Duckon

[ericcoleman]

I suppose I have to put forward my thoughts on Duckon.

I got there late, so some of this is what I heard, not what I saw. My final conclusions are my opinions, not of anyone else.

First of all the Dandelion Wine CD release party. From what I heard, this was cleared with the concom. The concom came and shut it down.

The wife of next years con chair came out of the main room and told Megan that she had the right to tell Jan to go fuck herself and was going to tell other concom members that they had her permission to do so. This in a public space.

None of the folks who Jan had arranged to have badges had badges. When I got there on Saturday this was still not straightened out. I know Jan, she gets her info in early.

For the record, I also made Megan cry, this when one of her staff was doing the worst job of running sound I have ever seen at a con, this the day after all of the sound issues were solved. I had watched poor Scott Snyder struggle through a set, little did he know that the sound guy was doing is best to make sure that he sounded even worse than he did (he had throat problems). The idgit was mixing the sound by sitting 10 feet in front of one of the PA speakers. It sounded fine where he was, it sounded like crap everywhere else in the room. When it was obvious that this was going to be the case for Talis (the big name filker from the UK) I spoke up ... fervently (you all know how I can be), and the guy finally did a half way decent job. Halfway. I am by no means a professional sound guy, but I could have solved any of the problems they were having at that moment in a verse and a chorus. This guy simply didn't want to. He also talked on his cel phone, and at one point in Talis's concert carried on a full voice conversation 15 feet from her. At that point I snapped and got Megan's attention and mouthed at her to tell him to SHUT THE FUCK UP. She told him (a little more politely I would guess) and he came over to me all pumped up and said, in a nice macho aggressive way "IS THERE A PROBLEM". "Yeah, you are talking during someone's show, it's rude". Since it was obvious that I was not afraid of him, he walked away.

After that show Megan took me and Gundo aside and told us that the powers that be had told her that Toyboat was to have no sound support, this for an electric band. She told us that she was going to do it anyway.

I'd like to say for the record that I think Megan did the best she could, but that she was thrown into the deep end with no way of getting out. I feel terrible for her. She's a long standing member of the WSPA and one of "my kids". I think the way she was treated was shameful. But not the way she was treated by Jan, that was just Jan's natural frustration at the behaviour of the concom. Unfortunately Megan got the brunt of it.

Now for my opinions on this ...

Now the concom is doing it's best to make Jan look bad, to save their asses. Filk was a target that weekend. Jan had a lot of power, and that had been upsetting some of the folks on the concom. They took a bad moment and used it to get rid of her, but if you look at what happened that weekend, it is Jan who is owed an apology.

As for the future of Duckon filk. It's dead kids, you killed it. I feel bad for Gary, FINALLY a GOH next year (bout time that a major con did this, he's brilliant), but who is going to be there to see him. There is no major filker who will touch Duckon now and there is no one who could bring anyone in who will take the job. The word is already going through the community that one of the most beloved figures in the community was treated abysmally. And she was.

Comments

[gundo.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but the sad thing about killing childcare is that Duckon has always been a family con. Killing childcare would seem to be the last nail in that coffin as well.

[born-to-me.livejournal.com]

Perhaps, just perhaps, that is the point to all this.

[spiritdancer]

Exactly.

One more con I won't attend. Marcon lost us a couple of years back by dropping childcare. 'Till the boys are a bit older, any con without childcare is unlikely in the extreme.

[spiritdancer]

I came pretty close to asking for a refund on the childcare memberships; NO child in diapers should be leaving childcare with a diaper so soaked with urine as to be falling off.

I dealt with this at least 3 times (and not just my kid)

Any idea who's handling the childcare at Windy?

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

Windy childcare has been run for the past several years by Amy Wenshe, who is running it again. Note, that Windycon actually hires bonded child care people to be in the room.

[born-to-me.livejournal.com]

I love the childcare workers at Windy! They've watched my Bundle grow up, and love him -so-. The woman in charge of the team (Bernadette, although I might have mispelled it) is one of my favorite people ever. Sitting and talking to her is like spending time with a bunch of my favorite family members all rolled up into one. I always feel good about leaving him with them. I do kind of wish the con would have some organized fun for the kids... I should probably suggest that.

[shsilver.livejournal.com]

I presume you mean for the kids in childcare as opposed to kids in general. Definitely something to talk about with the committee, which is scheduled to meet at Picnicon next Sunday, July 11.

[born-to-me.livejournal.com]

Right, sorry, figured it was obvious but I should have clarified - for the kids in childcare who are old enough to want Something To Do. I shall be at Picnicon as well, if you want to drag me over to talk about it to someone I'd be happy to.

[spiritdancer]

I will note that this year at Duckon, they got the kids in childcare out to a fairly large portion of the kids programming.

My 4 1/2 year old loved it. But there was a lot of one-on-one handling for the littles (like, the almost 3 year old). The younger would probably have been happy to stay in one place. It probably would have been better handled by my taking a bit more time on the case-by-case permission slips (there was one for each event - about 15 forms _per_ _kid_, which was overwhelming).

[spiritdancer]

Yay for that. That was what I recall Duckon having in 2008. That definitely was NOT what they had this year.

I'm more than happy to pay "extra" for good childcare :) (it's making Windy look more likely, and it was already moving up on our radar).

[lisagems.livejournal.com]

Never said it was a good idea. In fact it's a really bad idea. There are several dealers, program participants, and people spending their daytime hours working various parts of the con that depend upon childcare to make that possible. Without them, well.. No vendors = no dealers room. No program participants = lame, thin programming. No volunteers = no con.