So, let's talk about this here, since I made a flippant comment elsewhere

[ericcoleman]

This started with a flippant comment on philady's LJ, but it seems to have escalated, so I feel I should discuss it.

As some of you know, I do not attend Convergence



philady posted a poll here that said

Are you getting stoked for CONvergence?
Yes.
HELL YES!
I'm not going. I'm lame.

Me being me, I said

"I'm not going, the people who run Convergence are lame"

433 took exception to this, and for good reason.

So, the reason for my problems with Convergence go back several years. When I was trying to do the 12 cons in 12 months I contacted them to see about playing.

I have one rule when it comes to cons, if I contact a con about playing, it is my responsibility to pay for my badge. If they comp me, that's a good thing, but that is up to them.

If they contact me, they are contacting me as a pro. I don't make much of my living playing music, but I certainly do at least a little. Unless you are a tiny tiny con, you comp the pros. Period.

The next year I was contacted, please come play at the con. Cool. I had a good time the year before. Oh, if you want to do anything else, you have to buy a badge.

I said that I can't do that, you're asking me to drive there and play a show for no recompense except hopefully selling some CDs, I can't. I was nice about it, I do try to treat any venue I play with a good degree of professionalism, then the guy got all defensive and weird and went off on a rant about how it is not "pay to play" since I would get into my own show free.

I live 200+ miles away from the Twin Cities. At that point driving there and back cost me around 60 bucks. This guy asked me to play a free show that is costing me money, and tells me that it is not "pay to play". If I was local I suppose that I might have had a different reaction. I'm not.

The way I see this is like ... well ... if I was playing at a club, and they said, "sure, you can be on the stage, but if you want to go anywhere else you have to pay the cover charge".

It's a terrible way to treat people who you invite in to perform for and entertain YOUR guests. We are part of the show. You should show us respect. I think I may have had a different reaction if not for the "it's not pay to play thing". It would have just been left there, and I wouldn't go to Convergence. But the guy was an ass.

I know a little about the history of TC cons, and I know that there was a point where too many people got comped, things got out of control. But there is a point at which it is just silly.

So there is why I made my little flippant comment 433. It wasn't the best way to handle it, but maybe this will do some good. I have talked to other folks involved with Convergence about this, but nothing has come of it. It's a big con. You can do what you want because of that. But it does not serve the con well to treat people badly.

Comments

[pheltzer.livejournal.com]

Am I putting Conrunning/SMOFing above everything? I guess you could make a case for that. I think that's being a bit extreme, but I wouldn't say you're outright wrong. Yes Mr.X may spend hours a day at home practicing their guitar, working on their art, putting together their notes so they can be coherent on a panel. But if there were no one to run a con, they'd have to then devote time to finding an audience as well.

So those 20-40 some odd people who are devoting their time to run the con are doing a service so the rest of the community has somewhere to gather and show off the rest of their hobbies. And yes... I get it that if these people didn't spend those hours practicing/painting/writing/compiling notes/etc there would be little reason for the con in the first place... but that's sort of a chicken/egg question. In essence people running a con are providing a service, by creating circumstances for a given group of people to be in one place at a given time so they can interact with each other on a large scale. Could someone else go through the effort to arrange for a space for 800 of their closest friends to get together and hang out for a weekend and explore their hobbies. Sure. And that's how cons get born.

Oh and from your other reply about membership vs. admission. I think that in a lot of cases the term membership is used to justify the non-profit organization rules. How many conventions give you anything other than admission for the given year's con for your membership price? Somewhere along the line someone smart figured out that if you call it a membership organization you can get tax-exempt status, word spread through SMOFish circles and thus was born "membership"

[erikvolson.livejournal.com]

Non-profits can sell tickets (look at just about any museum, for just one category of example.) The ticket/membership discussion is ancient in fandom - and the reason for "memberships" is that a ticketholder expects to sit and be entertained.

[433.livejournal.com]

Well, our convention funds the year-round activities of our parent organization, MISFITS (http://www.misfit.org), including educational, charitable, and community events. So that's another reason we all pay to play -- it's a fundraiser as well.