How not to get the story straight

[ericcoleman]

There are three versions of the story as to why Toyboat wasn't going to get sound support. Next year's conchair says

"Also I did not specifically target Toy Boat to loose the sound equipment. In my opinion Jan had so run a volunteer group into the ground I could not, in good heart, ask them to stay. I told them that at the end of Saturday pull the plug and pack it up. They being the stand up people they are told me they wanted to finish the con to be fair to all the filk participants. I then said I was proud of them for being more tolerant than myself. "

His wife said

"I'm sorry about the problem with your Husbands band almost going on with only 2 mikes. The truth is that. because someone went behind the programing the the conchair's back and extended Talis concert, there was going to be no time to set up for Masquerade. Because Talis cut her show short, we were able to keep the equipment up for your Husbands band and still have enough time to set up for the Masquerade.".

The masquerade was Saturday night, we were Sunday morning, and were using a completely different sound system.

Megan told me that she was told to not give us sound support (all we needed was a board and two mikes) but she was going to anyway, and may get in trouble for doing so.

It will be interesting to see which story they decide to stick to.

Comments

[born-to-me.livejournal.com]

I'm torn between betting on "moosh all three together and try to get them to make sense" and "backtrack and try to pretend that none of the three things were ever said".

[born-to-me.livejournal.com]

I think I would have won with my first thought...

[billroper]

The absolute truth is not always the absolute good, but it is the low entropy state. Being such, it's easier to keep your story straight when you're telling the truth.

[born-to-me.livejournal.com]

So that's why some people are having such a tough time!

[lemmozine.livejournal.com]

Are you SURE these people are not affiliated with BP?

[herald-mari.livejournal.com]

Man, I think some of the romancelandia wank was fun. I am so sorry you and yours have had to go through all of this.

[awfulhorrid.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear you had problems -- I thought you looked a bit frazzled on Sunday, but thought it was just due to the usual [post-convention energy dump.

This was the first year we've missed in ... well, as long as I can remember, actually. At least 12 years that I can recall. Various family members, myself included, did submit some artwork and we stopped in on Sunday to pick it up along with any potential payment. (That's when we ran into you.) Our experiences with the art show, along with some of the other information coming through our friends is leading us to think that unless there are some serious changes, we've attended our last DucKon.

I'm really sorry to say that too as I obviously enjoyed it very much up until fairly recently.

[kyril.livejournal.com]

In the world where you have Megan, and one guy who according to Eric didn't know what he was doing, but thought it was OK to talk during concerts. And during the Tom Smith concert, didn't have his phone ringer turned off...Megan defended him when Tom called him on that one; I couldn't see if he was actually trying to take the call or not.

Add to this a situation where they had to tear down and rebuild the sound system every hour or so during the middle of Saturday, and something I don't understand allegedly impairing at least Megan's sleep that weekend.

I would be surprised if didn't have to tear down the system again Saturday evening and put it back together yet again Sunday morning for Toyboat.

[kyril.livejournal.com]

I can't edit my previous post, so I'll add: on Eric's FB thread it was reported that Megan had two guys helping her, not one, so it might or might not have been the same person doing sound for the Tom Smith concert.

[selenesue.livejournal.com]

In the end, it hardly matters. You're not going back there any time soon and probably neither are any of your friends.

Tangentially: I bought the TOYBOAT album at Westercon, and it's first in my listening queue when I get home from work today. Toot Toot!

[pondside.livejournal.com]

We understand about tired and overworked and stuff but that is generally part of the "glamour" of being soundcrew. You take your breaks when you can and try to embrace all downtime gratefully.

No matter what the issues, it appears to me that a general increase of polite professionalism would have improved the Duckcon situation a lot. We almost went this year as we really did want to see Talis but stress and illness suggested we stay home. I think that was the best choice.

I'm sorry we won't have the opportunity to go again, I believe Jan worked very hard for the success of filk at Duck and the recent implosion is not good for anyone.

[jerusha.livejournal.com]

We did not extend Talis's concert; in fact, we acquiesced in cutting it short. The schedule that Jan and I turned in always had Talis scheduled for the full Mainstage, from 5-6:30 PM. I had not realized that it had been transcribed inaccurately to the scheduling grid; this was my error, which I regret. When I realized that Megan was working only from the grid, and thus did not have the same understanding of the schedule as I did, we went to Operations together to have the matter settled. At the time, Slayer was in discussion with Jan, so neither of them were available for consultation. In Ops, BLuR heard both of us out, took authority for making a final decision, and said that Talis's concert could go to 6:15 on mainstage, if we could guarantee that she would be off the stage at exactly 6:15. I spoke to Talis, who agreed, even though this meant cutting her concert short in both directions - due to prior technical difficulties, the concerts were running about 10 minutes late, so ending early and precisely shortened her stage time (setup and performance) from 90 minutes to 65. In the event, the sound crew cut her off shortly after 6 anyway, but Talis was gracious and didn't indicate that her concert had been truncated at all, let alone reduced by a third in length (from a 90 minute slot to not even 60).

If going to Operations and asking for a formal decision constitutes going behind people's backs, I don't know what would constitute being aboveboard. Ops had the capability and authority to reach the programming heads and/or the conchair if they felt such was necessary; they did not.

Regarding "no setup time for masquerade": There was no formal activity scheduled for the mainstage between 6:30, the end of Talis's concert, and 8:00, the beginning of the masquerade. The masquerade did have a walkthrough planned, beginning at 7. In our conversation with BLuR, Megan did not give any requirements for setup that could not be conducted while the masquerade participants (as I understand, a total of 10 entrants) familiarized themselves with the stage.