I suspect we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one.
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.
no subject
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.