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

[(Anonymous)]

Maybe I'm not being clear.

What I wished you would have done is, having had a bad interaction with one of our volunteers, contacted their divisional director. I can see how that would be difficult not knowing the inner workings of the con, but hopefully we can make that a bit more transparent in the future. Like I said, I will bring up the situation and see what we can do to make sure confusion and bad feelings like this don't happen again (or at least happen LESS).

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Are you actually saying that you expect people from out of state to figure out the structure of the convention and then find the appropriate person to complain to when the person who has been assigned the function of communicating information has already said his peace? How was he supposed to know that his concern would even be heard?

[433.livejournal.com]

I don't even know why I'm responding to you, Emily. You're going to find fault in whatever I, or someone else you don't like, has to say.

If you'll notice, I wrote in that comment:

I can see how that would be difficult not knowing the inner workings of the con, but hopefully we can make that a bit more transparent in the future.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

I don't even know why I'm responding to you, Emily. You're going to find fault in whatever I, or someone else you don't like, has to say.

To be quite fair, if you had just been a man about it and apologized without caveat at first, I still wouldn't have liked you and I would have figured that you were probably bullshitting something, but I would have let it go.

Now, of course the issue is that you act like a douchebag, and the underlying problem is obviously that I'm mean.

I don't know why you respond either.

[433.livejournal.com]

Why not post some more private entries in your LJ? Or perhaps close off comments to the public ones again?

You can keep operating like that and think that you're right forever. I'm done with you.

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Ha! At least I called you a bad name while you were still alive to defend yourself.

[433.livejournal.com]

And people call ME the immature one!

[mle292.livejournal.com]

Or should I have emailed it to 200 people?