I can't recall if Huttcon was a double Natcon or not. Both it and Constantinople were certainly the biggest Melbourne cons held up until that point. I suspect other than WorldCons, only Continuum 3 and perhaps one of the Multiverses got more people.
The media natcon rules were a dog's breakfast, thrown together by various committees trying to reach agreement *shudders*
At the time, media natcons were doing fine. There was enough interest from various states that there were always at least two groups bidding. Sometimes it was two groups in the same city.
The lit natcon was slowly losing people, and we had a number of lit natcons where a second bid was literally organised the night before the bunisness meeting so that a committee wouldn't get the natcon without a fight. The ditmars were also becoming a lesser award - not helped by the Best Fannish Cat category, or the stuffed canetoad version of the award, both of which happened at Suncon. Funnily enough, that was done to shock people into reacting and doing something to take them seriously, but made them look worse.
The discussion at the media end that I saw was along the lines of, "One natcon for both would be good!" A lot of the media people in favour of this went to both, so it was seen as a way to save money while creating a much bigger convention.
With regards to programming - if a program doesn't have enough variety there's only one way to improve that, and that's to be proactive. You don't wait for people to come to you, you put the word out and you say, "We want to do a panel on why Dollhouse sucks big hairy donkey balls. Who wants to talk for and against?" "Hey, we're doing panels on the new versions of Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Battlestar... Does anyone want to talk about the original shows?"
There's already plenty of lit content, so people feel comfortable suggesting more. And we've seen the end result of this unchecked - general cons that have become so lit focused that now they are practically writer's cons. And some writers complain if there's not enough stuff on how to write.
If you want panels on anime, gaming, furry fandom, costuming, and you don't already have these people attending, then you need to start asking people to do them. And when people see panels of interest to them appearing at the con, they're more likely to attend and feel comfy making other suggestions.
Constantinople was wonderful for its balance. All the lit fans said, "It was a good con, but there was too much media stuff," and all the media fans said, "It was a good con, but there was too much lit content."
no subject
The media natcon rules were a dog's breakfast, thrown together by various committees trying to reach agreement *shudders*
At the time, media natcons were doing fine. There was enough interest from various states that there were always at least two groups bidding. Sometimes it was two groups in the same city.
The lit natcon was slowly losing people, and we had a number of lit natcons where a second bid was literally organised the night before the bunisness meeting so that a committee wouldn't get the natcon without a fight.
The ditmars were also becoming a lesser award - not helped by the Best Fannish Cat category, or the stuffed canetoad version of the award, both of which happened at Suncon. Funnily enough, that was done to shock people into reacting and doing something to take them seriously, but made them look worse.
The discussion at the media end that I saw was along the lines of, "One natcon for both would be good!" A lot of the media people in favour of this went to both, so it was seen as a way to save money while creating a much bigger convention.
With regards to programming - if a program doesn't have enough variety there's only one way to improve that, and that's to be proactive. You don't wait for people to come to you, you put the word out and you say, "We want to do a panel on why Dollhouse sucks big hairy donkey balls. Who wants to talk for and against?" "Hey, we're doing panels on the new versions of Star Trek, Doctor Who, and Battlestar... Does anyone want to talk about the original shows?"
There's already plenty of lit content, so people feel comfortable suggesting more. And we've seen the end result of this unchecked - general cons that have become so lit focused that now they are practically writer's cons. And some writers complain if there's not enough stuff on how to write.
If you want panels on anime, gaming, furry fandom, costuming, and you don't already have these people attending, then you need to start asking people to do them. And when people see panels of interest to them appearing at the con, they're more likely to attend and feel comfy making other suggestions.
Constantinople was wonderful for its balance. All the lit fans said, "It was a good con, but there was too much media stuff," and all the media fans said, "It was a good con, but there was too much lit content."