ericcoleman (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ericcoleman) wrote2008-06-17 10:43 am
ericcoleman) wrote2008-06-17 10:43 am
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So, let's talk about this here, since I made a flippant comment elsewhere
This started with a flippant comment on ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 comment433. 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.
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.
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I think I told you the story this weekend, but if I didn't ask me and I'll tell it to you.
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I found Capricon from a google search, and I e-mailed the events coordinator to see if they were interested in having us perform. (BTW, the notion of comped badges never came up. Like you, we expected to pay since we contacted them.) This was sometime over the summer, I think August. The response I got back was, "Sounds fun, but it's too early to put the program together now. Contact us in 2 months." So I did. The response I got the 2nd time was "It's still to early to have our schedule set, e-mail me in a month." A month goes by (it's late November by this point, maybe even December) and I e-mail a third time. This time the response is different. "Sorry, but we've already filled our schedule for this year and there's no room for you. Try again next year."
Well I tried again for the next two years, and the gist was the same. I got the sense (which was later confirmed by others) that the ConCom was very clique-y, and didn't want anyone outside their group participating in the con. When the third year I tried I got an e-mail basically saying "Don't bother, we don't want your help. We can handle things fine by ourselves," I figured fine. I'd tried, but I wasn't going to go out of my way to help them if they weren't interested.
The final nail in the coffin though for me with Capricon was when Serenity came out. A theater downtown was doing a free preview screening the Wednesday a week and a half before release, and we'd found out about it. (Universal was promoting it pretty well, at all the comic shops, etc.) Now, I'd been involved with preview screenings like this before, and I know that they're almost always arranged between the theater and the distribution company to gauge audience interest. They're also arranged at a higher corporate level. So we get to the theater a few hours before the screening and we're at a pretty good position in line, something like 12th back. That was not to last, though. The person 5th back was a Capricon ConCom member, and had gotten there very early so that he could hold the place in line for all 28 ConCom members, who proceeded to come 20-30 minutes before the screening and essentially cut the entire line, because "they were all together." Once we got inside, someone from the group then stood up in the front of the theater, and thanked Universal and the theater for working with Capricon to bring Serenity to Chicago for this preview. Basically stealing the limelight. I could see the rep from Universal had NO idea who these people were or what they were talking about, and like I said these things are usually not arranged with a local group, it's between the theater and the distributor (plus there was NO mention of Capricon on ANY of the official promotional material). That slimy, clique-y tactic made me realize that I would never want to give them money or go to a Capricon if I can help it.
Their treatment of some of my friends who attended didn't help, but by then my mind was already made up.
So that's my story.
no subject
While I was in line 12th or so back, Tara had to park the car. Because of Capricon's little stunt of letting 28 people in, the theater didn't allow anyone else to change position in line, even if someone else was there already. That meant that while I was near the front, Tara was waaay back in line, and in fact almost didn't make it in (she was 3 people in front of the cut off).