouting down those they see as wrong.
I tend to think that when one is well-known and respected in the scene, they have a responsibilty to the newer folks to keep an open mind and to give them the chance to express themselves.
For instance, I have the newer people in Melbourne saying they don't see the point of having fan guests. I disagree with their opinion, but respect and understand that if they feel that way, then many more new folks will as well. So I either need to justify why we do it well enough that they can see my point-of-view, or rethink having fan guests in order to be relevant to the newer folks.
Though that said, I think the fan guest issue is a tiny one compared to how magnificently irrelevant our style of cons currently are to the new crop of fans.
New fans aren't coming to cons. They see them as over-priced, they don't see that they will get any value for money, and when they do come along, they have a hard time making friends because they're shy and because many of us are shy, we're more comfy talking to people we already know.
And then they hear us slagging off 'mundanes' and similarly showing fandom's intolerance for those not like themselves. So to new folks we come across as more exclusive than inclusive.
So discuss... and especially if you're one of the newer fans, please, please, please speak up and tell us what you'd like to see at cons, and what you think needs to be changed.
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First, fans no longer have to pay to fly to another city and stay at a hotel to find their community - they just have to flick on the internet. When I discovered fandom 20 years ago it was a wonderful revalation because I felt like I'd found 'my people.' Someone who is 15 now, probably got the same feeling the first time they found a mailing list about their favourite subject. They didn't have to pay for the privilege.
Second, con models like SupaNova and GenCon are a real challenge. Imagine you're a 20 year old uni student and you're choosing between spending $150 for a four day con or you could go to a SupaNova and spend $30 to get in and a $100 on stuff - books, dvds, comics, games, whatever - and still come out ahead.
I was impressed that Swancon managed to fit many communities within the one con, which meant gamers felt comfortable as did cos-players and Dr Who fans etc. So I don't think it's that cons are necessarily irrelevant to fans. It's just that they have more options to express their fandom these days.
But fan guests matter. And surely offering a membership to a con (which is no cost to the committee) and paying for a few nights at a hotel won't break the bank. The fans at Swancon added a vibrabcy to the con and even if I didn't interact with all of them, I spoke to some and enjoyed having them there.
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I think I'd phrase it as "the barriers appear quite low if you have a project that people will pay attention to."
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Thanks for the suggestion!
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I think once a new person comes to a convention, things like fan guests can be fairly easily explained, but without really knowing what they are they just become another barrier between the new person and their deciding to try a convention out.
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I think if we made science fiction conventions entirely about science fiction, we would solve 90% of the problems people have coming to them for the first time.
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The reason it was done was that the MSFC was running Constantinople and was bidding for both the media and Lit natcon for 1994. So we had some driver causing the intermixing.
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Fan Guests I have always thought of as a thread of history of fandom, I could listen to their stories, I could see the people they talked to and build my understanding of this new group of people.
Mundanes, muggles, non-IBMers, whatever group you are in human kind seems to need to have a category name for people who are not in that group. I have not attended that many cons in recent years but if I ever did hear people discussing mundanes it was used to identify the group of people, not to "Slag off" at them. The only group of people I ever heard being slagged off were the network TV schedulers who decide ahead of time that an SF programme will not rate so lets show it at 11:30 out of order, unless we can bump it for something else, but then they deserve to be slagged off.
It's nice to see that the problems people perceive to be there are not political (Fannish).
Cons have always been on the expensive side of things but if this years swancon was only $150, I would be hugely impressed as it would not be much different from what I paid in '86.
If you are going to change the way a con runs for the sake of newbies, then ensure that you aren't cutting off your nose to spite your face, the reason I turn up to cons is to catch up with my friends that I made when I first started going to cons, I wouldn't like to think that doing that is not kosher anymore.
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Fan guest should be chosen for their contribution to fandom. The issue you have is when that person, while a great contributor, is really rather dull. Just because someone is more vibrant and out there, it doesn't make them more deserving, but just because someone is quiet, it shouldn't reduce their eligability, especially if they've done tonnes of large-scale work.
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Very hard to get past the poor self-esteme
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I also think there's a tendency to invite a fan guest every year, even though a truly worthy candidate may not have presented themselves.
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Two of Continuum's fan guests were people who did tonnes for fandom, but were never going to be recognised for it if we didn't do it. One because he'd always just been there and was taken for granted, and the other because people had issues with him and so ignored all the great work he had done.
There other folks who in this decade have been more visible, but most of them haven't had the fans interests as their top priority.
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Your publicity is certainly intended to get people to come to the convention but I don't think that means necessarily that you shill the professional writers and eliminate the fan guest from your list because outsiders might not know who they are or what a fan guest is. Instead, my feeling is that your publicity should be including all the things that make your convention what it is, including honoring people within the community.
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SF cons certainly don't cost $150 a weekend because the convention committees are greedy - they're significantly expensive events to run, comparatively speaking.
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Sorry to be so inquisitive but I don't think I've seen any other cons do this so I'm trying to understand the reasoning.
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A core understanding of marketing is that your market - individuals who you want to give you money for a membership - is always looking for reasons not to do something. So everything in your advertising and publicity that gives them pause, confuses them, alienates them or the like, is an excuse for them to use not to go.
And the very concept of Fan Guest of Honour is alienating. I find it's very difficult to explain to a non-fan without making the fan community sound ridiculously self-important. It's a term they don't understand, and if they don't understand it, it immediately leads to a fear that they won't understand a lot of the convention or even feel unwelcome when they come. And there are many, many people who only ever go to one convention in their life because they feel so aggressively cut out and disenfranchised when they arrive.
Now in a progress report (which are outdated, but that's another argument) or on a website, there's plenty of room to include a FGoH and explain who they are and why they are honoured, but in the very limited time and space you have on an advertisement it justs damages your chances of persuading the market to buy your product.
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(That reads as very negative, but it's also very true.)
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These days there's a real push for value for money. Even if the punters don't like one of the guests, they will look at a pro as bang for their buck.
They look at a fan guest as something they're paying for that they don't want. This coupled with the fact that only people in the fan community will likely know the guest and their achievements, using the advertising space on flyers aimed at the general public can be seen as counter-productive.
and, to be brutally honest, once they've paid, it's too late for them to have second thoughts based solely on finding out about a non-pro as guest.
I don't agree with it, I believe in naming all the guests on a flyer, and that it's part of honouring the fan guest. But cons have to work as a business first, and maximise their appeal to the general public, hence me not fighting the decision when it was suggested.
Certainly, if I was made fan guest at a con, I wouldn't expect my name on the non-fandom advertising. I'm not a draw-card and the sapce is better used pushing those people and events that may draw in a new first timer.
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You did not answer my question as to whether there was absolute evidence that including the Fan Guest of Honor in publicity is alienating and causes people not to attend a convention that they otherwise might consider attending.
everything in your advertising and publicity that gives them pause, confuses them, alienates them or the like, is an excuse for them to use not to go.
A larger question, of course, is whether such a person would be comfortable at a convention at all if this concept is a dealbreaker for them. If you're trying to make your advertising sound as non-threatening as possible and as non-eccentric as possible, people are going to be in for a real shock when they actually get to the convention and find the more esoteric things that happen there! I would think that honoring a member of the community is one of the least freaky things likely to happen at a convention :->
I find it's very difficult to explain to a non-fan without making the fan community sound ridiculously self-important.
Why is it self-important to honor someone who has contributed to the community that is hosting the convention? If I saw a knitting convention or a folkdancing convention that was honoring someone who had put in a lot of volunteer time and effort to the community, I wouldn't think it was self-important of them. While I realize that not everyone thinks like I do (really, I do realize that), this concept seems so relatively normative that I'm boggled that someone would be confused and alienated by it to the extent that they would turn away from something that otherwise sounded appealing.
Finally, and this is where we really are likely to disagree, I'm not sure it's worth "selling the soul" of the convention and of fandom, so to speak, just to get a few more memberships. I know you will make the argument that we need to get people in and then slowly accustom them to what the community is like, and I largely agree, but this aspect seems to me to be going overboard in accommodating a perceived newbie audience.
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I guess I just have a problem with saying that advertising should only include things that are likely to draw a newcomer. I think it should certainly include things that are likely to attract a newcomer, but I'm not sure I'd go all the way in the other direction and eliminate things that are standard convention features in order to woo them.
I'm curious as to whether this logic is applied to professional guests as well. People who are not devotees of Dr Who, for example, might not have ever heard of Rob Shearman. Does that mean that a con wouldn't mention that he was a guest in some publicity drives?